Map–territory relation
Encyclopedia
The map–territory relation describes the relationship between an object and a representation of that object
, as in the relation between a geographical territory and a map
of it. Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski
remarked that "the map is not the territory," encapsulating his view that an abstraction
derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself. Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with territories, i.e. confuse models of reality with reality itself.
, in "Form, Substance and Difference," from Steps to an Ecology of Mind
(1972), elucidates the essential impossibility of knowing what the territory is, as any understanding of it is based on some representation:
Elsewhere in that same volume, Bateson points out that the usefulness of a map (a representation of reality) is not necessarily a matter of its literal truthfulness, but its having a structure
analogous, for the purpose at hand, to the territory. Bateson argues this case at some length in the essay "The Theology of Alcoholics Anonymous
".
To paraphrase Bateson's argument, a culture that believes that common colds are transmitted by evil spirits, that those spirits fly out of you when you sneeze, can pass from one person to another when they are inhaled or when both handle the same objects, etc., could have just as effective a "map" for public health as one that substituted microbes for spirits.
Another basic quandary is the problem of accuracy. In "On Exactitude in Science
", Jorge Luis Borges
describes the tragic uselessness of the perfectly accurate, one-to-one map:
A more extreme literary example, the fictional diary of Tristram Shandy is so detailed that it takes the author one year to set down the events of a single day – because the map (diary) is more detailed than the territory (life), yet must fit into the territory (diary written in the course of his life), it can never be finished. Such tasks are referred to as supertask
s.
With this apocryphal quotation of Josiah Royce, Borges describes a further conundrum of when the map is contained within the territory, you are led into infinite regress
:
Neil Gaiman
retells the parable in reference to storytelling
in Fragile Things
(it was originally to appear in American Gods
):
The development of electronic media blurs the line between map and territory by allowing for the simulation
of ideas as encoded in electronic signals, as Baudrillard argues in Simulacra and Simulation
(1994, p. 1):
Philosopher David Schmidtz
draws on this distinction in his book "Elements of Justice," apparently deriving it from Wittgenstein's private language argument
.
The fundamental trade-off between accuracy and usability of a map, particularly in the context of modelling, is known as Bonini's paradox
, and has been stated in various forms, poetically by Paul Valéry
: "Everything simple is false. Everything which is complex is unusable."
gave at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1931:
Korzybski's dictum "the map is not the territory" is also cited as an underlying principle used in neuro-linguistic programming
, where it is used to signify that individual people in fact do not in general have access to absolute knowledge of reality, but in fact only have access to a set of beliefs they have built up over time, about reality. So it is considered important to be aware that people's beliefs about reality and their awareness of things (the "map") are not reality itself or everything they could be aware of ("the territory"). The originators of NLP
have been explicit that they owe this insight to General semantics
.
The Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte
illustrated the concept of "perception always intercedes between reality and ourselves" in a number of paintings including a famous work entitled The Treachery of Images
, which consists of a drawing of a pipe with the caption, Ceci n'est pas une pipe ("This is not a pipe").
This concept occurs in the discussion of exoteric and esoteric religion
s. Exoteric concepts are concepts which can be fully conveyed using descriptor
s and language
constructs, such as mathematics
. Esoteric concepts are concepts which cannot be fully conveyed except by direct experience. For example, a person who has never tasted an apple
will never fully understand through language what the taste of an apple is. Only through direct experience (eating an apple) can that experience be fully understood.
Lewis Carroll
, in Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), made the point humorously with his description of a fictional map that had "the scale of a mile to the mile." A character notes some practical difficulties with such a map and states that "we now use the country
itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well."
The University of Cambridge
economist Joan Robinson
(1962) emphasized the disutility of 1:1 maps and other overly detailed models: "A model which took account of all the variegation of reality would be of no more use than a map at the scale of one to one."
Korzybski's argument about the map and the territory also influenced the Belgian surrealist writer of comics Jan Bucquoy
for a storyline in his comic Labyrinthe: a map can never guarantee that one will find the way out, because the accumulation of events can change the way one looks at reality.
Historian of religions J. Z. Smith
wrote a book entitled Map is not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions (1978, University Of Chicago Press
1993 paperback: ISBN 0-226-76357-9).
