7 ms·

The Map is Not the Territory! https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory Anothe

The Map is Not the Territory! https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory Another piece of widespread ignorance I've seen here on HN, is the treatment of conservation laws as if they're baked into the fabric of reality. This results in programmers making philosophical/cosmological arguments in ignorance. As far as we know, conservation laws are not baked into reality. Instead, they are very useful analysis tools which can take advantage of symmetries. (Or near-symmetries.) Any given conservation law can disappear if a given symmetry doesn't apply, but Noether's Theorem still remains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04ERSb06dOg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04ERSb06dOg If you want to see an example of how social media "bubbles" can impede the dissemination of knowledge, note that I've actually been flagged on HN for trying to explain this, apparently because someone misread this as advocacy for perpetual motion machines. It is not! (Also, because I used <facepalm> -- but when you're wrong, you're wrong, and when you're wrong and you think it's clever, it feels worse.) (That title, "The Map is Not the Territory" acts as a pointer to a series of literary references. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Map_and_the_Territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Map_and_the_Territory )

thanatropism 8y ago
It's hard to make time symmetry (and thus conservation of energy) "disappear", though.
- myWindoonn 8y ago
  There probably isn't a plain time symmetry, but maybe there is CPT symmetry. Lucky 10000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPT_symmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPT_symmetry
  - wnoise 8y ago
    He's talking about time-translation symmetry, not time-reversal symmetry, which is the T in CPT.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      Good point!
    - tobmlt 8y ago
      A quick check makes me think that one has fallen quite recently(?): https://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.2539v2.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.2539v2.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_translation_symmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_translation_symmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal Edit: Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/52has4/what_is_timetranslation_symmetry_and_how_do/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/52has4/what_is_... https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.08001v4.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.08001v4.pdf Periodic, discrete symmetry holds, continuous is toast. Interesting.. Maybe there should be a rule of thumb (XKCD?) that says for any intuition one may hold, some researcher somewhere is, at ``this'' moment (in some measuring system) constructing a contrived situation that will break it via some contrivance that is strange in inverse proportion to the homeliness of the intuition? ....And some talky-site-poster (me in this case) is preparing to make it yak about it?
      - wnoise 8y ago
        These don't break fundamental time translation symmetry, anymore than regular crystals break fundamental space translation symmetry (which is equivalent to conservation of momentum). The fundamental versions of these symmetries are that the laws of physics are unchanged under such changes. These are merely systems such that the system itself lacks such a symmetry. This will indeed allow a change in the "effective" laws of physics (like electrons having different effective mass in metals or semiconductors than in free space, and quantized momenta), and give something interacting with the system the illusion that energy or momentum is not conserved. But this is only an illusion: momentum and energy of something interacting with the system are exchanged with the system. This shouldn't be mysterious though -- a time changing potential already didn't preserve the energy of what it's interacting with, and a crystal can absorb momentum as a whole without any local disturbances that could be seen by a particle in it (e.g. Mossbauer effect). But the upshot is that what counts as a symmetry depends on what's fixed under your analysis vs what's part of the state space.
- danbruc 8y ago
  Energy is not conserved in general relativity in the general case due to the expansion of the universe.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Physicists have already shown that Time symmetry isn't absolute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArprk0q9eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArprk0q9eE We already know that conservation of energy isn't absolute. It is, however, a very powerful analysis tool, just as Euclidian geometry is a very powerful powerful analysis tool. It's very accurate on certain scales, however, that's not how the universe works if you look closely enough.
AnimalMuppet 8y ago
> As far as we know, conservation laws are not baked into reality. I think that's going too far. As far as we know, the symmetries could be baked into reality. And, via Noether's Theorem, so therefore are the conservation laws.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  > I think that's going too far. As far as we know, the symmetries could be baked into reality. Are you aware that the symmetries have been falling and that physicists been retreating? First, parity symmetry fell in 1956, resulting in a retreat to CP symmetry, which also fell. Now we're to CPT symmetry, which implies that there is no time symmetry, which in turn has been verified by physicists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArprk0q9eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArprk0q9eE
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    Well, it implies that charge symmetry, parity symmetry, and time-reversal symmetry are different aspects of the same thing. I'm not sure that's quite "falling", though.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      You just admitted that charge symmetry, parity symmetry, and time-reversal symmetry are incomplete. I'm quite sure that the old mental models which held those to be absolute did "fall."
      - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        You seem to want to play "gotcha" games with my wording. I admitted far less than you seem to want to make my words say. And if you're going to try to manipulate what I said to make it fit the axe you're trying to grind, then I'm done talking to you.
        stcredzero 8y ago
tzs 8y ago
Sean Carroll has an interesting article on this: "Energy Is Not Conserved": http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/02/22/energy-is-not-conserved/ http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/02/22/energy-i...
- manyoso 8y ago
  Completely unrelated to the original article which is just more multiverse bullocks of the stringy landscape variety. These scientists will die off and with it these articles.
