Levels are an attribute of the map. The territory only has one level. Its only level is the most basic one.
Let’s consider a fractal. The Mandelbrot set can be made by taking the union of infinitely many iterations. You could think of each additional iteration as a better map. That being said, either a point is in the Mandelbrot set or it is not. The set itself only has one level.
Because a level being more basic means it’s made of (or described by, if you’re not a patternist) fewer bits of information, and the only way there can be less than 1 bit is if there’s nothing at all.
Because things happen, if there was no most basic level, figuring out what happens would be an infinite recursion with no base case. Not even the universe’s computation could find the answer.
There isn’t, and the article is committing a type error. The terrain isn’t a map, reality isn’t a model/theory.
Unless you are using a model to approximate the behavior of a system that is of exactly the same kind, i.e. using a computational model to approximate another computational thingy, in which case you could indeed have the model that exactly coincides with what it is to describe. This may even be useful, e.g. in cryptography. But this is an edge case.
One minor quibble; how do we know there is any most basic level?
Levels are an attribute of the map. The territory only has one level. Its only level is the most basic one.
Let’s consider a fractal. The Mandelbrot set can be made by taking the union of infinitely many iterations. You could think of each additional iteration as a better map. That being said, either a point is in the Mandelbrot set or it is not. The set itself only has one level.
Interesting analogy!
Agreed. Why would we believe a quark is not “emergent”? Could be turtles all the way down....
Because a level being more basic means it’s made of (or described by, if you’re not a patternist) fewer bits of information, and the only way there can be less than 1 bit is if there’s nothing at all.
Because things happen, if there was no most basic level, figuring out what happens would be an infinite recursion with no base case. Not even the universe’s computation could find the answer.
There isn’t, and the article is committing a type error. The terrain isn’t a map, reality isn’t a model/theory.
Unless you are using a model to approximate the behavior of a system that is of exactly the same kind, i.e. using a computational model to approximate another computational thingy, in which case you could indeed have the model that exactly coincides with what it is to describe. This may even be useful, e.g. in cryptography. But this is an edge case.