Author Robert M. Pirsig
uses the idea both theoretically and literally in his book Lila
when the main character/author becomes temporarily lost due to an over reliance on a map, rather than the territory that the map describes.
In 2010, French author Michel Houellebecq
published his novel, La Carte et le Territoire, translated into English as The Map and the Territory. The title was a reference to Alfred Korzybski's aphorism. The novel was awarded the French literary prize, the Prix Goncourt
.
Object (philosophy)
An object in philosophy is a technical term often used in contrast to the term subject. Consciousness is a state of cognition that includes the subject, which can never be doubted as only it can be the one who doubts, and some object or objects that may or may not have real existence without...
, as in the relation between a geographical territory and a map
Map
A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....
of it. Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski
Alfred Korzybski
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered for developing the theory of general semantics...
remarked that "the map is not the territory," encapsulating his view that an abstraction
Abstraction
Abstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....
derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself. Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with territories, i.e. confuse models of reality with reality itself.
Relationship
Gregory BatesonGregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
, in "Form, Substance and Difference," from Steps to an Ecology of Mind
Steps to an Ecology of Mind
Steps to an Ecology of Mind is a collection of Gregory Bateson's short works over his long and varied career. Subject matter includes essays on anthropology, cybernetics, psychiatry and epistemology. It was originally published by Chandler Publishing Company in 1972...
(1972), elucidates the essential impossibility of knowing what the territory is, as any understanding of it is based on some representation:
Elsewhere in that same volume, Bateson points out that the usefulness of a map (a representation of reality) is not necessarily a matter of its literal truthfulness, but its having a structure
Structure
Structure is a fundamental, tangible or intangible notion referring to the recognition, observation, nature, and permanence of patterns and relationships of entities. This notion may itself be an object, such as a built structure, or an attribute, such as the structure of society...
analogous, for the purpose at hand, to the territory. Bateson argues this case at some length in the essay "The Theology of Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid movement which says its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." Now claiming more than 2 million members, AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio...
".
To paraphrase Bateson's argument, a culture that believes that common colds are transmitted by evil spirits, that those spirits fly out of you when you sneeze, can pass from one person to another when they are inhaled or when both handle the same objects, etc., could have just as effective a "map" for public health as one that substituted microbes for spirits.
Another basic quandary is the problem of accuracy. In "On Exactitude in Science
On Exactitude in Science
"On Exactitude in Science" or "On Rigor in Science" is a one-paragraph short story by Jorge Luis Borges, about the map/territory relation, written in the form of a literary forgery.-Plot:The story elaborates on a concept in Lewis Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno Concluded: a fictional map that had "the...
", Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
describes the tragic uselessness of the perfectly accurate, one-to-one map:
A more extreme literary example, the fictional diary of Tristram Shandy is so detailed that it takes the author one year to set down the events of a single day – because the map (diary) is more detailed than the territory (life), yet must fit into the territory (diary written in the course of his life), it can never be finished. Such tasks are referred to as supertask
Supertask
In philosophy, a supertask is a quantifiably infinite number of operations that occur sequentially within a finite interval of time. Supertasks are called "hypertasks" when the number of operations becomes innumerably infinite. The term supertask was coined by the philosopher James F...
s.
With this apocryphal quotation of Josiah Royce, Borges describes a further conundrum of when the map is contained within the territory, you are led into infinite regress
Infinite regress
An infinite regress in a series of propositions arises if the truth of proposition P1 requires the support of proposition P2, the truth of proposition P2 requires the support of proposition P3, .....
:
Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
retells the parable in reference to storytelling
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
in Fragile Things
Fragile Things
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders is a collection of short stories and poetry by English author, Neil Gaiman. It was published in the US and UK in 2006 by HarperCollins and Headline Review....
(it was originally to appear in American Gods
American Gods
American Gods is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel by Neil Gaiman. The novel is a blend of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on a mysterious and taciturn protagonist, Shadow. It is Gaiman's fourth prose novel, being preceded by Good Omens ,...
):
The development of electronic media blurs the line between map and territory by allowing for the simulation
Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....
of ideas as encoded in electronic signals, as Baudrillard argues in Simulacra and Simulation
Simulacra and Simulation
Simulacra and Simulation is a philosophical treatise by Jean Baudrillard seeking to interrogate the relationship among reality, symbols, and society.-Overview:...
