Charlotte Schuchardt Read on "Living In An 'As If' World: Some Reflections on 'The Map Is Not The Territory"

My friend and mentor Charlotte Schuchardt Read, Alfred Korzybski's personal secretary and literary assistant, once suggested:

“In learning to feel the deeper significance of the map-territory premise we can: 

1. Be more awake to our own personal role in making our maps.

2. Increase our ability to make needed revisions as we check with the territory. 

3. Realize, through continual experiencing, that we each live in our “as if” world, and develop awareness of this. 

4. Gain greater appreciation of the other person’s world and his/her way of expressing it. 

5. If the temptation arises to say ‘This is nothing new,’ we can say ‘This can be a new experience, newly experienced today.’ 

Perhaps it would be useful to state the premise as: ‘The territory is not the map.’ Would this make a difference? I don’t know. 

Many questions arise as we progress toward a more unified view of our universe and our place in it. The multiordinal map-territory analogy can remain a helpful guide, provided we are aware of Korzybski’s third premise: The map is self-reflexive—the mapmaker is in the map—and provided we remember that the premises, like all premises, are only maps.”*

*Charlotte Read, “Living in an ‘as if’ World: Some Reflections on ‘The Map Is Not the Territory’ ” in Developing Sanity in Human Affairs (Contributions to the Study of Mass Media and Communications, Number 54), Ed. Susan Presby Kodish and Robert P. Holston. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, p. 75

Election Maps

A map is not the territory it supposedly represents, but rather, only more or less similar in structure to the supposed territory.

Election maps

www-personal.umich.edu

From the Stray Thought Bin - "...And More Maps"

Some people seem to use the saying "The map is not the territory," as a way to wash out all claims and viewpoints into some kind of tepid equivalency: "It's all just opinions...B.S. ...your narrative...your map...my map...maps all we have...yadda yadda yadda." Post-Modernist Couldn't-Care-Less-ism.

Sure, up to a point, we can't get beyond viewpoints and opinions.  Everything that is said is said by someone—opinions and viewpoints...Maps.

But...

We do presume some 'territory'. (At least I do.) There are 'things' we bump into whether we want to or not.

Some viewpoints provide a better look at a presumed territory. Some opinions seem more useful. We shouldn't be shy. Some maps  give us greater predictability, seem more useful, thus better than others for given purposes in dealing with the 'territories' of life. Including the fact that other  people may operate by dramatically different maps.

We can and should strive for more fruitful viewpoints, more informed opinions, better maps. Which presumes that some maps may be better than others for some purposes. Indeed, yes.

And yes, our maps will still not be the territories they represent—ever. As far as I know.

From the Stray Thought Bin - "...And Maps"

"The map is not the territory."

"What kind of idiot would say that a map was the territory?"

What kind of idiot would act as if it was? 

From the Stray Thought Bin- "Maps and Maps"

To someone convinced that their map 'is' THE territory, saying that "the map is not the territory" doesn't have to present them with a problem; it just doesn't apply to their map.

The Map and Territory...Again

Another korzybskian echo...


The controversial satirist Michel Houellebecq has won France's top
literary award, the Goncourt Prize, for his book The Map and the
Territory

Houellebecq Wins Top French Book Prize

From the Stray Thought Bin

In the same way that everyone knows that a map is not the territory, there is no longer any antisemitism.

Maps and Territories of the Beijing Olympics

Here you can see the Running Man logo of the Beijing Olympics—in the cross-hairs of a rifle scope.

Do I have your attention now?

Korzybski presented three fundamental new non-aristotelian premises for consciously evaluating humans:
1. A map is not the territory.
2. A map covers not all characteristics of the territory.
3. Mapping constitutes a potentially self-reflexive process, i.e., you can revise a map, i.e., make a map of a map, and a map of that map, etc.

Now when he was talking about maps, he wasn't talking about just geography maps, he was referring to any sort of representation, which could include the images you see on television, movie, newspapers and websites, what someone says or writes, what you perceive when you look out of the window, your favorite or un-favorite belief system, etc.

Korzybski's three premises, interconnected, serve as guides, heuristics that we can use as we navigate through the territory of life because...let's face it, don't fool yourself...you can't navigate without some kind of maps. Premise number 2 reminds us to remember to ask: What is getting left out of this or that particular map? Am I missing something important? What else should I know about what's going on here?

If you've been watching and enjoying the coverage on television of the Beijing Olympics, those questions also apply: What has the coverage left out? And, if there exists some systematic way in which some things have not been covered, how has that happened? and who are responsible?

Mark Alexander has written an article about some important things left out of the mainstream media Olympic coverage. He presents a valuable (in my opinion) map of the maps we have gotten on television and elsewhere. Enjoy the rest of the Olympics this weekend and read China's Porcelain Facade

"Language of Spirit"

My friend Richard Austin told me about the upcoming "Language of Spirit" conference related to the concerns of David Bohm in Albuquerque starting Saturday through the 12th. Physicist Bohm was fond of reminding people that "a map is not the territory" it represents.

The conference brings together Native American scientists, physicists, and other interested people. Richard has been attending for the past several years.

Another friend, Andy Hilgartner is presenting there this year. You may want to check out the program on their web site Language of Spirit.

Simulation, Shmimulation

"The map is not the territory! The map is not the territory! The map is not the territory! Oh, Boy, oh boy, oh boy— I'm confused! I'm confused! "

The Age of Simulation: Phony Transcendence in an Age of Media,
Computers and Fabricated Environments

"Never Ask a GSer About Maps"

I [Bruce Kodish] haven't had much time to blog. Since last Thursday I've been at Read House, the home of the Institute of General Semantics in Fort Worth, Texas. Read House is located in the Fairmount Historical District of town, full of historic residences and within walking distance an up-and-coming urban area that includes one of the best vegan restaurants I've ever eaten in.

