The map is the territory

The principle that ’the map is not the territory’, articulated by philosopher Alfred Korzybski, resonates across various fields and philosophies.

It finds echoes in statistician George Box’s aphorism, ‘All models are wrong, but some are useful’, and artist René Magritte’s renowned painting The Treachery of Images, featuring a pipe with the caption ‘This is not a pipe’.

Simplified representations #

These expressions remind us of the simplifications inherent in our representations.

For example, this concept plays a critical role in the realm of statistical modelling. Models are crafted to distil complex phenomena into more manageable forms, abstracting and reducing the world’s intricacies to make them comprehensible and analysable.

This simplification, however, is a double-edged sword. It enables us to grasp (and ultimately manipulate) complex systems but also ensures that models can never fully capture every aspect of reality. They are, by their very nature, approximations, omitting details and nuances.

This inherent limitation necessitates a critical approach to how we use and interpret models, reminding us to remain cognisant of what might be obscured in the abstraction process.

Perception as reality #

In the realm of human perception, however, the model becomes our reality.

Our minds are not passive recorders but active constructors of reality, interpreting and processing sensory information to form a mental map. This map, subjective and unique, becomes our reality, as direct experience of the world outside our perceptions is unattainable. Plato’s allegory of the cave poignantly illustrates this: for the prisoners, the shadows on the wall are not mere representations but their entire world.

Marcel Proust’s insight, ‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes’, further illuminates this idea. It suggests that altering our perceptions, rather than changing our physical location or observations, can fundamentally transform our understanding. This alteration of our mental maps effectively reshapes our ’territory’ — our perceived reality.

Losing focus to gain perspective #

Integral to forming new mental maps is the phenomenon of ’losing focus’.

This process involves stepping back from our established perceptions, creating a space where new insights can emerge. In this space, we become open to reshaping our mental maps, leading to a deeper understanding of our world.

Psychedelics and therapy serve as catalysts in this process of refocusing. Psychedelic experiences often induce a state where normal cognitive filters are relaxed, allowing us to perceive reality in radically different ways. Similarly, therapeutic practices, especially those focusing on mindfulness, encourage a state of non-judgmental awareness and guide individuals through a process of defocusing from ingrained perceptions, facilitating the formation of new mental maps.

The maps created by statistical models, art, and language offer valuable but limited interpretations of the world, always falling short of capturing its full complexity. However, the map of our perception, unique and subjective, constitutes the very essence of our experienced reality.

It’s within this personal territory, shaped by perception, experience, and consciousness, that we find our most authentic understanding of the world.