- tobmlt 8y ago
  I went to exactly the same post on Carroll's blog in response to the parent comment as well! Quite relevant I thought, given the comments about conservation laws and the especially the mention of dark energy that followed. -I elected not to post up there as I am studying GR - and not so confident with it! Thanks for dropping it in.
s-shellfish 8y ago
The map is the territory for belief about belief though, sometimes, if people choose to agree. You can believe things about how people think and this can affect how people think. Sometimes precisely, such as in the case of a mental illness diagnosis a person may have been indoctrinated into believing is their identity, sometimes generally, chaotically, without direct transmission perfectly. I'd compare Machiavellian motivations here, belief about belief with the intent to control comes from the desire to control and rule through thinking, but the domination of thought/behavior of individuals through one's thoughts alone... people eventually become aware of intents, if there's always that imbalance. The problem often stems from assuming one has earned the right to dominate and another must do X,Y,Z to earn respect. Quite frankly, humans from birth to death and every point in between are equivalently autonomous and worthy of being able to think the way they want to, without having to do anything to have earned such a right. Thinking otherwise is a good example of being wrong and clever in a way that can be quite haunting. I think these kinds of validations get conflated with hard data. Often, it is a lot easier to just listen to people and let them believe what they want to. Gotta trust people to come to their own conclusions independently. In the age of machine learning, behavior shaping, I think a lot of this is quite topical.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  The map is the territory for belief about belief though, sometimes, if people choose to agree. Let's say I build a theme park in the form of a giant map of the world. I could then print a map to my theme park. Quite frankly, humans from birth to death and every point in between are equivalently autonomous and worthy of being able to think the way they want to, without having to do anything to have earned such a right. You can think any way you want to, and I will respect your right to think that way. I can respect that you think, but that doesn't mean I have to respect what you think.
  - s-shellfish 8y ago
    > You can think any way you want to, and I will respect your right to think that way. I can respect that you think, but that doesn't mean I have to respect what you think. That's totally fine, just in my personal experience, stuff like that has a funny way of coming back in thought. I find that no matter what words come out in reality, transmission through language, it never really tells you very much about how a person actually thinks. Kind of hard to know how another person thinks, because, that kind of seems like believing in telepathy. Let's say that the mere act of me saying what I 'think' causes my thinking to change, instantly, perfectly flipping to a perfectly opposite perspective. What's there to respect at that point?
kolpa 8y ago
What does "baked into reality" mean? We can never know more about reality than what we observe, and furthermore conservation laws are axiomatic -- conservation simply means that we are able to account for (almost) everything we observe, in a consistent way. When conservation is broken, we name a new form of energy, and (so far), we find that it can by accounted in a consistent, predictable way. (Dark matter is an unsolved problem. Knowledge is incomplete. That doesn't mean conservation is false.) When it comes to fundamental science, a consistent map is the territory. "Map is not the territory" applies to simplifications that omit detail. I don't see people trying to be "clever".
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- stcredzero 8y ago
  What does "baked into reality" mean? We can never know more about reality than what we observe, and furthermore conservation laws are axiomatic -- conservation simply means that we are able to account for (almost) everything we observe, in a consistent way. You said it right there. "Almost." We keep on prying and doing experiments, and we can't find any exception. If we've tried hard enough for long enough, we can start to conclude that we're probably getting close to reality. If we pry and we find it's "almost" then we know it's not baked into reality. When conservation is broken, we name a new form of energy, and (so far), we find that it can by accounted in a consistent, predictable way. (Dark matter is an unsolved problem. [Citation Needed] Yes, we still don't know what Dark Matter is, but do you understand that dark energy is not dark matter, and the current model for dark energy involves space expanding and more dark energy appearing due to the space expanding? Citing dark energy is tantamount to admitting that conservation of energy isn't universal. When it comes to fundamental science, a consistent map is the territory. Arrgh. You're getting your pointers mixed up here. A context where science is the territory would be the study of Science, as in the philosophy of science. When it comes to fundamental reality, Science is the map and fundamental reality is the territory.
  - kolpa 8y ago
    Sorry, I should have said we don't understand dark energy yet. In what sense does "fundamental reality" exist?
alexbeloi 8y ago
There may as well be no territory, the only thing relevant is the map and how it reacts to probing.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  the only thing relevant is the map and how it reacts to probing Sounds like Postmodernism to me. If you think it's not, then let me point out that you can just substitute "text" for "map" and you're pretty much there. There must be something underlying the maps, because so many of those maps have turned out to be wildly wrong, completely barking up the wrong tree. It's not even that they didn't answer the questions correctly -- they were so wrong, they were asking nonsense questions in the first place. There is a nice little allegory by Raymond Smullyan, where some ancient philosophers are debating what keeps the world from "falling down." I think it's in "5000 BC," and is the story by that name. https://www.amazon.ca/5000-B-C-Other-Philosophical-Fantasies/dp/0312295170 https://www.amazon.ca/5000-B-C-Other-Philosophical-Fantasies...
  - kolpa 8y ago
    Scientific maps are wrong when they are shown to be inconsistent or incomplete. Of course people can make mistakes.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      I was responding to, "There may as well be no territory, the only thing relevant is the map and how it reacts to probing." If there are only maps, then when map A is wrong, I can just make my own map B for which map A is a good map. In that case, no map is falsifiable, and all maps are equally valid. It's Postmodernism!