(1994, p. 1):
Philosopher David Schmidtz
David Schmidtz
David Schmidtz is Kendrick Professor of Philosophy and joint Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona. He grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada, and earned his PhD at Arizona under the direction of Joel Feinberg and Allen Buchanan and taught at Yale and Bowling Green State University before...
draws on this distinction in his book "Elements of Justice," apparently deriving it from Wittgenstein's private language argument
Private language argument
The private language argument is a philosophical argument introduced by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his later work, especially in the Philosophical Investigations. The argument was central to philosophical discussion in the second half of the 20th century, and continues to arouse interest...
.
The fundamental trade-off between accuracy and usability of a map, particularly in the context of modelling, is known as Bonini's paradox
Bonini's paradox
Bonini's Paradox, named after Stanford business professor Charles Bonini, explains the difficulty in constructing models or simulations that fully capture the workings of complex systems .-Statements:...
, and has been stated in various forms, poetically by Paul Valéry
Paul Valéry
Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
: "Everything simple is false. Everything which is complex is unusable."
"The map is not the territory"
The expression "the map is not the territory" first appeared in print in a paper that Alfred KorzybskiAlfred Korzybski
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered for developing the theory of general semantics...
gave at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1931:
-
- A) A map may have a structure similar or dissimilar to the structure of the territory...
-
- B) A map is not the territory.
Korzybski's dictum "the map is not the territory" is also cited as an underlying principle used in neuro-linguistic programming
Neuro-linguistic programming
Neuro-linguistic programming is an approach to psychotherapy, self-help and organizational change. Founders Richard Bandler and John Grinder say that NLP is a model of interpersonal communication and a system of alternative therapy which seeks to educate people in self-awareness and effective...
, where it is used to signify that individual people in fact do not in general have access to absolute knowledge of reality, but in fact only have access to a set of beliefs they have built up over time, about reality. So it is considered important to be aware that people's beliefs about reality and their awareness of things (the "map") are not reality itself or everything they could be aware of ("the territory"). The originators of NLP
Neuro-linguistic programming
Neuro-linguistic programming is an approach to psychotherapy, self-help and organizational change. Founders Richard Bandler and John Grinder say that NLP is a model of interpersonal communication and a system of alternative therapy which seeks to educate people in self-awareness and effective...
have been explicit that they owe this insight to General semantics
General Semantics
General semantics is a program begun in the 1920's that seeks to regulate the evaluative operations performed in the human brain. After partial program launches under the trial names "human engineering" and "humanology," Polish-American originator Alfred Korzybski fully launched the program as...
.
René Magritte
René François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
illustrated the concept of "perception always intercedes between reality and ourselves" in a number of paintings including a famous work entitled The Treachery of Images
The Treachery Of Images
The Treachery of Images is a painting by the Belgian René Magritte, painted when Magritte was 30 years old. The picture shows a pipe...
, which consists of a drawing of a pipe with the caption, Ceci n'est pas une pipe ("This is not a pipe").
This concept occurs in the discussion of exoteric and esoteric religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
s. Exoteric concepts are concepts which can be fully conveyed using descriptor
Descriptor
Descriptor may refer to*file descriptor, an abstract key for accessing a file*index term, also known as a "descriptor" in information retrieval*molecular descriptor, which helps characterize a chemical compound...
s and language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
constructs, such as mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
. Esoteric concepts are concepts which cannot be fully conveyed except by direct experience. For example, a person who has never tasted an apple
Apple
The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family . It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans. Apple grow on small, deciduous trees that blossom in the spring...
will never fully understand through language what the taste of an apple is. Only through direct experience (eating an apple) can that experience be fully understood.
Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
, in Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), made the point humorously with his description of a fictional map that had "the scale of a mile to the mile." A character notes some practical difficulties with such a map and states that "we now use the country
Country
A country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with a previously...
itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well."
The University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
economist Joan Robinson
Joan Robinson
Joan Violet Robinson FBA was a post-Keynesian economist who was well known for her knowledge of monetary economics and wide-ranging contributions to economic theory...
(1962) emphasized the disutility of 1:1 maps and other overly detailed models: "A model which took account of all the variegation of reality would be of no more use than a map at the scale of one to one."
