> For example, your internal spatial model is limited to some degree of accuracy and does not include the entire surface of Mars, but that doesn't mean that your model does not exist at all.
You're using "your model" as a metaphorical term here, but if you came up with any precise definition of the term here, it'd turn out to be wrong; people have tried this since the 50s and never gotten it correct. (For instance, is it actually a singular "a model" or is it different disconnected things you're using a single name for?)
- You may not have observed something in the room in the right way for the action you need to do later.
- You might have observed it in a way you don't need later, which is a waste of time and energy.
- It might change while you're not looking.
- You might just forget it. (Since people do this, this must be an adaptive behavior - "natural selection" - but it's not a good thing in a model.)
> Why would you think any model has to be a perfect exact 1:1 representation of the entire universe?
What principle can you use to decide how precise it should be? (You can't do this; there isn't one.)
> The model of reality in your head is a simplification that serves a purpose.
Not only does it serve a purpose, your observations largely don't exist until you have a purpose for them.
RL agents tend to get stuck investigating irrelevant things when they try to maintain models; humans are built to actively avoid this with attention and boredom. Robot cameras take in their entire visual field and try to interpret it; humans both consciously and unconsciously actively investigate the environment as needed alongside deciding what to do. (Your vision is mostly fake; your eyes are rapidly moving around to update it only after you unconsciously pay attention to something.)
> Natural selection weeds out that kind of behaviour.
Not that well since something like half of Americans are myopic…
> What principle can you use to decide how precise it should be?
It is not up to me or anyone else to decide. Our subjective definitions and concepts of the model are irrelevant. How the brain works is a result of our genetic structure. We don't have a choice.
All of this was in response to your comment earlier:
"There is no such thing as a world model, and you don't have one of them."
There is such a thing as a world model in humans, and we all have them otherwise we could not think about or conceptualize or navigate the world. Then you have discussed how to define or construct a useful model or the limitations of a model but that is not relevant to the original point and I'm already aware of that.
You're using "your model" as a metaphorical term here, but if you came up with any precise definition of the term here, it'd turn out to be wrong; people have tried this since the 50s and never gotten it correct. (For instance, is it actually a singular "a model" or is it different disconnected things you're using a single name for?)
See Phil Agre (1997) on exactly this idea: https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/critical.html
David Chapman (more general and current): https://metarationality.com/rationalism
and this guy was saying it in the 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Dreyfus#Dreyfus'_critic...
> limited to some degree of accuracy
This isn't the only issue:
- You may not have observed something in the room in the right way for the action you need to do later.
- You might have observed it in a way you don't need later, which is a waste of time and energy.
- It might change while you're not looking.
- You might just forget it. (Since people do this, this must be an adaptive behavior - "natural selection" - but it's not a good thing in a model.)
> Why would you think any model has to be a perfect exact 1:1 representation of the entire universe?
What principle can you use to decide how precise it should be? (You can't do this; there isn't one.)
> The model of reality in your head is a simplification that serves a purpose.
Not only does it serve a purpose, your observations largely don't exist until you have a purpose for them.
RL agents tend to get stuck investigating irrelevant things when they try to maintain models; humans are built to actively avoid this with attention and boredom. Robot cameras take in their entire visual field and try to interpret it; humans both consciously and unconsciously actively investigate the environment as needed alongside deciding what to do. (Your vision is mostly fake; your eyes are rapidly moving around to update it only after you unconsciously pay attention to something.)
> Natural selection weeds out that kind of behaviour.
Not that well since something like half of Americans are myopic…