thanatropism 8y ago

It's hard to make time symmetry (and thus conservation of energy) "disappear", though.

myWindoonn 8y ago
There probably isn't a plain time symmetry, but maybe there is CPT symmetry. Lucky 10000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPT_symmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPT_symmetry
- wnoise 8y ago
  He's talking about time-translation symmetry, not time-reversal symmetry, which is the T in CPT.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Good point!
  - tobmlt 8y ago
    A quick check makes me think that one has fallen quite recently(?): https://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.2539v2.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.2539v2.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_translation_symmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_translation_symmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal Edit: Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/52has4/what_is_timetranslation_symmetry_and_how_do/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/52has4/what_is_... https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.08001v4.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.08001v4.pdf Periodic, discrete symmetry holds, continuous is toast. Interesting.. Maybe there should be a rule of thumb (XKCD?) that says for any intuition one may hold, some researcher somewhere is, at ``this'' moment (in some measuring system) constructing a contrived situation that will break it via some contrivance that is strange in inverse proportion to the homeliness of the intuition? ....And some talky-site-poster (me in this case) is preparing to make it yak about it?
    - wnoise 8y ago
      These don't break fundamental time translation symmetry, anymore than regular crystals break fundamental space translation symmetry (which is equivalent to conservation of momentum). The fundamental versions of these symmetries are that the laws of physics are unchanged under such changes. These are merely systems such that the system itself lacks such a symmetry. This will indeed allow a change in the "effective" laws of physics (like electrons having different effective mass in metals or semiconductors than in free space, and quantized momenta), and give something interacting with the system the illusion that energy or momentum is not conserved. But this is only an illusion: momentum and energy of something interacting with the system are exchanged with the system. This shouldn't be mysterious though -- a time changing potential already didn't preserve the energy of what it's interacting with, and a crystal can absorb momentum as a whole without any local disturbances that could be seen by a particle in it (e.g. Mossbauer effect). But the upshot is that what counts as a symmetry depends on what's fixed under your analysis vs what's part of the state space.
danbruc 8y ago
Energy is not conserved in general relativity in the general case due to the expansion of the universe.
stcredzero 8y ago
Physicists have already shown that Time symmetry isn't absolute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArprk0q9eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArprk0q9eE We already know that conservation of energy isn't absolute. It is, however, a very powerful analysis tool, just as Euclidian geometry is a very powerful powerful analysis tool. It's very accurate on certain scales, however, that's not how the universe works if you look closely enough.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

