The Map and The Territory
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Follow up to: Clarifying the Idea of Meaning, Don’t Smuggle Your Connotations, and The Folly of Debating Definitions
For those of you just joining us, this essay is part of my blog series where I lay out my idea for what “truth” looks like and what can constitute “knowledge”.
I started in “The Origin of Truth” defining a basis for how knowledge comes to be gathered through the interpretation of personal experiences, using logic and language. I also explained why we would want knowledge, because of it’s enormous instrumental value in satisfying our goals.
Then in “Meaningfully True” I develop the idea of making predictions of what will be based on what is believed to be true. Using this, I define “true” to be seen in our goals being actually satisfied, predictions we make actually occur, our beliefs cohering with each other with no contradiction, and different methods coming to the same beliefs with no contradiction.
Third in “The End of Cartesian Demons”, I built off this to develop the idea of what is a meaningful statement to consider: one that makes predictions about our world that we can actually test, even if only in principle.
I clarify this “Clarifying the Idea of Meaning”, declaring such statements to be “truth-apt” (capable of being true) and further explaining why only these statements are worth considering. Both of these essays then draw the conclusion that we should not be worried about being in a computer simulation or being under the influence of a Cartesian Demon.
Lastly, I make some further clarifications in “Knowledge: A-Priori and Absolute” about whether traditional conceptions of different types of knowledge still hold with the theory I advocate, finding they do depending on how you talk about them.
Now that we have all that grounding in place, it’s time to further draw out the distinction between the beliefs we have in our head, referred to as the map, and the things that actually take place in this external reality we don’t directly know of (the territory).
Separating the Map from the Territory
It is said that the only absolutely correct, atom-by-atom, perfectly-to-scale representation of what California looks like is California itself. However, you can’t fold up California and put it in your glove compartment. Thus the need for maps.
A map of California is an abstraction — you lose the massive amounts of detail in exchange for greatly increasing the portability and readability of your representation. Perhaps you only focus on specifically what you need to know to navigate: going from Los Angeles to Sacramento does not require you to know the exact amount of pebbles on nearby beaches.
But even if you wanted to know what California looked like in the absolutely correct, atom-by-atom, perfectly-to-scale version, you’re still stuck. This is because the only way to actually take in information about California (the territory) is through making a map of it in your head (the map). You use your eyes to observe reflected photons that send information to your brain that is processed into descriptions of California.
It was Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski who first came up with this “map-territory distinction” and remarked that people often confuse the two when they shouldn’t. Another way to see this distinction is to notice the difference between your keys being missing and you knowing your keys are missing. Sometime throughout the day, your keys fall out of your pocket and land on the ground.
This is an actual event that actually took place in the territory, yet it did not take place in your map because you didn’t notice the event take place and therefore you never recorded it as a belief. This is the map-territory distinction, we acknowledge that things can take place in the territory that do not take place in our personal maps.
It wasn’t until later that you notice your keys are missing do you update your map to match the change in territory. It is these updates that we learn about the territory and continue to update our maps to better reflect it, as seen in discussions about making predictions in “Meaningfully True”.
The Problem of Territory
This sets us up for perhaps the only realization that is both stunningly profound and stunningly obvious: you will never have direct access to the territory. Instead, all you will ever access to is your map: a bunch of beliefs about the territory you have built over time.
Different people, having different experiences, will end up with different maps, even though they’ve evaluated the same territory, because no one has evaluated the whole territory. Even the utmost experts in one topic do not have a fully accurate map of the entire territory in that one location or category.
This is the Problem of Territory: because we’re separated from the territory because we’re forced to use maps, we will have different perspectives. This is to be expected, and it has a solution: sharing our maps with each other.
We do this in conversations and debates: we use each other as ways of gathering more information of the territory, because I can hold your observations to be at least somewhat reliable, and use those observations to check against mine. Since we are both attempting to describe the same territory, we can expect our information to not contradict unless one of us is wrong.
