THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY
ALFRED KORZYBSKI
Polish American Philosopher and Scientist [1879-1950]
The father of General Sematics Alfred Korzbyski (1973: 38) originated the phrase,"the map is not the territory":
Two important characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness. If the map could be ideally correct, it would include, in a reduced scale, the map of the map; the map of the map of the map; and so on, endlessly...
Korzybski, Alfred (1973) Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. Institute of General Semantics. Connecticut.
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WILLIAM LUTZ
Profesor of English at Rutgers University
“Naming things is a human act, it is not an act of nature. We are the ones who through language create things out of the phenomena around us. Yet we forget that we control this process and let the process control us. Naming thing— using language—is a very high level abstraction, and when we name something we ‘freeze’ it by placing it in a category and making a ‘thing’ out of it. Language is a map but three important things to remember about maps are: the map is not the territory; no map can represent all aspects of the territory; and every map reflects the mapmaker’s point of view.”
Lutz, Wiliam (1996) The New Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What Anyone is Saying Anymore . HarperCollins, New York, NY.
