At any moment, the employed model used to understand a given situation is local. The model is adaptive in the sense that you only need to concern yourself with

At any moment, the employed model used to understand a given situation is local. The model is adaptive in the sense that you only need to concern yourself with what is immediate, and concerns about how the effects might propagate are limited to the interface between the immediate moment and the external ones. Also, many models can be used simultaneously and overlap in the analysis of a particular situation. It isn't necessary to Have It All Figured Out and keep it all in memory simultaneously, just to have a set of methods to draw quick conclusions. Ensemble methods tend to work best IME.