I think I see where you are coming from with that now.
It seems to me that the territory assumption is necessary for morality, and not much else (because we want to care about things that “exist”, but otherwise probability theory is defined over possible observations only).
Of course a great number of unnecessary things have been called “necessary for morality”...
I’m going to read your comments a bit more and see if I can settle my mind on this instrumentalism thing. Do you reccommend anything I should check out?
because we want to care about things that “exist”,
I think morality is a red herring here. “Wanting to care” about something is a confused state. I care about what I care about. If it so happens that what I care about is an element of a model rather than being something else, I don’t necessarily stop caring about it solely because of that fact.
That said, personally my response to instrumentalism is to take a step back and talk about expectations regarding consistency.
If we can agree that some models support predictions of future experiences better than others, I’m content to either refer to the model that best supports those predictions as a reality that actually exists, as a territory that maps describe, or as my preferred model, depending on what language makes communication easier. I suppose you could say I’m a compatibilist with respect to instrumentalism.
If we can’t agree on that, I’m not sure where to go from there.
I’m content to either refer to the model that best supports those predictions as a reality that actually exists, as a territory that maps describe, or as my preferred model, depending on what language makes communication easier.
I used to feel the same way, but then it is easy to start arguing about the imagined parts of the territory for which no map can ever exist, because “the territory is out there”, and about which of the many identical maps is “more right” (as opposed to “more useful for a given task”). And, given that there can be no experimental evidence to resolve such an argument, it can go on forever. Examples of this futile argument are How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?, QM interpretations, Tegmark’s mathematical universe, statements like “every imaginable world exists” and other untestable nonsense.
As an engineer, I don’t enjoy unproductive futile debates, so expending effort arguing about interpretations seems silly to me. Instrumentalism avoids worrying about “objective reality” and whether it has some yet-undiscovered “true laws” of which our theories are only an approximation. Life is easier that way. Or would be, were it not for the “realists”, who keep insisting that their meta-model is the One True Path. That is not to say that I reject the map-territory distinction, I just place both parts of it inside the [meta]map.
Agreed that futile debates are silly. (I do sometimes enjoy them, but only when they’re fun.)
That said, I find it works for me, in order to avoid them, to accept that questions about the persistent thing (be it reality or a model) are only useful insofar as they lead us to a clearer understanding of the persistent thing. It’s certainly possible to construct and argue about questions that don’t do this, but it’s not a useful thing to do, and I try to avoid it.
I haven’t yet found it necessary to assert a firm position on the ontological nature of reality beyond “the persistent thing” in order to do that. Whether reality is “in the map” or “in the territory” or “doesn’t exist at all” seems to me just another futile debate.
Whether reality is “in the map” or “in the territory” or “doesn’t exist at all” seems to me just another futile debate.
I largely agree. I assert that the territory is in the map mostly as a Schelling fence of sorts, beyond which there is a slippery slope into philosophizing about untestables.
the territory assumption is necessary for morality
I don’t see how. Feel free to explicate.
Do you reccommend anything I should check out?
Sorry. I wish I could say “Popper”, since he basically , but he argued against Bohr’s instrumentalism on some grounds I don’t fully understand. quote from Wikipedia:
my reply to instrumentalism consists in showing that there are profound differences between “pure” theories and technological computation rules, and that instrumentalism can give a perfect description of these rules but is quite unable to account for the difference between them and the theories.
Usually when I read a critique of instrumentalism, it is straw-manned first (I think of it as InSTRAWmentalism). I am quite well aware that this could be a problem with my, admittedly patchy, understanding of the issue, and am happy to change my mind when a good argument comes along.
I think I see where you are coming from with that now.
It seems to me that the territory assumption is necessary for morality, and not much else (because we want to care about things that “exist”, but otherwise probability theory is defined over possible observations only).
Of course a great number of unnecessary things have been called “necessary for morality”...
I’m going to read your comments a bit more and see if I can settle my mind on this instrumentalism thing. Do you reccommend anything I should check out?
I think morality is a red herring here. “Wanting to care” about something is a confused state. I care about what I care about. If it so happens that what I care about is an element of a model rather than being something else, I don’t necessarily stop caring about it solely because of that fact.
That said, personally my response to instrumentalism is to take a step back and talk about expectations regarding consistency.
If we can agree that some models support predictions of future experiences better than others, I’m content to either refer to the model that best supports those predictions as a reality that actually exists, as a territory that maps describe, or as my preferred model, depending on what language makes communication easier. I suppose you could say I’m a compatibilist with respect to instrumentalism.
If we can’t agree on that, I’m not sure where to go from there.
I used to feel the same way, but then it is easy to start arguing about the imagined parts of the territory for which no map can ever exist, because “the territory is out there”, and about which of the many identical maps is “more right” (as opposed to “more useful for a given task”). And, given that there can be no experimental evidence to resolve such an argument, it can go on forever. Examples of this futile argument are How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?, QM interpretations, Tegmark’s mathematical universe, statements like “every imaginable world exists” and other untestable nonsense.
As an engineer, I don’t enjoy unproductive futile debates, so expending effort arguing about interpretations seems silly to me. Instrumentalism avoids worrying about “objective reality” and whether it has some yet-undiscovered “true laws” of which our theories are only an approximation. Life is easier that way. Or would be, were it not for the “realists”, who keep insisting that their meta-model is the One True Path. That is not to say that I reject the map-territory distinction, I just place both parts of it inside the [meta]map.
Agreed that futile debates are silly. (I do sometimes enjoy them, but only when they’re fun.)
That said, I find it works for me, in order to avoid them, to accept that questions about the persistent thing (be it reality or a model) are only useful insofar as they lead us to a clearer understanding of the persistent thing. It’s certainly possible to construct and argue about questions that don’t do this, but it’s not a useful thing to do, and I try to avoid it.
I haven’t yet found it necessary to assert a firm position on the ontological nature of reality beyond “the persistent thing” in order to do that. Whether reality is “in the map” or “in the territory” or “doesn’t exist at all” seems to me just another futile debate.
I largely agree. I assert that the territory is in the map mostly as a Schelling fence of sorts, beyond which there is a slippery slope into philosophizing about untestables.
I don’t see how. Feel free to explicate.
Sorry. I wish I could say “Popper”, since he basically , but he argued against Bohr’s instrumentalism on some grounds I don’t fully understand. quote from Wikipedia:
Usually when I read a critique of instrumentalism, it is straw-manned first (I think of it as InSTRAWmentalism). I am quite well aware that this could be a problem with my, admittedly patchy, understanding of the issue, and am happy to change my mind when a good argument comes along.