I probably didn’t emphasize this enough in the main post, but the idea I’m really going for is that there is difference in optimizing for stories vs. optimizing for reality. There’s a difference in goal and intention. Even if it’s the case that human are never seeing “rock-bottom reality” itself and everything is mediated through experience, there is still a big difference between a) someone attempting to change an aspect of the underlying reality such that actual different things happen in the world, and b) someone attempting to change the judgments of another person by inputting the right series of bits into them.
Optimizing stories is really about a mono-focus on optimizing the specific corners of reality which exists inside human heads.
I probably didn’t emphasize this enough in the main post, but the idea I’m really going for is that there is difference in optimizing for stories vs. optimizing for reality. There’s a difference in goal and intention. Even if it’s the case that human are never seeing “rock-bottom reality” itself and everything is mediated through experience, there is still a big difference between a) someone attempting to change an aspect of the underlying reality such that actual different things happen in the world, and b) someone attempting to change the judgments of another person by inputting the right series of bits into them.
Optimizing stories is really about a mono-focus on optimizing the specific corners of reality which exists inside human heads.