Agreed—we (and more generally, embedded agents) have no access to territory. It’s all maps, even our experiences are filtered through interpretation. Territory is inferred as the thing that makes different maps (at different levels of abstraction or different parts of the universe) consistent with each other and across time.
That said, some maps are very detailed, repeatable, and can support a lot of other maps. I tend to think of those as “closer to the territory”. In colloquial discussion and informal thinking, I don’t think there’s much harm in pretending that the actual territory is the same as the fine-grained maps. Not technically true—there are more levels of maps, and they’re asymptotic to reaching the territory. But close enough for a lot of things.
Agreed—we (and more generally, embedded agents) have no access to territory. It’s all maps, even our experiences are filtered through interpretation. Territory is inferred as the thing that makes different maps (at different levels of abstraction or different parts of the universe) consistent with each other and across time.
That said, some maps are very detailed, repeatable, and can support a lot of other maps. I tend to think of those as “closer to the territory”. In colloquial discussion and informal thinking, I don’t think there’s much harm in pretending that the actual territory is the same as the fine-grained maps. Not technically true—there are more levels of maps, and they’re asymptotic to reaching the territory. But close enough for a lot of things.