One time Eliezer Yudkowsky got into a debate with the universe about whose map best corresponded to territory. He told the universe he’d meet it outside and they could settle the argument once and for all.
In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.
Teachers try to guess Eliezer Yudkowsky’s password.
Eliezer Yudkowsky’s map is more accurate than the territory.
One time Eliezer Yudkowsky got into a debate with the universe about whose map best corresponded to territory. He told the universe he’d meet it outside and they could settle the argument once and for all.
He’s still waiting.
Eliezer Yudkowsky’s map IS the territory.
I’d prefer “Eliezer Yudkowsky can fold up the territory and put it in his pocket.”
Mmhmm… Borges time!