
The Map Is Not the Territory (2015) - nonines
https://fs.blog/2015/11/map-and-territory/
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setgree
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
of our cognition to mistake the two. It certainly comes up when people present
and talk about epidemiology models.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Science)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJpfK7l404I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJpfK7l404I)
\-- I think this Decembrists music video does Eschaton wonderfully.

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umvi
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

~~~
Thorrez
I think the best example of the map being the territory is videogames. The map
file might literally be the source of truth of what is on the territory.

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Tehchops
I wonder if it's even useful anymore to consider mental models in the context
of financial markets, even if it's just used as a metaphorical warning sign.

I read an assertion recently that of all the "markets" in human
civilization/culture, the financial one is the only one where we have truly
have brought maximum resource and human capital to bear. With that in mind, no
one is ever surprised when the next fat tail undoes hundreds of millions in
mere moments, even when the capital was managed by ostensibly "smart"
individuals.

The map is certainly not the territory there, but for the average individual
they're going to have a hard time understanding the map, the territory, the
map legend, anecdotes about the map etc...

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jbay808
> I read an assertion recently that of all the "markets" in human
> civilization/culture, the financial one is the only one where we have truly
> have brought maximum resource and human capital to bear.

Are you thinking of this book?

 _If I had to name the single epistemic feat at which modern human
civilization is most adequate, the peak of all human power of estimation, I
would unhesitatingly reply, “Short-term relative pricing of liquid financial
assets, like the price of S &P 500 stocks relative to other S&P 500 stocks
over the next three months.” This is something into which human civilization
puts an actual effort._

[https://equilibriabook.com/inadequacy-and-
modesty/](https://equilibriabook.com/inadequacy-and-modesty/)

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Tehchops
Bingo. What did you think of the book?

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jbay808
It's been a while since I read it, but I generally like the author's writing
style and find it engaging, although I know for some people it feels long-
winded. I remember when I read it I felt it had an insightful and balanced
take on several societal problems, which while not entirely different from
other perspectives I've seen, was at least a lot more thorough and didn't just
stop at "because bankers are greedy" or "because the government is
incompetent".

I think the part that really shook me, and made a lasting impact, was this:

 _But in the early days when Omegaven was just plain illegal to sell across
state lines, some parents would drive for hours, every month, to buy Omegaven
from the Boston Children’s Hospital to take back to their home state. I, for
one, would call that an_ extraordinary effort _. Those parents went far
outside their routine, beyond what the System would demand of them, beyond
what the world was set up to support them doing by default. Most people won’t
make an effort that far outside their usual habits even if their own personal
lives are at stake._

It made me think hard about what trying hard to really fix something looks
like, and what options I fail to entertain. And since reading that I've become
more willing to actually do what's necessary to solve problems, even at risk
of inconveniencing myself or worse, looking weird. Sometimes I meet people who
prioritize not looking weird over the lives of themselves and their loved ones
(like in the early days of the pandemic, when non-Asian people were still too
embarrassed to wear masks in public). And when I find myself thinking that
way, I think back to this book and think, _let 's make an extraordinary effort
today_.

I think the book would be better without Simplicio though, who is a pretty
annoying strawman character.

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ChrisMarshallNY
One of my favorite sayings is the old Swiss Army aphorism:

 _" When the map and the terrain disagree; believe the terrain."_

It features in this screed I wrote:
[https://medium.com/chrismarshallny/concrete-
galoshes-a5798a5...](https://medium.com/chrismarshallny/concrete-
galoshes-a5798a55af2a)

 _(Scroll down to "Story Time." It's in that section.)_

I also enjoyed learning about Farnam Street. I've bookmarked it.

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cerberusss
A.E. van Vogt wrote a fantastic SF novel based on the concept of "the map is
not the territory". It's called "The Players of Null-A", if I remember
correctly. It became a trilogy. I've re-read it multiple times and in fact,
had just started reading it again. Some things did not age well since it was
written in 1946, but overall fascinating stuff.

~~~
mroll
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.

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interestica
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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_of_Null-A#Publication_history)

~~~
mroll
Hah! Thanks

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bearer_token
Two implications:

1\. We have many maps, models, or concepts - different ways of viewing the
same situation. How we choose which map is often more important than the
overall accuracy of our maps. Changing perspective often beats getting more
accurate data.

2\. There is no reason to have any emotional or sentimental attachment to
one’s knowledge. Think of “your knowledge” the same way you would think of
“your map collection”. Edit (or discard) them with extreme prejudice!

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ethn
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naïve_realism)

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memexy
What has replaced it?

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goatlover
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.

~~~
MperorM
Why would that be incompatible with the map and territory model?

> 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.

Would it be fair to say we all look at both the map and territory wearing
different sunglasses?

That seems to capture both sentiments, I feel there's something I'm not
getting here.

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ethn
The map is actually about necessarily true properties that the territory is
built on. That in any experience the features of the map exists in the
territory.

The author argues instead not to be confused with the map because of potential
deviation from the reality of the territory. But the map is about the
categorical truths of reality which the territory is conforming to.

It’s what guarantees mathematics’ “unreasonable effectiveness”. Mathematical
or scientific maps are discussing necessary properties of all human
experience—-a type of knowledge called the a priori synthetic.

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earthboundkid
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.

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082349872349872
The map says an O-1 outranks an E-7; the territory says a wise O-1 takes cues
from their E-7.

~~~
a1369209993
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_.

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FigmentEngine
even better resource, learn wardley mapping
[https://medium.com/wardleymaps](https://medium.com/wardleymaps)

how to use maps in business

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ska
Wouldn't "using maps in business" be subject to precisely the points of this
article? How then is this a "better" resource, rather than a tangentially
related one?

