I could counter your mental model of the real world with: The "real world" is a pure function of time -- therefore functional programming is the "right way" to

I could counter your mental model of the real world with: The "real world" is a pure function of time -- therefore functional programming is the "right way" to model it. Examining our mental model of the "real world" is not going to give us good insight about which programming tools will model it best.