RichardKennaway comments on Rationality Quotes May 2012 - Less Wrong
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This quote hides a subtle equivocation, which it relies on to jump from "you have X" to "you do not have X" without us noticing.
If I have a map I can look at it, draw marks on it and make plans. I can also tear it to pieces and analyse it with a mass spectrometer without it damaging the territory. Make the map I start with more accurate and I can draw on it in more detail and make more accurate analysis. Make the map nearly perfect and I can get nearly perfect information from the map without destroying breaking anything in the territory. Moving from 'nearly perfect' to 'perfect' does not mean "Oh, actually you don't have one territory and also one map. You only have this one territory".
As a practical example consider a map of a bank I am considering robbing. I could have blueprint of the building layout. I could have detailed photographs. Or I could have a perfect to-scale clone of the building accurate in every detail. That 'map' sounds rather useful to me.
Imprecision is not the only purpose of a map.
I know this is probably an ad hominem but isn't Gaiman the guy who wrote Doctor Who episodes? The worst sci-fi show ever.
Many, many writers have written for Doctor Who. Gaiman has done many, many things in his writing career besides writing for Doctor Who. And Doctor Who is a cultural phenomenon larger than any trite dismissal of it.
Whether or not it's a large cultural phenomenon has nothing to do with how sensible the material is. It's actually probably brilliant fantasy I would agree, but if I'm looking for good sci-fi it's a bore fest.