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. 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.
: I seem to recall someone (EY?) defining "reality" as "that which generates our observations". Which seems like a fairly natural definition to me.
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.
If it's just maps generating our observations, I'd call the maps part of the territory.
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.
in your world, I guess, there's no territory to chart so the map is a map of itself.)
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.
This feels like arguing about definitions.
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.
...Yes? I see it all the time.
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.
You could argue that sensing is part of the territory while any thing that is sensed is part of the map, I think.
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.