So after I notice my keys are missing but have no record of where they fell, you could inform me that your map has a record of the keys falling out in my office. Then I would have the information I need, thanks to you, to go back to my office and get my keys.
The Problem of Abstract Categorization
The distinction between our maps and the territory also sets us up for another problem: attempting to describe the territory with things that exist only in our maps. For example, there is nothing about a pebble itself that makes it “smooth”; that’s only a description of what we feel when we touch the pebble. Instead, the pebble just has a specific atomic structure that we’re ultimately describing.
Likewise, there’s actually nothing that is truly a “pebble”. Instead, the word “pebble” is a definition we give to describe certain kinds of rocks based on size, which in turn is a description we give to certain forms of Earth, which in turn is a description of a certain arrangement of atoms that we encounter.
“Smoothness” and “pebbles” don’t exist out there in the territory. In the territory, there are only various arrangements for us to observe and categorize through our use of definitions. We have to be careful not to get caught up in abusing definitions with the hope that it will change reality; to be careful not to project our map back onto the territory.
We have to be careful not to smuggle our connotations, because doing so is not being fully aware of how we are mapping our territory. The moment when the words control how we see reality rather than the sight of reality itself is the moment when we no longer have an accurate method of forming maps from territories. All of us who value truth and want accurate maps should take care to prevent this.
Instead, a categorization in itself is an abstraction, where data is lost. Calling something a pebble only distinguishes the object from all other possible objects based on material composition and size. We know it will behave like how we’ve described a sufficiently small rock, but we lose all other data on the pebble, such as it’s individual color, size, type of rock, past history, age, etc.
In the territory, there are no categories because no two things are identical. There is always something to further distinguish objects in a category, as categories only exist to make things easier to understand when we don’t need to care about what further distinguishes them. In the territory, no two pebbles are the same.
Likewise, there is nothing that makes our abstract categorizations of objects better than anyone else’s, except for ease of use and efficiency in communication. Thus why debating definitions can be a folly, as long as we recognize the territory we are attempting to describe, and can actually describe it in a manner that communicates what we want, we have all we need.
There is no need to further debate whether a rock is small enough to be a pebble, as long as we know which rock-object we are talking about. But making sure we both know which rock-object we’re talking about is still a tall order, and a big problem for communication.
This is not a pipe, it's a digital picture of a pipe.
Knowledge in Our Map
Knowledge is all about getting our maps to more accurately reflect the territory, and truth is all about recognizing when our maps accomplish this goal. We need to understand how to derive an accurate map from an observed territory, and then do so.
Knowledge isn’t magic, it’s a process. And as a process, it can be understood and done better. Finding even more efficient and accurate methods of doing this is the art of learning how to think and observe better.
The next posts in this series will cover this, explaining how we can gather evidence, how we know if evidence is reliable, and how we can use reliable evidence to form working theories about our world.
Followed up in: The Meaning of Morality and Birds Are Dinosaurs, But Pluto Isn’t a Planet, Part I
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Peter,
I like the idea, but I think you need to rethink parts of it. First off I would get rid of the section titled “the problem of abstract categorization.” It seems to me to just be further arguing the folly of definitions. I understand you are taking the initiative to spread this idea, but I think you overuse it. I don’t think it is applicable to every scenario and I do not see it as adding much to this essay.
The reason I do not see it adding much to this essay is due to the fact that I think you are missing a much more substantial piece of this discussion; a piece that if included would clash with the “arguing definitions” bit.
The piece you are missing in my opinion is the fact that the map does in fact influence the territory. You are correct that the map is not the territory and that the map can never be the full territory. That said, the map determines how people act; how people act determines changes within the territory; thus the map influences the territory.
Keeping with your analogy, imagine that your map has a path on it. A path that is not in reality carved into the territory. However, when you enter the territory you expect a path to be in a certain place. Your expectations lead you to see a path (even though there is no path) and you forge it. You having forged a path makes a path that other people and other animals can tread. The continual usage of your path will lead to erosion, shift territories, stop plants from growing, it changes the territory.
