essentially erasing the distiction of map and territory
This idea has been implied before and I don’t think it holds water. That this has come up more than once makes me think that there is some tendency to conflate the map/territory distinction with some kind of more general philosophical statement, though I’m not sure what. In any event, the Tegmark level 4 hypothesis is orthogonal to the map/territory distinction. The map/territory distinction just provides a nice way of framing a problem we already know exists.
In more detail:
Firstly, even if you take some sort of Platonic view where we have access to all the math, you still have to properly calibrate your map to figure out what part of the territory you’re in. In this case you could think of calibrating your map as applying an appropriate automorphism, so the map/territory distinction is not dissolved.
Second, the first view is wrong, because human brains do not contain or have access to anything approaching a complete mathematical description of the level 4 multiverse. At best a brain will contain a mapping of a very small part of the territory in pretty good detail, and also a relatively vague mapping that is much broader. Brains are not logically omniscient; even given a complete mathematical description of the universe, the derivations are not all going to be accessible to us.
So the map territory distinction is not dissolved, and in particular you don’t somehow overcome the mind projection fallacy, which is a practical (rather than philosophical) issue that cannot be explained away by adopting a shiny new ontological perspective.
It is true that a “Shiny” new ontological perspective changes little. Practical intelligences are still bayesians, for information theoretical reasons. What my rather odd idea looks at is specifically what one might call the laws of physics and the mystery of the first cause.
And if one might know the Math behind the Universe, the only thing that one might get is a complete theory of QM.
This idea has been implied before and I don’t think it holds water. That this has come up more than once makes me think that there is some tendency to conflate the map/territory distinction with some kind of more general philosophical statement, though I’m not sure what. In any event, the Tegmark level 4 hypothesis is orthogonal to the map/territory distinction. The map/territory distinction just provides a nice way of framing a problem we already know exists.
In more detail:
Firstly, even if you take some sort of Platonic view where we have access to all the math, you still have to properly calibrate your map to figure out what part of the territory you’re in. In this case you could think of calibrating your map as applying an appropriate automorphism, so the map/territory distinction is not dissolved.
Second, the first view is wrong, because human brains do not contain or have access to anything approaching a complete mathematical description of the level 4 multiverse. At best a brain will contain a mapping of a very small part of the territory in pretty good detail, and also a relatively vague mapping that is much broader. Brains are not logically omniscient; even given a complete mathematical description of the universe, the derivations are not all going to be accessible to us.
So the map territory distinction is not dissolved, and in particular you don’t somehow overcome the mind projection fallacy, which is a practical (rather than philosophical) issue that cannot be explained away by adopting a shiny new ontological perspective.
It is true that a “Shiny” new ontological perspective changes little. Practical intelligences are still bayesians, for information theoretical reasons. What my rather odd idea looks at is specifically what one might call the laws of physics and the mystery of the first cause.
And if one might know the Math behind the Universe, the only thing that one might get is a complete theory of QM.