What does it mean to optimize for the map to fit the territory, but not the other way around? (After all: we can improve fit between map and territory by changing either map or territory.) Maybe it’s complicated, but primarily what it means is that the map is the part that’s being selected in the optimization. When communicating, I’m not using my full agency to make my claims true; rather, I’m specifically selecting the claims to be true.
I don’t know whether you are familiar with it, but most speech acts or writing acts are considered to have either a “word-to-world” direction of fit, e.g. statements, or a “world-to-word” direction of fit, e.g. commands. Only with the former the agents optimize the speech act (“word”) to fit the world; in the latter case they optimize the world to fit the speech act. The fit would be truth in the case of a statement, execution in the case of a command.
There is an analogous but more basic distinction for intentional states (“propositional attitudes”), where the “intentionality” of a mental state is its aboutness. Some have a mind-to-world direction of fit, e.g. beliefs, while others have a world-to-mind direction of fit, e.g. desires or intentions. The former are satisfied when the mind is optimized to fit the world, the latter when the world is optimized to fit the mind.
(Speech acts seem to be honest only insofar the speaker/writer holds an analogous intentional state. So someone who states that snow is white is only honest if they believe that snow is white. For lying the speaker would, apart from being dishonest, also need a deceptive intention with the speech act, i.e. intenting the listener to believe that the speaker believes that snow is white.)
So it seems in the above paragraph you are only considering the word-to-world / mind-to-world direction of fit?
It’s a good point. I suppose I was anchored by the map/territory analogy to focus on world-to-word fit. The part about Communicative Action and Rational Choice at the very end is supposed to gesture at the other direction.
Intuitively, I expect it’s going to be a bit easier to analyze world-to-word fit first. But I agree that a full picture should address both.
I don’t know whether you are familiar with it, but most speech acts or writing acts are considered to have either a “word-to-world” direction of fit, e.g. statements, or a “world-to-word” direction of fit, e.g. commands. Only with the former the agents optimize the speech act (“word”) to fit the world; in the latter case they optimize the world to fit the speech act. The fit would be truth in the case of a statement, execution in the case of a command.
There is an analogous but more basic distinction for intentional states (“propositional attitudes”), where the “intentionality” of a mental state is its aboutness. Some have a mind-to-world direction of fit, e.g. beliefs, while others have a world-to-mind direction of fit, e.g. desires or intentions. The former are satisfied when the mind is optimized to fit the world, the latter when the world is optimized to fit the mind.
(Speech acts seem to be honest only insofar the speaker/writer holds an analogous intentional state. So someone who states that snow is white is only honest if they believe that snow is white. For lying the speaker would, apart from being dishonest, also need a deceptive intention with the speech act, i.e. intenting the listener to believe that the speaker believes that snow is white.)
So it seems in the above paragraph you are only considering the word-to-world / mind-to-world direction of fit?
It’s a good point. I suppose I was anchored by the map/territory analogy to focus on world-to-word fit. The part about Communicative Action and Rational Choice at the very end is supposed to gesture at the other direction.
Intuitively, I expect it’s going to be a bit easier to analyze world-to-word fit first. But I agree that a full picture should address both.