Korzybski's argument about the map and the territory also influenced the Belgian surrealist writer of comics Jan Bucquoy
Jan Bucquoy
Jan Bucquoy is an anarchist and author-filmmaker born in Harelbeke, Belgium who started as a theatre practitioner and who worked as a cartoon-scriptwriter.-Career:...
for a storyline in his comic Labyrinthe: a map can never guarantee that one will find the way out, because the accumulation of events can change the way one looks at reality.
Historian of religions J. Z. Smith
Jonathan Z. Smith
Jonathan Zittell Smith is a historian of religions. His research includes the theory of ritual, Hellenistic religions, Māori cults in the 19th century, and the mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana...
wrote a book entitled Map is not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions (1978, University Of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
1993 paperback: ISBN 0-226-76357-9).
Author Robert M. Pirsig
Robert M. Pirsig
Robert Maynard Pirsig is an American writer and philosopher, and author of the philosophical novels Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values and Lila: An Inquiry into Morals .-Background:...
uses the idea both theoretically and literally in his book Lila
Lila: An Inquiry into Morals
Lila: An Inquiry into Morals is the second philosophical novel by Robert M. Pirsig, who is best known for his classic text, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Lila: An Inquiry into Morals was a nominated finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992...
when the main character/author becomes temporarily lost due to an over reliance on a map, rather than the territory that the map describes.
In 2010, French author Michel Houellebecq
Michel Houellebecq
Michel Houellebecq , born Michel Thomas, 26 February 1958—or 1956 —on the French island of Réunion, is a controversial and award-winning French author, filmmaker and poet. To admirers he is a writer in the tradition of literary provocation that reaches back to the Marquis de Sade and Baudelaire;...
published his novel, La Carte et le Territoire, translated into English as The Map and the Territory. The title was a reference to Alfred Korzybski's aphorism. The novel was awarded the French literary prize, the Prix Goncourt
Prix Goncourt
The Prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year"...
.
See also
- Blind men and an elephantBlind Men and an ElephantThe story of the blind men and an elephant originated in India from where it is widely diffused. It has been used to illustrate a range of truths and fallacies...
- Emic and eticEmic and eticEmic and etic are terms used by anthropologists and by others in the social and behavioral sciences to refer to two kinds of data concerning human behavior...
- Fallacy of misplaced concreteness
- Mary's roomMary's roomMary's room is a philosophical thought experiment proposed by Frank Jackson in his article "Epiphenomenal Qualia" and extended in "What Mary Didn't Know"...
- NominalismNominalismNominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism...
- Philosophical zombiePhilosophical zombieA philosophical zombie or p-zombie in the philosophy of mind and perception is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience...
- Philosophy of perceptionPhilosophy of perceptionThe philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world. Any explicit account of perception requires a commitment to one of a variety of ontological or...
- Direct and indirect realismDirect and indirect realismThe question of direct or "naïve" realism, as opposed to indirect or "representational" realism, arises in the philosophy of perception and of mind out of the debate over the nature of conscious experience; the epistemological question of whether the world we see around us is the real world itself...
- Simulacra and SimulationSimulacra and SimulationSimulacra and Simulation is a philosophical treatise by Jean Baudrillard seeking to interrogate the relationship among reality, symbols, and society.-Overview:...
- Social constructionismSocial constructionismSocial constructionism and social constructivism are sociological theories of knowledge that consider how social phenomena or objects of consciousness develop in social contexts. A social construction is a concept or practice that is the construct of a particular group...
- Structural differentialStructural differentialThe Structural differential is a physical chart or three-dimensional model illustrating the abstracting processes of the human nervous system. In one form, it looks like a pegboard with tags. Created by Alfred Korzybski, and awarded a U.S. patent on May 26, 1925, it is used as a training device in...
- Symbolism (disambiguation)Symbolism (disambiguation)Symbolism is the applied use of symbols. It is a representation that carries a particular meaning. It is a device in literature where an object represents an idea.A symbol is an object, action, or idea that represents something other than itself....
- Use–mention distinction
- When a white horse is not a horse
External links
- The Map and the Territory
- Measures and Scapes MITMIT School of Architecture and PlanningThe MIT School of Architecture and Planning is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...
Department of Architecture