Map and Territory

Making sense of reality

G Gordon Worley III in Map and Territory

Jan 4, 2022

The Map-Territory Distinction Creates Confusion

LessWrong isn’t exactly founded on the map-territory model of truth, but it’s definitely pretty core to the LessWrong worldview. The map-territory model implies a correspondence theory of truth. But I’d like to convince you that the map-territory…

G Gordon Worley III in Map and Territory

Oct 30, 2021

Why the Problem of the Criterion Matters

I think the problem of the criterion is really, really important. So important that I’m willing to risk annoying people by bringing it up all the time. I think it matters because a failure to grok it is at the heart of why we fail to notice we’re confused and…

G Gordon Worley III in Map and Territory

Apr 16, 2021

Forcing yourself to keep your identity small is self-harm

The title lays out my thesis in perhaps the maximally provocative way: if you put direct effort into keeping your identity small (à la Graham), you are doing harm to yourself akin to the kind of harm you do to yourself by…

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G Gordon Worley III in Map and Territory

Jan 21, 2021

The Problem of the Criterion

I keep finding cause to discuss the problem of the criterion, so I figured I’d try my hand at writing up a…

G Gordon Worley III in Map and Territory

Jan 4, 2021

You are Dissociating (probably)

You are probably dissociating all the time and don’t realize it. Let’s look at just what I mean by this bold claim.

Disclaimer: I’m not a medical professional, and although I’m talking about “dissociation” here I definitely don’t mean to give…

G Gordon Worley III in Map and Territory

Dec 30, 2020

A Model of Ontological Development

In this post I present a model of human psychological development based on increases in the structural complexity of ontology. Or more simply, it’s a model about how human minds grow in terms of how complex their models of the world are. It breaks down development into…

G Gordon Worley III in Map and Territory

Aug 7, 2020

Let Your Mind Be Not Fixed

When I was a teenager, I knew my mind was not like adults.

G Gordon Worley III in Map and Territory

Jan 2, 2020

Normalization of Deviance

An important, ongoing part of the rationalist project is to build richer mental models for understanding the world. To that end I’d like to briefly share part of my model of the world that seems to be outside the rationalist cannon in an explicit way, but which I think is known well…

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G Gordon Worley III in Map and Territory

Nov 20, 2019