I don't think that's what they're saying at all. I think they mean, don't hardcode physics understanding into them the way that humans have a hardcoded intuition for newtonian-physics, because our current understanding of the universe isn't so strong as to be confident we're not missing something. So it should be able to figure out the mechanism by which its map is written on the territory, and update it's map of its map accordingly.

E.g., in case it thinks it's flipping q-bits to store memory, and defends its databases accordingly, but actually q-bits aren't the lowest level of abstraction and it's really wiggling a hyperdimensional membrane in a way that makes it behave like q-bits under most circumstances, or in case the universe isn't 100% reductionistic and some psychic comes along and messes with it's mind using mystical woo-woo. (The latter being incredibly unlikely, but hey, might as well have an AI that can prepare itself for anything)