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, 18 January→Map and territory as an immutable dualism: crossing and recrossing the threshold
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==== Map and territory as an immutable dualism: crossing and recrossing the threshold ==== | ==== Map and territory as an immutable dualism: crossing and recrossing the threshold ==== | ||
But hold [[The map and the territory|map | But hold [[The map and the territory|map and territory]] — model and reality — as an immutable dualism. [[The map and the territory|Map, territory]]. [[Models.Behaving.Badly|Model, reality]]. [[Great delamination|Online, offline]]. [[Informal systems|Formal, informal]]. Narnia, the real world. | ||
We ''live'' in the territory: to ''abstract'' from territory to map is to cross a threshold from the ordinary world to a ''model'' realm. This is a mythical, [[metaphor]]ical journey. It is the same as the hero’s journey into a magical world, as outlined in [[Joseph Campbell]]’s {{br|The Hero with a Thousand Faces}}. But unlike the fictional archetype, the magical model world cannot change the real world. The less correspondence there is between the two, the greater the peril. | We ''live'' in the territory: to ''abstract'' from territory to map, is to cross a threshold from the ordinary world to a ''model'' realm. This is a mythical, [[metaphor]]ical journey. It is the same as the hero’s journey into a magical world, as outlined in [[Joseph Campbell]]’s {{br|The Hero with a Thousand Faces}}. As we cross it we abstract from an intractable, analog actuality to a simplified digital essence, in the process giving up a colossal weight of “extraneous” information. What counts as extraneous is determined by the model. But unlike the fictional archetype, the magical model world cannot change the real world. Things that are true in the model kingdom are not necessarily true in the mundane world. Crossing back over the threshold, the lossed information is not restored. We can extrapolate, interpolate, approximate to emulate that information, and substitute something like it — in each case using the mathematical tools and amulets we discovered in the magical model realm — | ||
The less correspondence there is between the two, the greater the peril. | |||
So the relationship between map and territory is fraught. The longer we stay in Narnia, the more we fall under its spell: the more we build it out; the more we extrapolate from its own terms and logical imperatives the more impressive the model world seems to be. But if we flesh out these theoretical implications without grounding them back to the territory they are meant to map, we risk amplifying limitations in the model buried ''differences'' between the map and the territory. | So the relationship between map and territory is fraught. The longer we stay in Narnia, the more we fall under its spell: the more we build it out; the more we extrapolate from its own terms and logical imperatives the more impressive the model world seems to be. But if we flesh out these theoretical implications without grounding them back to the territory they are meant to map, we risk amplifying limitations in the model buried ''differences'' between the map and the territory. | ||