Thanks for explaining, upvoted. But I still don't see how this could possibly make sense.
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.
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?
Have you actually seen "the territory"? Of course not.
...Yes? I see it all the time.
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.
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.
But our models have become more accurate over time.
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.
...Yes? I see it all the time.
No, you really don't...
As per a recent comment this thread is meant to voice contrarian opinions, that is anything this community tends not to agree with. Thus I ask you to post your contrarian views and upvote anything you do not agree with based on personal beliefs. Spam and trolling still needs to be downvoted.