> As far as we know, conservation laws are not baked into reality. I think that's going too far. As far as we know, the symmetries could be baked into reality. And, via Noether's Theorem, so therefore are the conservation laws.

stcredzero 8y ago
> I think that's going too far. As far as we know, the symmetries could be baked into reality. Are you aware that the symmetries have been falling and that physicists been retreating? First, parity symmetry fell in 1956, resulting in a retreat to CP symmetry, which also fell. Now we're to CPT symmetry, which implies that there is no time symmetry, which in turn has been verified by physicists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArprk0q9eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArprk0q9eE
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  Well, it implies that charge symmetry, parity symmetry, and time-reversal symmetry are different aspects of the same thing. I'm not sure that's quite "falling", though.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    You just admitted that charge symmetry, parity symmetry, and time-reversal symmetry are incomplete. I'm quite sure that the old mental models which held those to be absolute did "fall."
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      You seem to want to play "gotcha" games with my wording. I admitted far less than you seem to want to make my words say. And if you're going to try to manipulate what I said to make it fit the axe you're trying to grind, then I'm done talking to you.
      - stcredzero 8y ago

tzs 8y ago

Sean Carroll has an interesting article on this: "Energy Is Not Conserved": http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/02/22/energy-is-not-conserved/ http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/02/22/energy-i...

manyoso 8y ago
Completely unrelated to the original article which is just more multiverse bullocks of the stringy landscape variety. These scientists will die off and with it these articles.
tobmlt 8y ago
I went to exactly the same post on Carroll's blog in response to the parent comment as well! Quite relevant I thought, given the comments about conservation laws and the especially the mention of dark energy that followed. -I elected not to post up there as I am studying GR - and not so confident with it! Thanks for dropping it in.

s-shellfish 8y ago

The map is the territory for belief about belief though, sometimes, if people choose to agree. You can believe things about how people think and this can affect how people think. Sometimes precisely, such as in the case of a mental illness diagnosis a person may have been indoctrinated into believing is their identity, sometimes generally, chaotically, without direct transmission perfectly. I'd compare Machiavellian motivations here, belief about belief with the intent to control comes from the desire to control and rule through thinking, but the domination of thought/behavior of individuals through one's thoughts alone... people eventually become aware of intents, if there's always that imbalance. The problem often stems from assuming one has earned the right to dominate and another must do X,Y,Z to earn respect. Quite frankly, humans from birth to death and every point in between are equivalently autonomous and worthy of being able to think the way they want to, without having to do anything to have earned such a right. Thinking otherwise is a good example of being wrong and clever in a way that can be quite haunting. I think these kinds of validations get conflated with hard data. Often, it is a lot easier to just listen to people and let them believe what they want to. Gotta trust people to come to their own conclusions independently. In the age of machine learning, behavior shaping, I think a lot of this is quite topical.

