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shminux comments on What are your contrarian views? - Less Wrong Discussion
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There is no territory, it's maps all the way down.
"The territory" is just whatever exists. It may well be an infinite series of entities, each more refined than the last. It's still a territory.
If there is no territory, what is a map?
I don't normally call it a map, I call it a model, but whatever the name, it's something that turns observations into predictions of future observations, without claiming that the source of these observations is something called "reality". This can go as much meta as you like. The map-territory model is one such useful model, except when it's not.
Are you saying that the universe is built like Solomonoff induction? It randomly produces observations and eliminates possibilities that don't follow them? I'd still consider that as having a territory, but it's certainly contrarian.
At the very least, your model if the universe implies the existence of a series of maps along a timeline.
There are no maps, it's reality all the way up.
You might be facetious, but I suspect that it is another way of saying the same thing.
I suspect it isn't.
The words map and territory aren't relative terms like up and down.
I meant to communicate the latter. We share this view.
the parent post implies a belief in non-psychisism
I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
That there are no representations. There is no computational system that can be said to be about something.
That sounds awfully like social constructionism.
Never heard of it until now, had to look it up, couldn't find a decent writeup about it. This link seems to be the best, yet it does not even give a clear definition.
Executive summary of social constructionism: all of reality is socially agreed; nothing is objective.
I'm lost at "socially agreed". I define models as useful if they make good predictions. This definition does not rely on some social agreement, only on the ability to replicate the tests of said predictions.
That's the Motte vvrsion, not the Bailey version.
http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2014/09/motte-and-bailey-doctrines/
Can you unpack this? At the moment it seems nonsensical, in a "throwing together random words and hoping people read profound insights into it" way.
Sure. Have you actually seen "the territory"? Of course not. There are plenty of unexplained observations out there. We assume that these come from some underlying "reality" which generates them. And it's a fair assumption. It works well in many cases. But it is still an assumption, a model. To quote Brienne Strohl on noticing:
To most people the map/territory observation is such a "one and the same". I'm suggesting that it's only a hypothesis. It gives way when making a map changes the territory (hello, QM). It is also unnecessary, because the useful essence of the map/territory model is that "future is partially predictable", in a sense that it is possible to take our past experiences, meditate on it for a while, figure out what to expect in the future and see our expectations at least partially confirmed. There is no need to attach the notion of some objective reality causing this predictability, though admittedly it does feel good to pretend that we stand on a solid ground, and not on some nebulous figment of imagination.
If you extract this essence, that future experiences are predictable from the past ones, and that we can shape our future experiences based on the knowledge of the past, it is enough to do science (which is, unsurprisingly, designing, testing and refining models). There is no indication that this model building will one day be exhausted. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. It has happened many times throughout human history that we thought that our knowledge was nearly complete, there was nothing more to discover, except for one or two small things here and there. And then those small things became gateways to more surprising observations.
Yet we persist in thinking that there are ultimate laws of the universe, and that some day we might discover them all. I posit that there are no such laws, and we will continue digging deeper and deeper, without ever reaching the bottom... because there is no bottom.
Thanks for explaining, upvoted. But I still don't see how this could possibly make sense.
But our models have become more accurate over time. We've become, if you will, "less wrong". If there's no territory, what have we been converging to?
...Yes? I see it all the time.
I seem to recall someone (EY?) defining "reality" as "that which generates our observations". Which seems like a fairly natural definition to me. If it's just maps generating our observations, I'd call the maps part of the territory. (Like a map with a picture of the map itself on the territory. Except, in your world, I guess, there's no territory to chart so the map is a map of itself.) This feels like arguing about definitions.
I see how this might sorta make sense if we postulate that the Simulator Gods are trying really hard to fuck with us. Though still, in that case, I think the simulating world can be called a territory.
Indeed they have. We can predict the outcome of future experiments better and better.
We've become, if you will, "less wrong".
Yep.
If there's no territory, what have we been converging to?
Why do you think we have been converging to something? Every new model asks generates more questions than it answers. Sure, we know now why emitted light is quantized, but we have no idea how to deal, for example, with the predicted infinite vacuum energy.
No, you really don't. What you think you see is a result of multiple layers of processing. What you get is observations, not the unfettered access to this territory thing.
It is not a definition, it's a hypothesis. At least in the way Eliezer uses it. I make no assumptions about the source of observations, if any.
First, I made no claims that maps generate anything. maps are what we use to make sense of observations. Second, If you define the territory the usual way, as "reality", then of course maps are part of the territory, everything is.
Not quite. You construct progressively more accurate models to explain past and predict future inputs. In the process, you gain access to new and more elaborate inputs. This does not have to end.