Read House now houses the complete [as far as I know] Institute of General Semantics archives. Steve Stockdale, who just resigned as Director of the Institute, put together materials, digitized at least some of the most important ones including some of the old reel-to-reel tapes of interviews with people like M. Kendig, one of the leaders in the early days with Korzybski, and other interviews that Steve conducted himself. Various archival materials, like letters, manuscripts, library books were previously scattered in various places and relatively unorganized. Thanks to Steve's tremendous efforts, the history and legacy of Korzybski and General Semantics has never been in as good a shape or as accessible.

Looking through a box of materials labeled "Ken Johnson," I found this gem from a good friend and teacher of mine, now gone. Kenneth G. Johnson, PhD was for many years a professor of Mass Communications at the University of Wisconson-Milwaukee. Here is his poem, "Never Ask a GSer About Maps" which Ken wrote and presented at the IGS Seminar-Workshop in 1990. His poem was inspired by reading Shel Silverstein's Never Ask a Zebra About Stripes.

"Never Ask a GSer About Maps"
by Kenneth G. Johnson

I asked a GSer why he was so concerned about maps.
And the GSer asked me:
Does your 'enquiring mind' feast on the National Enquirer?
Or seek answers to "What do you mean?" and "How do you know?"
Do you claim to see things as they really are?
Or do you know that you abstract?
Do you lock in on first impressions?
Or do you use your process brain to process a process world?
Do you polarize your choices using simple either-ors?
Or recognize possibilities in degrees and probabilities?
Are your abstractions free-floating hot-air ballons?
Or firmly anchored in experience?
Do you trap yourself in word-made boxes?
Or prize your own uniqueness?
Do you climb mountains of seductive abstractions?
Or avoid the peak-a-boo-boo?
Are you looking for a white-robed guru?
Or a time-tested crap-detecting system?
Are you bound by the tyranny of agreement?
Or will you settle for the warmth of understanding?
Do you react categorically and dogmatically?
Or do you leave that to your pets?
Are you seeking Truth with a capital T?
Or prediction value with a small p?
And on and on and on and on
And on and on he went.
I'll never ask a GSer about maps
Again.

Godzilla Discovers Korzybski !!!

Click On Picture Above
A cartoon by Maru from the fan art page of Ryan North's charming Dinosaur Comics

The Black Swan and Godzilla

From the fan art page of Ryan North's charming Dinosaur Comics

I happened to start reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book The Black Swan one night while flipping channels (yes, I confess to sometimes watching television while reading), and saw that the 1998 American remake of Godzilla was on. I watched the movie while I read the book—an interesting juxtaposition.

Taleb's book title comes from a famous example used by Karl Popper to illustrate his notion of falsifiability. If you say that "all swans are white" no amount of white swans will prove the statement as true. You need to see only one black swan to disprove or falsify the statement. Indeed Europeans apparently did believe that all swans were white, until the first black swan was sighted in Australia. Taleb uses the black swan as a prototype for every kind of anomolous life 'territory' which take us by surprise because our 'maps', expectations, theories haven't accounted for them. A 'black swan'—often unwelcome—'bites' us when we don't expect it.

Many scenes from Godzilla illustrate the 'black swan' phenomenon beautifully. I'll mention two but since the movie is basically about a big 'black swan' Godzilla just about every scene provides an example. Near the beginning of the movie, Matthew Broderick's character, a young scientist has been brought to a disaster scene in Panama, the aftermath of a Godzilla sighting. He stands on a bit of ground clueless until he sees that he is standing inside the clue, a giant reptilian footprint. 'Black Swan' time.

Once Godzilla has landed in Manhattan, an obnoxious newsman played by Harry Shearer is in his high-rise office complaining on the phone to someone about problems with finding interesting stories for the evening news. While he complains, Godzilla's tail is seen to sweep by the newsroom's picture window. The biggest story has walked right by him and he is oblivious to it. 'Black Swan' time.

I understand that the 1998 movie didn't do very well in the box office. But I liked it.

The world is actually full of 'black swans'. When we begin to look for them, expect the unexpected, perhaps we can be better prepared to deal with them. At least perhaps we won't feel so shocked when we see some Black Swan Godzilla walking down the road our way.

The Black Swan

Korzybski's famous 'aphorism'—"A map is not the territory" has become ubiquitous in some parts of the culture.

The analogy seems so compelling and has become such a common part of people's 'mental furniture', that many people like Nassim Nicholas Taleb, use it as part of their own formulating without any indication that they know that it came from Korzybski or constituted an important formulation of his system of 'thought'.

That's not necessarily a fault of Taleb's yet I believe that his own excellent writing would probably benefit from his knowing about Korzybski and reading his work.

At any rate, the difference between map and territory appears as a repetitive motif throughout his wonderful book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Indeed, it constitutes very much part of Taleb's theme of expecting the unexpected:

"What I call Platonicity, after the ideas (and personality) of the philosopher Plato, is our tendency to mistake the map for the territory, to focus on pure and well-defined "forms," whether objects, like triangles, or social notions, like utopias (societies built according to some blueprint of what "makes sense"), even nationalities. When these ideas and crisp constructs inhabit our minds, we privilege them over other less elegant objects, those with messier and less tractable structures (an idea that I will elaborate progressively throughout this book.)" (p. xxv)

Taleb's The Black Swan goes onto my list of highly recommended 'reads' for aspiring non-aristotelians (or non-platonists).