But from the perspective of a mind designer, it's bonkers. The world-model-generator isn't hooked up directly to reality! We occasionally get to choose how parts of the world-model look! We, the tribal monkeys known for self-deception and propensity to be manipulated, get a say on how the information engine builds the thing which is supposed to correspond to reality!

In theory, perception and cognition are not really different. In practice, the mental algorithms that implement "perception" are different ones, evolved a different stage of development, from the ones that implement "decisions" and your internal locus of control. Certain inferences have to be bounced back and forth between the two in order to come out right -- a mind designed a priori would just do bounded-rational cognition the whole way down, but your evolved brain has to bounce percepts and inductive biases back and forth between algorithms.

You yourself are part of the pathway between reality and your map of it, part of a fragile link between what is, and what is believed. And if you let your guard down, even for one moment, it is incredibly easy to flinch and shatter that ephemeral correspondence.

It's worse/better than that. The slash is because, well, I'm fairly sure this is a fairly intrinsic part of being a conscious being rather than a blind optimizer, so on the one hand, you've got the privilege of conscious experience, and on the other hand, it helps render you a delusional nutcase. You are the map. You are also the little monkey voice that screams about things. You are also the still, small voice who does the joined-up thinking and tries to manage all the other voices in the head, and tries to make the map correspond to the territory, but still irrevocably lives inside the map.

Welcome to life! It's sometimes fun. We're working on improving that.