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Vladimir_Nesov comments on Post Your Utility Function - Less Wrong
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Do you think someone is advocating the position that goodness of properties of the territory is an inherent property of territory (that sounds like a kind of moral realism)? This looks like the lack of distinction between 1-place and 2-place words. You could analogize preference (and knowledge) as a relation between the mind and the (possible states of the) territory, that is neither a property of the mind alone, nor of the territory alone, but a property of them being involved in a certain interaction.
No, I assume that everybody who's been seriously participating has at least got that part straight.
Now you're getting close to what I'm saying, but on the wrong logical level. What I'm saying is that the logical error is that you can't express a 2-place relationship between a map, and the territory covered by that map, within that same map, as that amounts to claiming the territory is embedded within that map.
If I assert that my preferences are "about" the real world, I am making a category error because my preferences are relationships between portions of my map, some of which I have labeled as representing the territory.
The fact that there is a limited isomorphism between that portion of my map, and the actual territory, does not make my preferences "about" the territory, unless you represent that idea in another map.
That is, I can represent the idea that "your" preferences are about the territory in my map... in that I can posit a relationship between the part of my map referring to "you", and the part of my map referring to "the territory". But that "aboutness" relationship is only contained in my map; it doesn't exist in reality either.
That's why it's always a mind projection fallacy to assert that preferences are "about" territory: one cannot assert it of one's own preferences, because that implies the territory is inside the map. And if one asserts it of another person's preferences, then that one is projecting their own map onto the territory.
I initially only picked on the specific case of self-applied projection, because understanding that case can be very practically useful for mind hacking. In particular, it helps to dissolve certain irrational fears that changing one's preferences will necessarily result in undesirable futures. (That is, these fears are worrying that the gnomes and fairies will be destroyed by the truth, when in fact they were never there to start with.)
How's that? You can write Newton's law of universal gravitation describing the orbit of the Earth around the Sun on a piece of paper located on the surface of a table standing in a house on the surface of the Earth. Where does this analogy break from your point of view?
"...but, you can't fold up the territory and put it in your glove compartment"
The "aboutness" relationship between the written version of Newton's law and the actual instances of it is something that lives in the map in your head.
IOW, the aboutness is not on the piece of paper. Nor does it exist in some supernatural link between the piece of paper and the objects acting in accordance with the expressed law.
Located on the planet Earth.
And this helps your position how?
Your head describes how your head rotates around the Sun.
No, your head is rotating around the Sun, and it contains a description relating the ideas of "head" and "Sun". You are confusing head 1 (the real head) with head 2 (the "head" pictured inside head 1), as well as Sun 1 (the real Sun) and Sun 2 (the "Sun" pictured inside head 1).
No, I'm not confusing them. They are different things. Yet the model simulates the real thing, which means the following (instead of magical aboutness): By examining the model it's possible to discover new properties of its real counterpart, that were not apparent when the model was being constructed, and that can't be observed directly (or it's just harder to do), yet can be computed from the model.
Indeed. Although more precisely, examining the model merely suggests or predicts these "new" (rather, previously undiscovered, unnoticed, or unobservable) properties.
That is what I mean by isomorphism between model and territory. The common usage of "about", however, projects an intention onto this isomorphism - a link that can only exist in the mind of the observer, not the similarity of shapes between one physical process and another.
Indeed. If this didn't work then there wouldn't be any practical point in modeling physics!
To the (unknowable*) extent that the portion of my map labelled "territory" is an accurate reflection of the relevant portion of the territory, do I get to say that my preferences are "about" the territory (implicitly including disclaimers like "as mediated by the map")?
* due at the very least to Matrix/simulation scenarios
You can say it all you want, it just won't make it true. ;-) Your preference is "about" your experience, just as the thermostat's heating and cooling preferences are "about" the temperature of its sensor, relative to its setting.
For there to be an "about", there has to be another observer, projecting a relationship of intention onto the two things. It's a self-applied mind projection -- a "strange loop" in your model -- to assert that you can make such statements about your own preferences, like a drawing of Escher wherein Escher is pictured, making the drawing. The whole thing only makes sense within the surface of the paper.
(Heck, it's probably a similar strange loop to make statements about one's self in general, but this probably doesn't lead to the same kind of confusion and behavioral problems that result from making assertions about one's preferences.... No, wait, actually, yes it does! Self-applied nominalizations, like "I'm bad at math" are an excellent example. Huh. I keep learning interesting new things in this discussion.)