I realize that is how you feel. The difference is that if the assumption of the territory implies that we have a chance to learn everything there is to learn some day, construct the absolutely accurate map of the territory (possibly at the price of duplicating the territory and calling it a map). I am not convinced that it is a good assumption. Quite the opposite, our experience shows that it is a bad one, it has been falsified time and again. And bad models should be discarded, no matter how comforting they may be.
What is the point of science, otherwise? Better prediction of observations? But you can't explain what an observantion is.
If the territory theory is able to explain the purpose of science, and the no-territory theory is not , the territory theory is better.
..according to a map which has "inputs from the territory" marked on it.
Well, you need to. If the territory theory can explain the very existence of observations, and the no-territory theory cannot, the territory theory is better,
Inputs from where?
No it doesn't. "The territory exists, but is not perfectly mappable" is a coherent assumption, particularly in view if the definition of the territory as the source of observations.
You could argue that sensing is part of the territory while any thing that is sensed is part of the map, I think.
You could, but you should be very careful, since most of sensing is multiple levels of maps. Suppose you see a cat. So, presumably the cat is part of the territory, right? Well, let's see:
what you perceive as a cat is constructed in your brain from genetics, postnatal development, education, previous experiences and nerve impulses reaching your visual cortex. There are multiple levels of processing: light entering through your eye, being focused, absorbed by light-sensitive cells, going through 3 or 4 levels of other cells before triggering spikes in the afferent fibers reaching deep into your visual cortex. The work done inside it to trigger "this is a cat" subroutine in a totally different part of the brain is much much more complex.
Any of these levels can be disrupted, so that when you see a cat others don't agree (maybe someone drew a "realistic" picture to fool you, or maybe your brain constructed a cat image where that of a different but unfamiliar animal (say, raccoon) would be more accurate). Multiple observations are required to validate that what you perceive as a cat behaves the way your internal model of the cat predicts.
Even the light rays which eventually resulted in you being aware of the cat are simplified maps of propagating excitation of the EM field interacted with atoms in what could reasonably be modeled as cat's fur. Unless it is better modeled as lines on paper.
This stack of models currently ends somewhere in the Standard Model of Particle physics. Not because it's the "ultimate reality", but because we don't have a good handle on how to continue building the stack.
You could argue that all the things I have described are "real" and part of the territory. Absolutely you can. But then why stop there? If light rays are real and not just abstractions, then so are images of cats in your brain.
Thus any model is as "real" as any other, though one can argue that accurate (better at anticipating future experiences) model are more real than inaccurate ones. The heliocentric model is "more real" than the geocentric one. in the sense that it has larger domain of validity. But then you are also forced to admit that quarks are more real than mesons and cats are less real than generic felines.
By "sensing" I was referring to the end result of all those nerves firing and processes processing when awareness meets the result of all that stuff. I suppose I could have more accurately stated that awareness is a part of the territory as awareness arises directly from some part of your circuitry. Everything about the cat in your example may happen in the brain or not and so you can't really be sure that there's an underlying reality behind it, but awareness itself is a direct consequence of the configuration of the processing equipment.
So what is a map and not the territory in your example? The cat identification process? The "I see a cat" quale? I am confused.
Yes, the cat quale is map.
I think this post should win the thread for blowing the most minds. (I'll upvote even though I think your position is tenable, since I only assign it 20% probability or so.)
I think the whole point is that there's no fact of the matter. "There are only maps" is a map, and on its own logic it's only as true as it is useful. I'm not sure how I would assign a probability to it.
Is that contrarian? In the community I come from (physics), that's a pretty commonly considered theory, even if not commonly held as most probable.
I'm an ex-physicist, and I am pretty sure that realism, and more specifically scientific realism, is the standard, if implicit, ontology in physics.
That depends on exactly what itis supposed to mean. Some people se it to mean that reality is not accessible outside an interpretational framework - that's a Bailey version. A Motte version would be that there is literally nothing in existence except human-made theories. Physicists often aren't good at stating or noticing degrees of realism and anti realism, since they aren't trained for it,
I didn't interpret shminux's statement as being about realism. There is also the theory that as we move into higher and higher energy we will cover more and more and more specific rules and never reach the terminal fundamental rule set. in other words the fundamental rules of the universe are fractally complex with the fractal function being unknowable.
Maybe. But Shminux also says that the territory is a map, not that it is unmappable.
Every computation requires something that instatiates it, ie a abstract or concrete machine to run on. In a very extreme case you might come up with a very abstract idea. However then the instation provider is the imaginer. Every bit of information requires a transfer of energy. Instation is transitive relation. If there is simulation of me it neccesarily instanties my thoughts too.
Also the parent comment implies a belief in panpsychisism.
Taken literally it is unlikely. However, it is not clear how literally it is meant to be taken.