the map will never be the territory, for a host of reasons e.g. — Olivier5

Yes and your point no. 1 is great but then you get carried away, and no. 5 is silliness you probably didn't mean, like

If you were to make a truly complete map or model of something, you could not help but replicate its function, and so build a replica, a simulation.
— Pfhorrest — bongo fury

Richard discovered that he couldn't see red, but he had been seeing red all his life. — unenlightened

If he couldn’t see red he can’t have been seeing red all his life. So idk what you mean here.

I would say “Richard discovered that he couldn’t distinguish red, but he had been having certain experiences ( Y) which he described by using the word ‘red’ all his life”.

So when you line up 2 green objects and a red one, you would have experienced ZZL but Richard would have experiences YYY. To Richard, there is no difference between the 3 objects (I’m assuming he’s red green colorblind) and he would call all of them red. Or all of them green. Depends on what he’s been saying upon having Y up to this point.

As to what Y is, I have no clue. Nothing to contrast it with. Can’t talk about it. Same with Z and L.

Memory is not looking at experiences, because one can remember in the dark. I remember the last time I was in the chip shop, the smell of hot fat and vinegar, the soft shine of the stainless steel counter and the bubbly battered fish hot under the lights. But I am looking at the words appearing on the computer screen and smelling the clean washing just out from the dryer. — unenlightened

I said "look at them with our minds". Obviously I wasn't talking about looking at them with your eyes. And the point was that when we recall memories we are looking at things with our minds.

Of course you can continue to deny that it's possible to look at something with one's mind, and therefore deny that there's anything being looked at with the mind, but I don't see the point in such a denial. Philosophy is an attempt to understand these things which we look at with our minds, so denial that they even exist is a step in the wrong direction, a mistake.

we must know something of the territory in order to determine that some maps are more accurate than others. — Janus

Agreed.

The question is how do we know anything of the territory if not through maps (models or representations or whatever you want to call them)? — Janus

There’s no map of my house, but I know the territory pretty well. Could we say experience is the same as models, representations or whatever you want to call them? Hope so, because otherwise it’d be pretty hard to explain how Lewis and Clark came back with a map, but they didn’t leave with one.

Mustn’t my experience of red (as a non-colourblind person) and your friend’s experience of red be different, just as they would be different if your friend was blind and unable to see? — Luke

Richard cannot distinguish red from green.You can, we assume. I don't know what you want to say about Richard's experience or about yours. I suggest that as a matter of fact, Richard has no experience of red, but only the illusion that he experiences red. Or to put it another way, his experience of red is socially constructed. In the light (haha) of this, I for my part start to wonder about experience altogether.

I experience, I call it the world; I don't call it having an experience.

I experience, I call it the world; I don't call it having an experience. — unenlightened

So, you experience but you don’t have experiences. I don’t understand the distinction.

Your experience is the world, or is of the world?

If you were to make a truly complete map or model of something, you could not help but replicate its function, and so build a replica, a simulation. — bongo fury

But since the territory has a simulation in it, the simulation will have to have a fully functional simulation in it and then *eyes start to spin around like pinwheels*

I don't need a map unless I'm lost. Like if I were to drive through a town in Ohio where every street looks exactly like every other street, I would look for signs. "I see a street sign" is a subjective account. What happens next is magical because I use the sign to see where I am on a mental map I keep with me at all time while driving in Ohio.

That map is an objective view. So far there is no need to explain this with any interaction between humans.

Or is there?

So let's split up physical differences into two types, structural, and content-determining. — khaled

I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying now, thanks. It seems an odd theory, but valid. I just disagree about one point, but I think it's more a matter of personal judgement than logic or empirical fact

There is just as much reason to assume they are the same as to assume they are different. The model doesn't become any more or any less complex by assuming either. — khaled

I maintain that creating subdivision where there need be none, creating alternate options where one would suffice - that is making a model more complex. We could say that we each have X and nothing about the world we experience would be less well explained by that. You add that it could be X or Y you create an unnecessary bifurcation. Additional bifurcations is pretty much the definition of complexity, I'd be interested in how you're defining model complexity in such a way as neither decision points nor number of variables contribute to complexity.

