To the (unknowable*) extent that the portion of my map labelled “territory” is an accurate reflection of the relevant portion of the territory, do I get to say that my preferences are “about” the territory (implicitly including disclaimers like “as mediated by the map”)?
You can say it all you want, it just won’t make it true. ;-) Your preference is “about” your experience, just as the thermostat’s heating and cooling preferences are “about” the temperature of its sensor, relative to its setting.
For there to be an “about”, there has to be another observer, projecting a relationship of intention onto the two things. It’s a self-applied mind projection—a “strange loop” in your model—to assert that you can make such statements about your own preferences, like a drawing of Escher wherein Escher is pictured, making the drawing. The whole thing only makes sense within the surface of the paper.
(Heck, it’s probably a similar strange loop to make statements about one’s self in general, but this probably doesn’t lead to the same kind of confusion and behavioral problems that result from making assertions about one’s preferences.… No, wait, actually, yes it does! Self-applied nominalizations, like “I’m bad at math” are an excellent example. Huh. I keep learning interesting new things in this discussion.)
You can say it all you want, it just won’t make it true. ;-) Your preference is “about” your experience, just as the thermostat’s heating and cooling preferences are “about” the temperature of its sensor, relative to its setting.
For there to be an “about”, there has to be another observer, projecting a relationship of intention onto the two things. It’s a self-applied mind projection—a “strange loop” in your model—to assert that you can make such statements about your own preferences, like a drawing of Escher wherein Escher is pictured, making the drawing. The whole thing only makes sense within the surface of the paper.
(Heck, it’s probably a similar strange loop to make statements about one’s self in general, but this probably doesn’t lead to the same kind of confusion and behavioral problems that result from making assertions about one’s preferences.… No, wait, actually, yes it does! Self-applied nominalizations, like “I’m bad at math” are an excellent example. Huh. I keep learning interesting new things in this discussion.)
That’s one way of writing. Another is to edit what you intend to post before you click ‘comment’.