If I recall correctly, I was first introduced to the map-territory meme via LessWrong, and I’ve found it a useful idea in that it has helped me conceptualise the world and my place in it more clearly (as far as I can tell). I hear with great interest that you, too, have found this perspective insightful!
[The following are speculative ramblings.]
I wonder what the limits of map-territory convergence are and what those limits tell us about the limits of intelligence. Is complete convergence possible? Or is the limit determined by computational irreducibility (the idea that you cannot model some systems perfectly, you simply have to watch them unfold to find out what they do)? Is the universe a map that perfectly reflects the territory (itself)? Or is the universe yet another map of a yet deeper reality? I guess these questions belong to the realm of metaphysics.
Well of course I was already familiar with map-territory distinction, and while insightful itself, it wasn’t the insight I grasped from that paragraph.
The new insight is deeper understanding to what degree consciousness is functionally necessary for human behaviour. Literally as necessary as thermostats for air conditioning system. Also, while understanding that I have maps of reality in my consciousness, I suppose, I wasn’t explicitly thinking that my consciousness is itself a map.
Indeed! The good regulator theorem certainly gives concreteness to the abstract notion of a map. I find clarity in viewing intelligence/consciousness as analogous to the processes of mapmaking—walking around, surveying the territory, recording observations, and so on—rather than simply the map. In my view, this analogy to mapmaking makes more explicit the relationship between physical processes and intelligence/consciousness and the ever-changing nature of the map. I find it a little mind-blowing to conceptualise the map as the territory modelling itself.
The Wheeler Eye
I recommend chapter 5 (and related chapters) of A Thousand Brains by Jeff Hawkins for a physiological explanation of the idea of a map and how it manifests in the brain’s structure.
...every cortical column learns models of objects. The columns do this using the same basic method that the old brain uses to learn models of environments. Therefore, we proposed that each cortical column has a set of cells equivalent to grid cells, another set equivalent to place cells, and another set equivalent to head direction cells, all of which were first discovered in parts of the old brain.
[Disclaimer: I have not completed reading A Thousand Brains and I have not scrupulously scrutinised it yet.]
I’ve come across this idea about the similarities between brain structure and the structure of our physical environment in several places now (both K Friston and J Hawkins talk about it).
Brains have thin and long connections between neurons, which we can compare to forces that appear to act at a distance, such as light reflecting off an object and reaching our eyes almost instantaneously or gravity acting on a falling apple.
The deeply nested hierarchical structure of the connectome is analogous to the hierarchical nature of physical systems (composition and abstraction).
The human brain processes whatness and whereness in different regions. If we lived in a reality where an object changed its nature every time it moved, it would be more efficient to combine whatness and whereness processing into the same region.
All this is highly speculative but hints at a map-territory correspondence between brains and their environments.
If I recall correctly, I was first introduced to the map-territory meme via LessWrong, and I’ve found it a useful idea in that it has helped me conceptualise the world and my place in it more clearly (as far as I can tell). I hear with great interest that you, too, have found this perspective insightful!
[The following are speculative ramblings.]
I wonder what the limits of map-territory convergence are and what those limits tell us about the limits of intelligence. Is complete convergence possible? Or is the limit determined by computational irreducibility (the idea that you cannot model some systems perfectly, you simply have to watch them unfold to find out what they do)? Is the universe a map that perfectly reflects the territory (itself)? Or is the universe yet another map of a yet deeper reality? I guess these questions belong to the realm of metaphysics.
Well of course I was already familiar with map-territory distinction, and while insightful itself, it wasn’t the insight I grasped from that paragraph.
The new insight is deeper understanding to what degree consciousness is functionally necessary for human behaviour. Literally as necessary as thermostats for air conditioning system. Also, while understanding that I have maps of reality in my consciousness, I suppose, I wasn’t explicitly thinking that my consciousness is itself a map.
Indeed! The good regulator theorem certainly gives concreteness to the abstract notion of a map. I find clarity in viewing intelligence/consciousness as analogous to the processes of mapmaking—walking around, surveying the territory, recording observations, and so on—rather than simply the map. In my view, this analogy to mapmaking makes more explicit the relationship between physical processes and intelligence/consciousness and the ever-changing nature of the map. I find it a little mind-blowing to conceptualise the map as the territory modelling itself.
I recommend chapter 5 (and related chapters) of A Thousand Brains by Jeff Hawkins for a physiological explanation of the idea of a map and how it manifests in the brain’s structure.
[Disclaimer: I have not completed reading A Thousand Brains and I have not scrupulously scrutinised it yet.]
I’ve come across this idea about the similarities between brain structure and the structure of our physical environment in several places now (both K Friston and J Hawkins talk about it).
Brains have thin and long connections between neurons, which we can compare to forces that appear to act at a distance, such as light reflecting off an object and reaching our eyes almost instantaneously or gravity acting on a falling apple.
The deeply nested hierarchical structure of the connectome is analogous to the hierarchical nature of physical systems (composition and abstraction).
The human brain processes whatness and whereness in different regions. If we lived in a reality where an object changed its nature every time it moved, it would be more efficient to combine whatness and whereness processing into the same region.
All this is highly speculative but hints at a map-territory correspondence between brains and their environments.