Maybe intersubjectivity also requires an element of understanding rather than mere expression (or sharing). — Luke

Then wouldn't that be problematic for the idea that such feelings are intrinsically private?

the map will never be the territory, for a host of reasons e.g.
— Olivier5

Yes and your point no. 1 is great but then you get carried away, and no. 5 is silliness you probably didn't mean, like — bongo fury

Point 5 is simply that a map with everything to know about the territory on it (an exhaustive map) would be impossibly bulky. For instance, the individual atoms composing any territory are part of it and thus the map would need to map each and every atom of the territory if it was to be exhaustive. But to do so, to map all the atoms in a given place, and to print that map on paper (itself composed of atoms), each territory atom would need to be mapped on a piece of paper composed of several atoms. Therefore the map would be LARGER than the territory. e.g. you would need one square meter of map to describe one square milimeter of reality.

That map is an objective view. So far there is no need to explain this with any interaction between humans. — frank

The map may not necessarily be objective. The "map" here being a metaphor for any representation, model or picture, including mental maps, which I guess are just maps written down on grey matter.

The phrase "the map is not the territory" implies that any representation of anything is but a gross simplification of it. Reality is far too rich and complex for us to be able to describe it exhaustively. So when we represent something, we always only represent an aspect of it, with a certain (limited) precision level.

The quantity of information necessary to "see the world as it is" would be infinite. It is therefore impossible to see the world as it is: there's just too much to see.

We could say that we each have X and nothing about the world we experience would be less well explained by that. You add that it could be X or Y you create an unnecessary bifurcation. Additional bifurcations is pretty much the definition of complexity — Isaac

Fair enough. Maybe it is more complex. But definitely more intuitive and less confusing. Because we can picture having different Xs and Ys. I can imagine having different "flavors" of experience (same structure different content). Idk why I would choose a model that suggests that that cannot be done. When it can be. And I definitely find that less confusing than unenlightened and Banno's "Xs and Ys don't exist". Your model of "Only X exists, there can be no alternative called Y" is just unsupported, although simpler and adequate for explanation.

I like m'Qualia.

And regardless of more complex or not, the variable being introduced is unimportant for any scientist. The flavors of experience don't matter, nor can we investigate what causes them, nor can we even know if they're being caused or not. So regardless, neurologists will continue on their merry way whichever model is adopted.

The quantity of information necessary to "see the world as it is" would be infinite. — Olivier5

Likewise any object.

The notion of the structure of a work [or any object] is as specious as the notion of the structure of the world. A work, like the world, has as many different structures as there are ways of organising it, of subsuming it under categorical schemata dependent upon some or other structural affinities with and differences from other works. — Goodman, Problems and Projects

Maybe intersubjectivity also requires an element of understanding rather than mere expression (or sharing).
— Luke

Then wouldn't that be problematic for the idea that such feelings are intrinsically private? — Isaac

Feelings are intrinsically private and unshareable only in the sense that I can't have yours and you can't have mine. But feelings are also non-intrinsically private and shareable in the sense that they can be expressed via language, body language, or otherwise. Intersubjectivity deals only with the latter.

Of course you can continue to deny that it's possible to look at something with one's mind — Metaphysician Undercover

And I will. Do the test linked above, and find out how well you can hold a simple image in your mind for a few seconds. I cannot do it very well at all, and have to try and remember structures of symmetry and asymmetry. Eidetic memory is very very rare.

Your experience is the world, or is of the world? — Luke

I don't understand the distinction. I don't imagine I experience the whole world all at once, if that's what you mean.

Your experience is the world, or is of the world?
— Luke

I don't understand the distinction. I don't imagine I experience the whole world all at once, if that's what you mean. — unenlightened

It didn't make much sense to me either, but I was trying to make sense of this:

I experience, I call it the world; I don't call it having an experience. — unenlightened

You call your experience the world? Are you a solipsist, then?

Likewise any object. — bongo fury

Evidently. Literature presents a few cases of authors who tried to exhaust or at least give some justice to the infinite richness of a specific part of reality (often very 'small'). Robbe-Grillet wrote a full page about a tomato slice. Most famously, the manuscript of the first tome of In Search for Lost Time was rejected by three or four Parisian editors, essentially because, as the Ollendorff edition house wrote back to Proust: «Je ne puis comprendre qu'un monsieur puisse employer trente pages à décrire comment il se tourne et se retourne dans son lit avant de trouver le sommeil.»

Proust was trying to describe, in his introduction to the novel, how it felt to become asleep at night in one's bed, to progressively abandon oneself to sleep. He needed thirty pages for that exploration of a topic he would come back several times later in the novel. He ended up paying for the publication of his novel, which got some critical traction as well as much spite, enough "buzz" to find an editor.

