Map and Territory

Map and Territory.

The map is not the territory; the word is not the thing. Here is a fundamental distinction, which can be expressed in many ways: map/territory, idea/reality, thought/existence, representation/represented. In thought and logic, division and distinction is all. ?A? is not ?not A?, and never the twain shall meet. Whatever is said, here or elsewhere, is going to be part of a map, a representation of ?what is?. If what we say is honest, faithful and true, then we will be producing an accurate, meaningful map, but it is important to bear in mind that it is only ever a map and it takes its meaning from the territory. Everything that is said is indicating, pointing to something else, something beyond the words. We are talking about the meaning of life, but we should not expect to find it in the words we use, or the thoughts we have.

Many a good town map has a label on it saying ?You are here?. Of course it?s only true when you?re looking at the map. What is always ?here? is the map itself. There are two things to be noticed: (1) the map and the territory are both represented on the map, (2) the map is a genuine part of the territory. In the end, the distinction breaks down; ?A? is a part of ?not A? and ?not A? is in turn a part of ?A?. This may all seem rather abstract and confusing, and this is because what I am trying to indicate here is a limitation of thought, and that is something that thought cannot grasp.

All our thoughts and ideas, all the activity of our busy minds, is a map of ?what is?. If the map is an accurate representation of the territory, it is meaningful, but if it is distorted, untruthful or imaginary, then it loses meaning. Suppose the bus company published the timetable they would like to run if they had more resources instead of the one that they could actually achieve; it would be useless, meaningless. Now one of the most persistent, busiest ideas in my mind is the idea of myself. Everything seems to get connected to this idea because the idea of myself is the map of the map, the ?You are here? label. At this point thought makes an almost inevitable mistake; seeing the map of the territory containing the map of the map, it mistakes itself for the map of the map, and not the whole map. So the map and the map of the map take on an enormous significance, myself becomes more important than anything else, thought becomes the world, and error and distortion result, which leads to a loss of meaning.