Let’s say the map you have is “God’s map” and it has a church in the middle of the territory. You go there and you see no church, but your map has a church, you know that specific area is a church, it just does not know it is a church yet. You make a church.
Thus even if it is impossible to chart the full map, even if elements of your map are fictions, your map influences your actions; your actions influence the territory. Your map changes the territory.
Do you see how the idea that there are maps, which are human delusions and territories that are the actual reality is a type of dualism? Humans exist as a part of the territory, maps exist as a part of humans, thus maps influence territories.
the idea to limit maps that do not exactly reflect the territory is an attempt to remove the type of motivator I was talking about in our previous discussion. The motivator that does not reflect the current reality, but hold the potential to shape a new reality based on its vision.
You suggest to remove maps that are not empirically accurate, but I would argue that one of humanities greatest dispositions for survival is our ability to shape reality to meet our maps. I would suggest not getting rid of the imagined maps, but rather, to make sure that they all point towards humaneness. (Humanness will be described further on my website in the essay I am working on now. It is almost done, well maybe…)
Probably. It’s a difficult idea to communicate, because it has a lot of implications.
Today, one of my friends asks me if a brick had to be “red” to be considered a brick, noting that the building we were in was made of both reddish, purplish, and brownish “bricks”.
My younger self would have totally launched into this argument defending the notion of bricks as being all colors, not just red, but today I instantly recognized the folly. I responded that while people commonly refer to some non-red objects as bricks, making red a requirement of bricks does not change what the building is made of.
That bolded part is one of the main ideas I wanted to communicate in this essay — calling something this word instead of that word, does not change the object in itself.
That specific idea, that words are in the map and not the territory, is one of the points I wanted to communicate, and I think really ties in my series on definitions (smuggling connotations, applause lights, and debating definitions) with my series on knowledge (that this essay is a part of).
~
Definitely. This is both a large piece and a piece I initially wanted to include, but was not quite sure how to articulate it.
I’m reminded of your comment on spoons being defined as a weapon. While this would change no properties of the spoon (see above), and therefore I feel *should* do nothing to change people’s opinions of spoons, it is a descriptive fact that it would change people’s opinions of spoons, therefore changing how spoons are used.
~
I’m not really sure how it specifically ties into dualism, or whatever you are calling dualism, but I think I get the point as a whole.
~
Yes.
~
I’m in agreement.
I think this goes back into some of what we discussed in the essay “Clarifying the Idea of Meaning”, and to tie it into map-territory discussion, I could describe it as saying we really make two different maps: the map of “how the world is” and the map of “how the world should be”.
I think this is another distinction that should be made, like the map-territory distinction, as these two maps can also get mixed up (see wishful thinking). I would be in favor of removing maps that describe “how the world is” if they are not empirically accurate, but I would not place the same restrictions on maps of “how the world should be”.
I see value systems (like morality, humaneness, or just personal goals) as being the map-of-should-be, and motivation being your desire to make the two maps the same, turning the map-of-what-is into the map-of-should-be.
~
I look forward to it.
“You use your eyes to observe reflected protons”
Photons, no?
“That bolded part is one of the main ideas I wanted to communicate in this essay — calling something this word instead of that word, does not change the object in itself.”
I think this is true for low connotation symbols. For example, I would agree that calling a brick red or orange is irrelevant. But it is irrelevant because none of the symbols in that exchange (red, orange, or brick) have any strong connotation with you or your friend. This is a fresh idea so bare with me, but I would argue that their are multiple types of connotation a symbol can have:
Relational connotations: That connect one symbol to another.
(Fx: white,light, purity, goodness, righteous, are all connected within the context of Western culture; while dark, polluted, evil, unjust are connected).
Abstract connotations: That connect a symbol to a value.
