Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Map Is Not the Territory (2015)

fs.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 36 posts

Re: The Map Is Not the Territory (2015)

#21

Post by umvi »

setgree wrote: post #2

Two great illustrations of this concept from literature come to mind: * Borges's 'On Exactitude in Science' [0] about a map that is as large and as precise as the territory, which renders it useless; * the wonderful Eschaton scene in Infinite Jest [1], with Pemulis screaming: "It’s snowing on the goddamn map , not the territory, you dick ! This point gets made enough over time that one suspects it's an enduring trait…

Yeah but with the advent of computers you can have a map as large and precise as the territory... just keep zooming in until the scale is 1:1

Re: The Map Is Not the Territory (2015)

#22

Post by a1369209993 »

082349872349872 wrote: post #15
earthboundkid wrote: post #13

What’s interesting are cases where the map is the territory. The Facebook map of your friends just is the graph of your Facebook friends. The chain of command for the military just is the chain of command. Etc.

The map says an O-1 outranks an E-7; the territory says a wise O-1 takes cues from their E-7.

Or:

MAXIM 2: A sergeant in motion outranks a lieutenant who doesn't know what's going on.

MAXIM 3: An ordnance technician at a dead run outranks everybody.

Re: The Map Is Not the Territory (2015)

#24

Post by setgree »

umvi wrote: post #21
setgree wrote: post #2

Two great illustrations of this concept from literature come to mind: * Borges's 'On Exactitude in Science' [0] about a map that is as large and as precise as the territory, which renders it useless; * the wonderful Eschaton scene in Infinite Jest [1], with Pemulis screaming: "It’s snowing on the goddamn map , not the territory, you dick ! This point gets made enough over time that one suspects it's an enduring trait…

Yeah but with the advent of computers you can have a map as large and precise as the territory... just keep zooming in until the scale is 1:1

And would this be useful as a map?

Re: The Map Is Not the Territory (2015)

#25

Post by earthboundkid »

082349872349872 wrote: post #15
earthboundkid wrote: post #13

What’s interesting are cases where the map is the territory. The Facebook map of your friends just is the graph of your Facebook friends. The chain of command for the military just is the chain of command. Etc.

The map says an O-1 outranks an E-7; the territory says a wise O-1 takes cues from their E-7.

Yes, the chain of command is an abstraction. Actual authority is something else.

Re: The Map Is Not the Territory (2015)

#26

Post by earthboundkid »

ssivark wrote: post #18
earthboundkid wrote: post #13

What’s interesting are cases where the map is the territory. The Facebook map of your friends just is the graph of your Facebook friends. The chain of command for the military just is the chain of command. Etc.

Trivially so, but are they even interesting? Such well-specific label territories are often artificial. Your Facebook social graph is a poor proxy for your actual IRL social network (or whose opinions you interact with the most, etc) Big bureaucratic organizations (or other less responsive intelligences) often try to force the territory to conform to the map, for convenience of steering, but it seems like there is a…

They’re always artificial. That’s how you make the map and territory the same.

Re: The Map Is Not the Territory (2015)

#27

Post by mroll »

interestica wrote: post #11
mroll wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first book is actually called “The World of Null-A”. I picked it up at a local used book store last year and enjoyed it. Haven’t read any more of the trilogy yet.

Even actuallier, the first book was titled "The World of Ā" but "to reduce printing costs, the 1953 and 1964 Ace Books paperback editions were entitled The World of Null-A, and the symbol Ā was replaced with "null-A" throughout the text." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_of_Null-A#Publicatio...

Hah! Thanks

Re: The Map Is Not the Territory (2015)

#28

Post by memexy »

ethn wrote: post #23

This type of epistemology is that of a naive realist and is much more wrong than the Platonist the author tries to ostensibly criticize. Naive realism is outdated by almost 240 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naïve_realism

What has replaced it?

Re: The Map Is Not the Territory (2015)

#29

Post by goatlover »

umvi wrote: post #21
setgree wrote: post #2

Two great illustrations of this concept from literature come to mind: * Borges's 'On Exactitude in Science' [0] about a map that is as large and as precise as the territory, which renders it useless; * the wonderful Eschaton scene in Infinite Jest [1], with Pemulis screaming: "It’s snowing on the goddamn map , not the territory, you dick ! This point gets made enough over time that one suspects it's an enduring trait…

Yeah but with the advent of computers you can have a map as large and precise as the territory... just keep zooming in until the scale is 1:1

Assuming you have perfect real-time knowledge of the territory to model which the computing hardware can support.

Re: The Map Is Not the Territory (2015)

#30

Post by goatlover »

memexy wrote: post #28
ethn wrote: post #23

This type of epistemology is that of a naive realist and is much more wrong than the Platonist the author tries to ostensibly criticize. Naive realism is outdated by almost 240 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naïve_realism

What has replaced it?

Indirect realism or correlationism. The first would mean being aware of mental representations instead of physical objects, and the second is Kantian where the mind structures the noisy flux of sensations according to categories of thought like space and time. The second also means that the way we experience the world depends on the kind of creatures we are, and not the way the world is.
Post reply on HN