When John says “My map has a bridge at grid reference 234567”, I should add a note to my map saying “John’s map has a bridge at grid reference 234567″
Second occurrence:
I should add a note to my map saying “John has the following note on his map: ‘I believe there is a bridge at grid reference 234567’”.
Was this slight difference intentional (one has you add a note that there is a bridge on his map; the second has you add a note that he has a note that he believes there is a bridge)?
What happens too often is that we directly add “The sky is green” to our beliefs.
Maybe. I wonder if too often we get out our eraser and immediately start trying to erase on their map.
The difference was very intentional. I wanted to make clear the extra level of indirection between the two phrases. In the second case John may not actually have a bridge on his map at the indicated point, all we know is that he has the note saying that he believes there is a bridge there. It should logically follow that he should only say he believe something to be on his map if is it actually on his map. The point I was trying to make is that sometimes these things do not follow.
Gotcha, and thanks for the clarification. I see the difference, and in the first case you seem to be highlighting the difference between the map and the territory, while in the second case, you are highlighting the difference between the actual map and a belief about what’s on one’s map (in other words, one more “meta level” removed).
Now knowing that this was intentional, my suggestion is that you might have wanted to hold back on that first phrase until you made your clarification about the three types of statement meanings. Then perhaps highlight the full gamut of options:
1) Add a bridge to my own map
2) Add a note to my map that John has a bridge on his map at location …
3) Add a note to my map that John believes he has a bridge on his map at location …
My current read is that the first paragraph cautions us to not do #1, but to do #2 instead… meanwhile you knew that you’d actually be advocating for not doing #2 either because #3 might be the likely case.
Hopefully that makes sense. The caution was fantastic in the early part of the article (don’t add the bridge automatically); I just think the reader might have benefited from seeing your full purpose for the article (the three belief statement meanings) prior to you advocating which note we should add to the map.
First occurrence:
Second occurrence:
Was this slight difference intentional (one has you add a note that there is a bridge on his map; the second has you add a note that he has a note that he believes there is a bridge)?
Maybe. I wonder if too often we get out our eraser and immediately start trying to erase on their map.
The difference was very intentional. I wanted to make clear the extra level of indirection between the two phrases. In the second case John may not actually have a bridge on his map at the indicated point, all we know is that he has the note saying that he believes there is a bridge there. It should logically follow that he should only say he believe something to be on his map if is it actually on his map. The point I was trying to make is that sometimes these things do not follow.
Gotcha, and thanks for the clarification. I see the difference, and in the first case you seem to be highlighting the difference between the map and the territory, while in the second case, you are highlighting the difference between the actual map and a belief about what’s on one’s map (in other words, one more “meta level” removed).
Now knowing that this was intentional, my suggestion is that you might have wanted to hold back on that first phrase until you made your clarification about the three types of statement meanings. Then perhaps highlight the full gamut of options:
1) Add a bridge to my own map 2) Add a note to my map that John has a bridge on his map at location … 3) Add a note to my map that John believes he has a bridge on his map at location …
My current read is that the first paragraph cautions us to not do #1, but to do #2 instead… meanwhile you knew that you’d actually be advocating for not doing #2 either because #3 might be the likely case.
Hopefully that makes sense. The caution was fantastic in the early part of the article (don’t add the bridge automatically); I just think the reader might have benefited from seeing your full purpose for the article (the three belief statement meanings) prior to you advocating which note we should add to the map.
Thanks for writing this. I enjoyed the read.