If the alien understands the whole picture, it will notice the causal arrow from human concerns to social constructs. For instance, if you want gay marriage to be a thing, you amend the marriage construct so that is.
The point of the thought experiment is that, for the alien, all of that is totally mundane (ie scientific) knowledge. So why can’t that observation count as scientific for us?
IE, just because we have control over a thing doesn’t—in my ontology—indicate that the concept of map/territory correspondence no longer applies. It only implies that we need to have conditional expectations, so that we can think about what happens if we do one thing or another. (For example, I know that if I think about whether I’m thinking about peanut butter, I’m thinking about peanut butter. So my estimate “am I thinking about peanut butter?” will always be high, when I care to form such an estimate.)
Rocks existed before the concept of rocks. Money did not exist before he concept of money.
And how is the temporal point at which something comes into existence relevant to whether we need to track it accurately in our map, aside from the fact that things temporally distant from us are less relevant to our concerns?
Your reply was very terse, and does not articulate very much of the model you’re coming from, instead mostly reiterating the disagreement. It would be helpful to me if you tried to unpack more of your overall view, and the logic by which you reach your conclusions.
I know that you have a concept of “pre-existing reality” which includes rocks and not money, and I believe that you think things which aren’t in pre-existing reality don’t need to be tracked by maps (at least, something resembling this). What I don’t see is the finer details of this concept of pre-existing reality, and why you think we don’t need to track those things accurately in maps.
The point of my rock example is that the smashed rock did not exist before we smashed it. Or we could say “the rock dust” or such. In doing so, we satisfy your temporal requirement (the rock dust did not exist until we smashed it, much like money did not exist until we conceived of it). We also satisfy the requirement that we have complete control over it (we can make the rock dust, just like we can invent gay marriage).
I know you don’t think the rock example counts, but I’m trying to ask for a more detailed model of why it doesn’t. I gave the rock example because, presumably, you do agree that bits of smashed rock are the sort of thing we might want accurate maps of. Yet they seem to match your criteria.
Imagine for a moment that we had perfect control of how the rock crumbles. Even then, it would seem that we still might want a place in our map for the shape of the rock shards. Despite our perfect control, we might want to remember that we shaped the rock shards into a key and a matching lock, etc.
Remember that the original point of this argument was your assertion:
In order for your map to be useful , it needs to reflect the statistical structure of things to the extent required by the value it is in service to.
That can be zero. There is a meta category of things that are created by humans without any footprint in pre existing reality. These include money, marriages, and mortgages
So—to the extent that we are remaining relevant to the original point—the question is why, in your model, there is zero need to reflect the statistical structure of money, marriage, etc.
The point of the thought experiment is that, for the alien, all of that is totally mundane (ie scientific) knowledge. So why can’t that observation count as scientific for us?
The point is that the rule “if it is not in the territory it should not be in the map” does not apply in cases where we are constructing reality, not just reflecting it.
If you are drafting a law to introduce gay marriage, it isn’t objection to say that it doesn’t already exist.
IE, just because we have control over a thing doesn’t—in my ontology—indicate that the concept of map/territory correspondence no longer applies
I didn’t say it doesn’t apply at all. But theres a major difference between maps where the causal arrow goes t->m (science, reflection) and ones where it goes m->t (culture,construction)
Once you have constructed something according to a map (blueprint), you can study it scientifically, as anthropologists and scociologists do. But once something has been constructed, the norms of social scientists are that they just describe it. Social scientists don’t have a norm that social constructs have to be rejected because they don’t reflect pre existing reality.
The point of the thought experiment is that, for the alien, all of that is totally mundane (ie scientific) knowledge. So why can’t that observation count as scientific for us?
IE, just because we have control over a thing doesn’t—in my ontology—indicate that the concept of map/territory correspondence no longer applies. It only implies that we need to have conditional expectations, so that we can think about what happens if we do one thing or another. (For example, I know that if I think about whether I’m thinking about peanut butter, I’m thinking about peanut butter. So my estimate “am I thinking about peanut butter?” will always be high, when I care to form such an estimate.)
And how is the temporal point at which something comes into existence relevant to whether we need to track it accurately in our map, aside from the fact that things temporally distant from us are less relevant to our concerns?
Your reply was very terse, and does not articulate very much of the model you’re coming from, instead mostly reiterating the disagreement. It would be helpful to me if you tried to unpack more of your overall view, and the logic by which you reach your conclusions.
I know that you have a concept of “pre-existing reality” which includes rocks and not money, and I believe that you think things which aren’t in pre-existing reality don’t need to be tracked by maps (at least, something resembling this). What I don’t see is the finer details of this concept of pre-existing reality, and why you think we don’t need to track those things accurately in maps.
The point of my rock example is that the smashed rock did not exist before we smashed it. Or we could say “the rock dust” or such. In doing so, we satisfy your temporal requirement (the rock dust did not exist until we smashed it, much like money did not exist until we conceived of it). We also satisfy the requirement that we have complete control over it (we can make the rock dust, just like we can invent gay marriage).
I know you don’t think the rock example counts, but I’m trying to ask for a more detailed model of why it doesn’t. I gave the rock example because, presumably, you do agree that bits of smashed rock are the sort of thing we might want accurate maps of. Yet they seem to match your criteria.
Imagine for a moment that we had perfect control of how the rock crumbles. Even then, it would seem that we still might want a place in our map for the shape of the rock shards. Despite our perfect control, we might want to remember that we shaped the rock shards into a key and a matching lock, etc.
Remember that the original point of this argument was your assertion:
So—to the extent that we are remaining relevant to the original point—the question is why, in your model, there is zero need to reflect the statistical structure of money, marriage, etc.
The point is that the rule “if it is not in the territory it should not be in the map” does not apply in cases where we are constructing reality, not just reflecting it.
If you are drafting a law to introduce gay marriage, it isn’t objection to say that it doesn’t already exist.
I didn’t say it doesn’t apply at all. But theres a major difference between maps where the causal arrow goes t->m (science, reflection) and ones where it goes m->t (culture,construction)
Once you have constructed something according to a map (blueprint), you can study it scientifically, as anthropologists and scociologists do. But once something has been constructed, the norms of social scientists are that they just describe it. Social scientists don’t have a norm that social constructs have to be rejected because they don’t reflect pre existing reality.