Proust knew of course that reality was inexhaustible, infinitely rich. Hence the role of the artist, which is to explore and share his original, personal, creative but true view of it.

And I will. Do the test linked above, and find out how well you can hold a simple image in your mind for a few seconds. — unenlightened

Looking at something with the mind does not mean to hold an image of it, it means to think about it. There are many different ways of thinking about things, such as establishing associations and relationships. This is how language facilitates thinking, by replacing the image with a symbol. Then the mind can make associations between symbols (words or numbers) without the difficult task of holding visual images. Now we're not only talking about visual images, but aural images, as well. I'm sure you have the capacity to bring these aural images of words into your mind, from memory. And while you're looking at these aural images, consider how easy it is to hold the visual images of numerals and other mathematical symbols in your mind.

The map may not necessarily be objective. The "map" here being a metaphor for any representation, model or picture, including mental maps, which I guess are just maps written down on grey matter. — Olivier5

Ok. It's just that real maps really are objective accounts.

Ok. It's just that real maps really are objective accounts. — frank

Ok. I'm just worried about giving the impression I'm talking literally of real geographical maps. Rather I am speaking of any representation, geographic or not.

This clarification made, real cartographers try to be objective, that's true, but they are only human and they do display biases. Cartographers also work for states, princes, governments, who have strong political and other interests. These interests are often displayed on maps, eg through toponymy (the name of places). In territories that are disputed by several cultures or ethnicities (Palestine, Balkans etc etc), naming a village or a mountain on a map in one language rather than the other is to symbolically appropriate the place. To shape the intersubjective view of the territory.

During the European colonization of Africa, to map a place was often enough to claim it as yours. E.g. during the early 20th century, the Italians produced inaccurate maps of the Horn of Africa, showing as theirs places they never had control of. These maps then gave them a diplomatic advantage in their disputes with the Ethiopian Negus, who had no cartographer and could not prove those claims wrong. This is why the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea is disputed to this day, and it has led to several wars.

This is why the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea is disputed to this day, and it has led to several wars. — Olivier5

That's interesting. It highlights the existentialist point that the objective narrative is not necessarily closer to the truth. It's apt to be further away. The only thing you know for sure is what it feels like to be alive and feel what you feel. As soon as you place yourself in an environment (locate your self on a map), you're off to the realm of objectivity.

The quantity of information necessary to "see the world as it is" would be infinite. It is therefore impossible to see the world as it is: there's just too much to see. — Olivier5

The quantity of information necessary to "say" the world as it is might be infinite; one could not put it into words. But saying we don't see the world as it is isn't right, either. We do see things as they are - the sugar in the bowl, the tree in the garden. Sure, we don't see it all, but we do see enough to get by.

We might do well to avoid this trap: inventing a distinction between the thing-in-itself and the thing-as-experienced, only to find that we cannot say anything about the thing-in-itself; and thinking we have found some profound truth when all we have done is played a word game. We can say true statements about how things are, not just about our experiences of them.

Yeah... omniscience is not required for knowledge. We need not know everything in order to know some things. Just because we do not see everything as it is does not mean that we cannot see anything as it is.

Agree, but beware also the profundity of "as it is":

"To make a faithful picture, come as close as possible to copying the object just as it is". This simple-minded injunction baffles me; for the object before me is a man, a swarm of atoms, a complex of cells, a fiddler, a friend, a fool and much more. If none of these constitute the object as it is, what else might? If all are ways the object is, then none is the way the object is. — Nelson Goodman: Languages of Art

If all are ways the object is, then none is the way the object is. — Nelson Goodman: Languages of Art

That brings us back around to the intersubjective reality:. for a long time, lines of perspective were a requirement for the production of realistic landscapes. There are many artists who still think that way. But that's not how the world really looks.

But that's not how the world really looks. — frank

It's not even the way the world (or even a manageable portion of it) looks from a particular perspective (e.g. the lens of a security camera). It's just a symbol that refers to that portion (and others such as its own) according to well-established rules.

If all are ways the object is, then none is the way the object is. — Nelson Goodman: Languages of Art

All of them and more compose what must be a unique reality, with many different facets.

. It's just a symbol that refers to that portion (and others such as its own) according to well-established rules. — bongo fury

Exactly.