The obvious, key thing to notice about a map and the territory that the map is describing is this: They are not the same!
A map may be useful for describing a territory and thus helpful in helping you understand and navigate that territory. It always and necessarily has to simplify by focusing on specific aspects and omit other details, making it less similar to its terrain.
This is what makes the map useful. Simplifying means to remove complexity, bringing focus to that, which matters. This can be a necessity, because the additional details can otherwise get in the way of seeing what is necessary to productively navigate.
To simplify also means to omit, which makes it less correct. A lie by omission is still a lie. The map’s strength often shows its weakness; its focus implying its ignorance — though that can be difficult to see.
The territory is a reality. The map is an abstraction intended to explain that reality. The two are separate. Clearly, there can be many different such maps for that same territory.
We are different from each other, so the maps in our heads inherently differ likewise, subtly to vastly, based on our experiences, skills, beliefs and biases. We look at the world in our own ways, often seeing ourselves.
This is of course not just strictly about actual, physical territory and the navigational maps about it, but rather more generally about realities and the models to explain them, realities and their abstractions.
A description is not the same as the thing it is describing; an explanation is not what it is explaining. There are numerous and varied ways of expressing this, showing how broadly it applies in different contexts.
- The menu is not the meal (per Alan Watts).
- An org chart is not the team.
- Your resume is not the experience of your achievements.
- A student’s report card is not the beauty of their mind.
One is not the other. Many maps are possible for a given territory. All of them can only describe or explain it; none of them will be it. There is always something they miss, for better or worse.
This distinction reminds you to remember that there is a difference between the abstraction and the abstracted, hopefully encouraging you to wonder, how close one is to the other and in which aspects — and to ask: “What am I missing?”
Obvious perhaps, the map and territory disconnect rears its challenge so often that it is very easy to miss. Stay tuned for future posts on that.