stcredzero 8y ago
The map is the territory for belief about belief though, sometimes, if people choose to agree. Let's say I build a theme park in the form of a giant map of the world. I could then print a map to my theme park. Quite frankly, humans from birth to death and every point in between are equivalently autonomous and worthy of being able to think the way they want to, without having to do anything to have earned such a right. You can think any way you want to, and I will respect your right to think that way. I can respect that you think, but that doesn't mean I have to respect what you think.
- s-shellfish 8y ago
  > You can think any way you want to, and I will respect your right to think that way. I can respect that you think, but that doesn't mean I have to respect what you think. That's totally fine, just in my personal experience, stuff like that has a funny way of coming back in thought. I find that no matter what words come out in reality, transmission through language, it never really tells you very much about how a person actually thinks. Kind of hard to know how another person thinks, because, that kind of seems like believing in telepathy. Let's say that the mere act of me saying what I 'think' causes my thinking to change, instantly, perfectly flipping to a perfectly opposite perspective. What's there to respect at that point?

kolpa 8y ago

What does "baked into reality" mean? We can never know more about reality than what we observe, and furthermore conservation laws are axiomatic -- conservation simply means that we are able to account for (almost) everything we observe, in a consistent way. When conservation is broken, we name a new form of energy, and (so far), we find that it can by accounted in a consistent, predictable way. (Dark matter is an unsolved problem. Knowledge is incomplete. That doesn't mean conservation is false.) When it comes to fundamental science, a consistent map is the territory. "Map is not the territory" applies to simplifications that omit detail. I don't see people trying to be "clever".

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
stcredzero 8y ago
What does "baked into reality" mean? We can never know more about reality than what we observe, and furthermore conservation laws are axiomatic -- conservation simply means that we are able to account for (almost) everything we observe, in a consistent way. You said it right there. "Almost." We keep on prying and doing experiments, and we can't find any exception. If we've tried hard enough for long enough, we can start to conclude that we're probably getting close to reality. If we pry and we find it's "almost" then we know it's not baked into reality. When conservation is broken, we name a new form of energy, and (so far), we find that it can by accounted in a consistent, predictable way. (Dark matter is an unsolved problem. [Citation Needed] Yes, we still don't know what Dark Matter is, but do you understand that dark energy is not dark matter, and the current model for dark energy involves space expanding and more dark energy appearing due to the space expanding? Citing dark energy is tantamount to admitting that conservation of energy isn't universal. When it comes to fundamental science, a consistent map is the territory. Arrgh. You're getting your pointers mixed up here. A context where science is the territory would be the study of Science, as in the philosophy of science. When it comes to fundamental reality, Science is the map and fundamental reality is the territory.
- kolpa 8y ago
  Sorry, I should have said we don't understand dark energy yet. In what sense does "fundamental reality" exist?

alexbeloi 8y ago

There may as well be no territory, the only thing relevant is the map and how it reacts to probing.

stcredzero 8y ago
the only thing relevant is the map and how it reacts to probing Sounds like Postmodernism to me. If you think it's not, then let me point out that you can just substitute "text" for "map" and you're pretty much there. There must be something underlying the maps, because so many of those maps have turned out to be wildly wrong, completely barking up the wrong tree. It's not even that they didn't answer the questions correctly -- they were so wrong, they were asking nonsense questions in the first place. There is a nice little allegory by Raymond Smullyan, where some ancient philosophers are debating what keeps the world from "falling down." I think it's in "5000 BC," and is the story by that name. https://www.amazon.ca/5000-B-C-Other-Philosophical-Fantasies/dp/0312295170 https://www.amazon.ca/5000-B-C-Other-Philosophical-Fantasies...
- kolpa 8y ago
  Scientific maps are wrong when they are shown to be inconsistent or incomplete. Of course people can make mistakes.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    I was responding to, "There may as well be no territory, the only thing relevant is the map and how it reacts to probing." If there are only maps, then when map A is wrong, I can just make my own map B for which map A is a good map. In that case, no map is falsifiable, and all maps are equally valid. It's Postmodernism!