Instead of WiM Weekly, I'll be releasing draft passages from my upcoming book each Friday going forward. Please let me know your feedback below, you could change the course of the book!
Wow looking forward to this book, what a great explanation of "The Map is not the Territory" and its consequences in misunderstanding.
Why do some people prefer the artificial (map) to reality?
Made me think of a few quotes,
Hannah Arendt wrote of what she called ‘the future man’ that he seemed possessed by ‘a rebellion against human existence as it has been given, a free gift from nowhere (secularly speaking), which he wishes to exchange, as it were, for something he has made himself’.
David Bohm said, “So thought is an abstraction. Literal thought has this problem in it that, implicitly, it’s trying to say that it’s seeking the ideal of not being an abstraction, but just being another copy of what is. It is not leaving out anything. I think you can see that there’s always more, and we could say, therefore, by means of thought we could not capture the whole. That’s what I’m suggesting. We can always get more. There’s no limit to thought which you can set, because people could always discover more. Scientists could discover more and more and more. But still, it’s always limited. It’s limited because it doesn’t get all, right?”
What is most difficult, writes Arendt, is to love the world as it is. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection, but the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is.
I think Goodhart's Law reveals a similar relationship between targets and metrics, as to symbols and their referents.
We need useful fictions/abstractions like maps and symbols to help us navigate and communicate. We also need metrics to help track progress and performance against targets. but there is a fine balance if the symbols or targets get mistaken for the actual outcome.
Karl Popper separated reality into three worlds: world 1 of physical objects, world 2 of the mind, and world 3 of intellectual objects external to the body. World 2 always intermediates the relation between 1 and 3, though I am not sure how this works today with AI. In the case of the text, the map is an object of world 3 and the territory is of world 1. How we interpret it, or how AI interprets it, belongs to world 2.
In the case of money, our common object of study, it is a tool of exchange (of goods and services) that belongs to world 1, such as paper fiat, gold, mining or the Bitcoin software. But it also creates measures of exchange, prices, and also our theoretical use as a tool of trade, which are intellectual objects of world 3. Our trust (in Bitcoin) or illusory faith (that happens in the fiat system) are elements of world 2, as are our desires to use it for trade or to save. In other words, the mental or symbolic function is something we give.
In sum, it is possible to analyze everything in terms of physical objects, mental objects, and intellectual objects (external to the mind, with a life of their own, which could still be used if humanity disappeared and reemerged). I hope this helped more than it confused, lol.
Wow looking forward to this book, what a great explanation of "The Map is not the Territory" and its consequences in misunderstanding.
Why do some people prefer the artificial (map) to reality?
Made me think of a few quotes,
Hannah Arendt wrote of what she called ‘the future man’ that he seemed possessed by ‘a rebellion against human existence as it has been given, a free gift from nowhere (secularly speaking), which he wishes to exchange, as it were, for something he has made himself’.
David Bohm said, “So thought is an abstraction. Literal thought has this problem in it that, implicitly, it’s trying to say that it’s seeking the ideal of not being an abstraction, but just being another copy of what is. It is not leaving out anything. I think you can see that there’s always more, and we could say, therefore, by means of thought we could not capture the whole. That’s what I’m suggesting. We can always get more. There’s no limit to thought which you can set, because people could always discover more. Scientists could discover more and more and more. But still, it’s always limited. It’s limited because it doesn’t get all, right?”
What is most difficult, writes Arendt, is to love the world as it is. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection, but the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is.
I am looking forward to the book! Great content across your platforms Robert.
Thank you for educating the public and fighting the Matrix programming🫡
would love your thoughts on some of my stuff. follow me back, I could DM you?
I think Goodhart's Law reveals a similar relationship between targets and metrics, as to symbols and their referents.
We need useful fictions/abstractions like maps and symbols to help us navigate and communicate. We also need metrics to help track progress and performance against targets. but there is a fine balance if the symbols or targets get mistaken for the actual outcome.
Karl Popper separated reality into three worlds: world 1 of physical objects, world 2 of the mind, and world 3 of intellectual objects external to the body. World 2 always intermediates the relation between 1 and 3, though I am not sure how this works today with AI. In the case of the text, the map is an object of world 3 and the territory is of world 1. How we interpret it, or how AI interprets it, belongs to world 2.
In the case of money, our common object of study, it is a tool of exchange (of goods and services) that belongs to world 1, such as paper fiat, gold, mining or the Bitcoin software. But it also creates measures of exchange, prices, and also our theoretical use as a tool of trade, which are intellectual objects of world 3. Our trust (in Bitcoin) or illusory faith (that happens in the fiat system) are elements of world 2, as are our desires to use it for trade or to save. In other words, the mental or symbolic function is something we give.
In sum, it is possible to analyze everything in terms of physical objects, mental objects, and intellectual objects (external to the mind, with a life of their own, which could still be used if humanity disappeared and reemerged). I hope this helped more than it confused, lol.