Template:M intro design Nomological machine: Difference between revisions

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→‎Map and territory as an immutable dualism: crossing and recrossing the threshold
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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 [[Joseph Campbell]] outlined it {{br|The Hero with a Thousand Faces}}.<ref>meta-irony: Campbell’s theory is of course a model, a carefully filtered [[monomyth]]ical  model of the countless fables, legends and morality tales — all doubtless, per the model, similar but, in the analog particular, different, that he found in the oral and cultural traditions he surveyed.</ref> 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 and swords we discovered in the magical model realm — but should we cross back to the mundane, the magic would drain away.
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 [[Joseph Campbell]] outlined it {{br|The Hero with a Thousand Faces}}.<ref>meta-irony: Campbell’s theory is of course a model, a carefully filtered [[monomyth]]ical  model of the countless fables, legends and morality tales — all doubtless, per the model, similar but, in the analog particular, different, that he found in the oral and cultural traditions he surveyed.</ref> 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 and swords we discovered in the magical model realm — but should we cross back to the mundane, the magic would drain away.


Maddeningly the magic often seems to work, sort of, in ordinary use, but it is hard to tell whether this is magic, or if it is just behaving like a normal, non-magical sword. (I once had an electric bike and it took me a week to realise the motor wasn't working. That kind of thing). It is only on those rare occasions when a normal sword won't do — when you could really use a special sword, that  you find it isn't magic.
Maddeningly the magic often seems to work, sort of, in ordinary use, but it is hard to tell whether this is magic, or if it is just behaving like a normal, non-magical sword. (I once had an electric bike and it took me a week to realise the motor wasn't working. That kind of thing). It is only on those rare occasions when a normal sword won’t do — when you could really use a special sword, that  you find it isn’t magic. This can be a “Wylie Coyote hanging in mid air off the cliff” situation.


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.  
There is a great temptation to steal back into the magical kingdom, where the magic works. And, the longer we stay there, in Narnia, the more we fall under its spell: the more we build out our book of magical incantations; the more we extrapolate from its own terms and logical imperatives the more impressive the model world seems to be. But the magical world is our own creation: the spells work because we define the rules and customs and principles therein. We are building our own memory palace.
 
We flesh out these theoretical implications without grounding them back to the territory they were originally supposed to be representing, we risk amplifying the variance between this simple magic all world and the complex, ornery world outside. As we push back the “limitations” of the model we cannot see the buried ''differences'' between this increasingly fantastical map and the boring old territory.  


The map of theoretical physics has long since departed from the theoretical possibility of such a practical re-grounding. There is ''no possible real-world evidence'' for string theories, the [[multiverse]], dark matter or the cosmological constant — the cosmological constant exists only to account for a gap in the evidence. For some of these things ''the very act of seeking evidence'' would destroy it. This is quite the skepticism-defeat device, by the way. as powerful as anything found in religion. These are all pure functions of extrapolation from the model. If the model is wrong, all this fantastical superstructure, also, is wrong. Yet the whole superstructure the investment in it, the careers, the billion-dollar particle accelerators, the industrial academic complex behind it — these exist in the real world. These are, seemingly, reason enough to believe, notwithstanding the apparently, unfalsifiably bonkers things these things, with a straight face, tell us must be true.
The map of theoretical physics has long since departed from the theoretical possibility of such a practical re-grounding. There is ''no possible real-world evidence'' for string theories, the [[multiverse]], dark matter or the cosmological constant — the cosmological constant exists only to account for a gap in the evidence. For some of these things ''the very act of seeking evidence'' would destroy it. This is quite the skepticism-defeat device, by the way. as powerful as anything found in religion. These are all pure functions of extrapolation from the model. If the model is wrong, all this fantastical superstructure, also, is wrong. Yet the whole superstructure the investment in it, the careers, the billion-dollar particle accelerators, the industrial academic complex behind it — these exist in the real world. These are, seemingly, reason enough to believe, notwithstanding the apparently, unfalsifiably bonkers things these things, with a straight face, tell us must be true.


This is not to say any of this higher-order theoretical physics is not true or correct. We laypeople have no reason to doubt the maths . But mathematics is the business of internal logical consistency. It is a closed logical system; a linguistic game. It is the language in which we articulate the model. It has nothing to say about its relationship to the territory. Maths is a language: it is not science.
This is not to say any of this higher-order theoretical physics is not true or correct. We laypeople have no reason to doubt the maths. But mathematics is the business of working out an internal logical consistency.<ref>Bertrand Russell explicitly set out to formulate the complete set of mathematical axioms at the beginning of the 20th century with ''Principia Mathematica'', and was fairly disappointed by Kurt Gödel proving it to be [[undecidability|logically impossible]].</ref> Mathematics is a closed logical system; a linguistic game. It is the language in which we articulate our scientific and financial models. But it is the language of science, not itself a science. It has nothing to say about the territory.  
 
First, be sure you know which domain is which. Are you trying to fit the world to a model — as you do when flipping a coin or rolling dice — or a model to the world?
 
Volatility calculations, Black-Scholes formulae, You can abstract fit real world to the model a normal distribution is a
 
For real-world events to confirm to normal distributions, standard deviations, and confident probabilities they must meet the criteria of the [[nomological machine]]. All potential events must known and independent of each other and our observation of them.  


First, be sure you know which domain is which. Are you trying to fit the world to a model — as you do when flipping a coin or rolling dice — or a model to the world? Volatility calculations, Black-Scholes formulae, You can abstract fit real world to the model a normal distribution is a For events in the real world to confirm to normal distributions, standard deviations, and confident probabilities they must meet the criteria of a nomological machine. All potential events must known, and be independent of each other and our observation of them. If a motivated agent intervenes it can upset the observed behaviour of the system. If you have all that all risks can be calculated and probabilities assigned.
If a motivated agent intervenes it can upset the observed behaviour of the system. If you have all that all risks can be calculated and probabilities assigned.
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