This takes me to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Your physical experience of something has to be analysed in accordance with your mental model of it

This takes me to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Your physical experience of something has to be analysed in accordance with your mental model of it in order to attain a diagnosis (in the book it was a motorcycle engine). My take on this is, especially in regard to debugging IT issues, is that you have to constantly verify and update your mental model (check your premises!) in order to better weed out problems.