The Model Isn't the Territory, Either
Douglas Rushkoff,
Medium,
Jul 17, 2024
In 1985 I filled more than 300 page of my Masters thesis Models and Modality arguing much the same point as is raised here: the model isn't the reality. It got tricky because back then (and still, I think) modal semantics were based in possible world semantical models, and these possible worlds were (according to some philosophers) real. Anyhow, Douglas Rushkoff is making the same case here, first with respect to fractals, and then with respect to AI, in about 1/100th of the space. And he takes it a step further: perhaps these new models can help remind us that the models we create in society - everything from money to traffic to property - are not real. They're things we create, arbitrarily. And "we can't fight over these created models and histories anymore. They cannot be resolved. They are not real. They are models. Games. Rhetoric. Approximations. They are figures, and never ground." P.S. I learned later that Laozi made much the same case about power, culture and virtue; and if we want, we could add Nietzsche to the mix.
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