A while back, there was a study that concluded that human children start out from the earliest age as empiricists. Well, no shit. How else does an entity like that survive. We have brains and senses, a nervous system, and no material language skills. Besides, one can't help but notice things and put stuff together. Some things move when manipulated, some don't and some move all by themselves, and somewhat consistently, too. Some things cause comfort, some cause discomfort and some cause pain, that warning that something is very wrong. We are already modeling our universe, and doing so empirically to boot. We can't help it, and that is good because it is the principal survival tool of our species.

We're familiar with models, mostly in the sense of scaled down simulcra of real world things and/or hypothetical/imaginary ones. There are toy cars, boats, planes and such, as well as dolls, doll houses (and furnishings) and the like widely advertised as toys. With them kids can act out and explore myriads of actual scenarios they are aware of and imaginary or hypothetical ones they dream up. Among these models are "scale models" which purport to be precisely accurate miniaturizations of real things. We'll take special note of these. There are also serious "adult" models, not uncle Henry's HO scale representation of the Wichita freight yards circa 1842, but serious stuff. These are those we use in understanding and exploring the world. We went from a geocentric model of the universe to a heliocentric one, later downgraded to a model of the solar system, from 4 "elements" to the periodic table and, THE STANDARD MODEL. Doesn't that name just say it all? If you don't know it, it is all quarks, leptons, muons, hadrons, photons, electrons and suchwhat. Imperfect and temporary, but lacking any empirically sound proposed revisions. We use models to portray, study and analyze everything from storms to ecosystems over time, and to make projections and predictions.

So, MAPS. We're all hip to maps, world maps, state maps, road maps, the map your friend drew of how to get to the great still undiscovered new cafe, etc. All nouns, in one sense, simply two dimensional models, models of routes and obstacles. But MAP is also a verb. There is the trivial case of mapping as part or all of map making, but there is another more important usage. A map or mapping creates or notes a correspondence or group of correspondences between items in groups: "an operation that associates each element of a given set (the domain) with one or more elements of a second set (the range)". We have a set of 3 numerals 1,2, and 3 and a set of 3 letters, a, b, and c. For each numeral, a letter, and vice-versa.We can map each number onto a corresponding letter (5 different ways, no less, but that isn't the point). Such a mapping creates a one-to-one correspondence between the items in the two sets, a one-to-one mapping. One can also have one-to-many, many-to-one and many-to many mappings, but again, not the point here. Note the terms domain and range, if we place the members of both sets as coordinates on perpendicular axes, we get and mark the mapping between them as points we get ye olde familiar "graph", a very helpful visualization tool.

Remember "scale models"? The utility of a model for understanding, analyzing, predicting or explaining lies in the accuracy with which it corresponds to reality. A map's utility for finding one's way to a new dentist's office lies in the degree to which it is an accurate representation of "reality". A good map should map on that which it maps. There should be a one to one correspondence between the intersections on the map and those on the actual streets. Ideally, there should be a one to one correspondence between all points on the map and on the streets, in order that the proportionality of the real roads is reflected in the map. You do not want to use some illustrated chamber of commerce map with the tiny "not to scale" imprint because too often the 5 block trip down the next side street to the grocery is seven miles, with one such "block" being 5 miles of undeveloped land where the chamber isn't interested in pushing anything. Maps, models, same same, they must accurately reflect reality to be useful. Within reason.

THE STANDARD MODEL has become an ever increasingly accurate predictor and portrayal of "Reality" experimental results. Uh oh, what happened to "reality"? Climbing up the ladder of history, child to adult to culture, success and progress has largely relied upon having models derived empirically. We use and have used observation and experimentation to build them. (True, there are non-empirical models, but they haven't advanced the store of knowledge and understanding much, if any at all, except where they have allowed empirical information and modeling to intrude.) Is there a "reality" outside of and beyond our models? Perhaps, in fact, almost certainly. Is there a "reality" outside of and beyond any possible reach of our experience and experiments? Who gives a shit. That's right, it is a non-question.

Das Ding an Sich: "the thing-in-itself as opposed" to the phenomenon (that poor pitiful thing that we sense and percieve); a form of noumenon - an object or event that exists independently of our senses or perception. Back in the dank and dark interior of Plato's sorry-assed cave, these were ideas/ideals and forms. They not only cannot be sensed, but also cannot be proven or disproven except by pure ratiocination. Throughout history folks have sought the eternal, unchanging, perfect, immutable whatever that surely (surely?) must underlie all of this. Insecurity, thy name is humankind. Contrariwise, some have deemed even so much as the language relating to noumena as nonsense. Back in college, a buddy and I independently and simultaneously began arguing from relevance. Occam's razor should put an end to Platonic Forms, Das Ding an Sich and all that, but does't ever seem to do so. Enter the butcher knife of relevance. I am a phenonemon and I inhabit a phenomenal world. By definition I cannot at all interact with noumena in any way, even with the finest of imaginable tools. They are walled off from this universe. It is also definitionaly impossible for them to interact with this universe or any element in it. They can neither help nor harm us nor influence our lives in any way. Who then cares if they exist or not. Fuck all that.

As an aside, and furthermore, for what it is worth.We make and rely upon maps and models based on empirical evidence, observations and understandings. Noumena by definition, cannot enter into any empirical system. If they exist, irrelevant as they may be, that is for the non-empiricists to add to the rest of their baggage. While it may be argued that some such may be sensed in some purely cerebral zing unmediated by any of the known and suspected senses, empiricism as I have argued elsewhere, relies upon empirical evidence, and evidence must be replicable. (https://caucus99percent.com/content/separate-reality-kossack-way-knowled... ; original: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2011/1/25/938809/- )

So there we go compadres. Just a little food for thought, too much perhaps. This is, after all, an open thread and I am hogging the mic, so I'll cut out and leave it up to you.

Except: I have this affliction. Words, phrases, numbers, anything under the sun trigger songs, titles, snippets of lyrics or rhythms or even melodies. Hey, it's the 19th, but I just said hey and 19 in a sentence, so you don't get Hey Nineteen", lucky you.

I won't be here when this posts, and don't know when or if I'll be able to drop by, so ....

The thread is open and the floor is yours. Whazzup?

((Image from page 678 of "Transactions and proceedings and report of the Philosophical Society of Adelaide, South Australia" (1878)))