(Fx: Lions are connected to regality, honor, power; Snakes are connected to villainous and underhanded character)
Empirical connotations: That connect a symbol to a description of reality.
(Fx: the word pebble is connected to a conglomerate of sediment of a certain size)
Red, orange, purple, brick, for you and your friend these symbols carry at most empirical connotations. None of your values have been attached to them. You can imagine though, if those symbols had more relational and abstract connotations that it would not be as simple of a matter. Let’s say in Chinese culture, where red is STRONGLY associated with power, pride, and nationality; and ( I am making up a negative connotation of purple for the sake of argument) purple is let’s say STRONGLY associated with perversion. Perversion is a symbol that is relationally connected to many other symbols that carry negative abstract connotations. Abstract and Relational connotations create tangled webs of symbols that are infused with very strong connotations. These connotations are motivators, dispositions to action, regardless of their verisimilitude.
In your example of the bricks, let’s say that the bricks in question (i.e a specific building) hold important connotations for your friend. It is his safe haven at college, his favorite place, or if you would permit me to stretch the example, let’s say it is his home that he himself built. And let’s say that he carries the connotations of red and purple I have suggested above. In this situation, the “bricks” in question are relationally connected to the symbol of his home, which is relationally connected to his “self.” Thus while “bricks” are low connotation symbols for you (and thus not intrinsically important) these are not bricks to him, they are essentially an extension of himself. The color purple and red, both being a particularly heavy symbol for your friend, completes the scenario. Now, it means a great deal whether the bricks are purple or not. He will fight your description of it being purple, because to him, whether it is logical or not, the bricks are connected to him, and purple is connected to so many other negative symbols and connotations that to admit it is purple is to attach that to himself.
You two are essentially talking past each other/ arguing definitions as you put it. However, to you, the definition is removed. To him it is personal. And yet, it is personal to you in some sense as well. Because the moment you realize that you are arguing definitions, the symbols you are discussing become attached to the symbol “arguing definitions,” an idea that is highly valued by you, and thus highly personal. For him to not see that the bricks are neither “red” nor “purple” is for him to deny your coveted symbol. Why should you care if he denies it? Because he is your “friend” or “acquaintance” both of which are symbols that relationally connect him to you, thus the situations exist as this:
Friend: 1. Bricks- home- haven-pride-work-effort-self
2. Red-honor-pride-strength-respect-family-culture-self
(Because the connotations of redness represent a culture, they are connected to an idea of self as well)
3. Purple-Perversion-Childhood-Shame-Impotent-Wrong-Dirty-Etc
I threw in Childhood there for the same reason I threw in family and culture above, to highlight the extent to which relational connotations extend, and the subjectivity. If your friend grew-up in doubt of his purity and feeling secretly perverted, then the implications of subconsciously building a purple house could be huge.
You:
1. Purple Bricks-Red Bricks-Arbitrary Distinctions-Meaningless-Illogical-Arguing Definitions-Immoral-Stupid
2. Friend-Confidante-College-Self-Moral-Logical-Smart
You do not see Purple or Red or even bricks as separate, because to you all these things are connected to the symbol “Arguing definitions,” which is connected to various other symbols and negative connotations: “illogical,” “immoral,” and “stupid.” Because your friend is connected to you and your values, it is a threat to your identity and values to allow him or her to be connected to those negative connotations.
You and your friend are fighting for different things. Your friend is trying to stop 1 and 3 from being connected, because it is threatening to his identity. You are trying to stop 1 and 2 from being connected, because it is threatening to your identity.
His 1, 2 &3 are completely different from your 1 & 2. You both are arguing definitions, but both of your definitions define your identity. Thus they are not arbitrary.
I look forward to your response.
You are right that if you were just talking “bricks,” if you were just talking territories, than it would be arbitrary. But I would argue that it is next to impossible for people to just define territories. We define ourselves with our words.
Aye, change made, thanks!
~
@Tom: I like your comment, but will have to get back to it later, sorry.