preface: if my friend finds this, i will simply ✨pass away✨, because i have spent the last 6 months clowning him for being so passionate about this book. and i refuse to admit that i’m in love with it (the book, not the friend).
rationality from ai to zombies is a series of books (each composed of articles) that outline what it means to think rationally, how to do it, and why it matters.
the first book (and, admittedly, the only one i’ve read thus far) is called map and territory, and this blog post will be all about that metaphor.
from the moment we enter schooling age, we’re shown pictures of the world – galaxies, our solar system, planets, stars, moons, the earth, different continents and countries and other known territories that have been neatly mapped out for us on a 2-dimensional plane. we can see… everything. or can we?
that is a world map, right? great.
can you find iceland? or madagascar? or sri lanka, norway, mongolia?
you can’t. they’re simply not there, nowhere on the map to be found, so they must not exist. at least, that’s what most people have been conditioned to think.
map and territory combats this idea, pointing out that just because something isn’t perceived doesn’t mean it’s not there. we have a warped mental image of what we have been told, and through rational thinking and processes, we have to come to a conclusion that combines both what we know for a fact and what we have been told.
the idea of map-to-territory correspondence is quite important when applied to the real world – we have to match what we believe to what is true.
short blog, i know, but eleizer yudkowsky goes way more in depth to rationality in his book, that i think everyone should at least skim in their free minutes. worth the read 🙂
Kit, this was such an enjoyable read! You did a wonderful job of illustrating the metaphor in an interesting and understandable way. The book series sounds really cool; I’ll definitely check it out!