How is the map not the territory?

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, Rilles said:

When we say the map is not territory we mean the mind is not the direct experience.

Not necessarily. It can also be applied to "theory vs. actuality" in materialistic science. You can technically still be a materialist and appreciate this distinction (an example I would assume is Daniel Dennett). A materialist wouldn't want to call actuality direct experience: he would call it the physical world. The problem there is that "the physical world" is still a loaded/biased theory-based term, but the distinction can be made nonetheless, because it's in a sense only a nickname for reality or the unknown. Then of course, most materialists don't see the distinction between theory and actuality in any shape or form. There are degrees of epistemological ignorance.

[Mason Riggle]

"The map is not the territory" is a useful concept to help people understand that a description of something is never the exact same thing as the thing it's describing, otherwise it's not a 'map of the thing'.. it's the thing.  Leo clarified this for my be pointing out that any map that was the same as the thing as 'what it is mapping' it would have to include itself in the map. 

This is useful to realize that there is no 'description' of a thing that is the same as 'the thing', so when you are making sense of some description of reality, you can understand that no description of reality will perfectly represent 'reality', because the 'description' becomes part of the reality it's trying to describe. 

 

[Carl-Richard]

@Mason Riggle That's what I was trying to say, but I just couldn't find the words 

Edited October 23, 2020 by Carl-Richard

[Wisebaxter]

On 23/10/2020 at 8:34 AM, Rilles said:

When we say the map is not territory we mean the mind is not the direct experience.

@Rilles If I'm having a direct experience of mind, would you say that's just as real as any other direct experience? After all there are only states. Being lost in a certain 'state' of mind etc. So if I focus on a candle, I'm having a direct experience of that, whereas if I then close my eyes and imagine a candle I'm having another direct experience. Should there be a bias towards the first one in terms of how real or true it is? I'm thinking out loud here. This question really interests me

[Wisebaxter]

On 23/10/2020 at 1:03 AM, Nahm said:

Imagine an image of a map of your house on the wall, coming from a projector. The map would be of the house, and could be said to be in the house, but also wouldn’t be existing. Light would be existing, looking like a map...and not even. Then what if you create a drawing on that map?

@Nahm Would light only be existing, looking like a map, if it was observed that way, as it only exists in our perspective? If I had an experience of the light looking like a house, could we say that's an absolute truth as it's what I experienced? Otherwise wouldn't we have to admit there's something existing outside of a perspective? The house is a concept, but if a concept is what's experienced, is there anything else? This is something I'm puzzled by

 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Wisebaxter

[Wisebaxter]

On 23/10/2020 at 8:31 AM, Hello from Russia said:

Dude, just go to any park and buy the $1-2 map they usually offer. You'll get fucking lost with this map, I guarantee you, happens to me every time

@Hello from Russia This really got me thinking. Perhaps I meant that my map would be 'a' territory. Could it be that we all have territories that interact with other people's territories in a relative sense. So lots of people walking around with shit maps  And then would there be a super territory that comprises them all? I'm struggling to envision something outside of perspectives. 

[Wisebaxter]

On 23/10/2020 at 3:01 PM, ajai said:

@Wisebaxter  Even I am left perplexed whenever this phrase is used somewhere,

What I don't get is if it's gonna take 20 years to understand it throughout what tf it means and stands for, why'd somebody use it at the first place, ?

Anyway, although it's unintelligible wht I comprehend from it is- maps are designed by a cartographer, and thus he/she/it might not know the exact boundaries or the actual geographical parameters while designing or drawing the map due to inaccurate survey or whatever of the actual place/territory, the cartographer could just be wrong about one single point that don't match the exact territory, but the map is wrong if it's wrong hence it's not the territory per se, now relatively this can be used anywhere to infer similar meaning, ?

@ajai Yeah it's definitely a rabbit hole you can get lost down. I'm wondering, if the cartographer was wrong, would that experience of being wrong, the actual experience in the moment, still be his particular territory, if reality is just whatever your perspective is. Just like in quantum mechanics where there has to an observer for stuff to happen (summed up the entire field there ). I suppose that in that example his map is embedded in something that appears to be more 'true,' or 'real,' but personally I have no experience of anything other than perspective, and Leo has a whole episode called reality is nothing but perspective. Or I've also heard it said that the relative IS the absolute. I'm wondering if there are only relative truths then

[Wisebaxter]

On 23/10/2020 at 3:48 PM, Mason Riggle said:

This is useful to realize that there is no 'description' of a thing that is the same as 'the thing', so when you are making sense of some description of reality, you can understand that no description of reality will perfectly represent 'reality', because the 'description' becomes part of the reality it's trying to describe. 

@Mason Riggle Thanks for that. What my mind keeps saying is, isn't the description of the thing reality too, if the description is what's occurring? In that moment all that exists is 'the description of a thing.' The thing itself is just an abstract idea, which only exists as the idea about it. When the thing was experienced, whatever that happened to be, let's say, a car speeding past - that was real. Any further attempts to describe it, are only describing themselves, or describing the nature of that experience, as it occurs, in the now. I'm not sure of any this of course. Just thinking out loud

 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Wisebaxter

[Willie]

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.

[Leo Gura]

The biggest mindfuck comes when you realize that "The map is not the territory" is itself just a map and not the territory

[electroBeam]

The biggest mindfuck is when you realise you're not looking at the map, the map is looking at you. 

[Gesundheit]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The biggest mindfuck comes when you realize that "The map is not the territory" is itself just a map and not the territory

From E7 to E8 immediately.

[Hello from Russia]

3 hours ago, electroBeam said:

The biggest mindfuck is when you realise you're not looking at the map, the map is looking at you. 

[Nahm]

@Wisebaxter

Observed is conceptual. 

[Mvrs]

On 10/22/2020 at 7:20 PM, Leo Gura said:

Obviously the map is the territory.

But also, it isn't.

The first step is to realize the map is not the territory. Which will take you a decade of work.

The next step is to realize the map is the territory. Which will take you another decade of work.

every answer is yes and no to all questions that’s the beauty of infinity 

[Leo Gura]

"Only the hand that erases can write the true thing." — Meister Eckhart

[Moksha]

The biggest mindfuck is realizing that you are looking at yourself through the map, and that there is no map.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Moksha

[Nahm]

The biggest mindfuck is there is no mindfuck. 

[snowyowl]

A couple of random thoughts: 

An accurate map, when you zoom in, contains a little picture of the map itself, and when you zoom in on that ... you get an infinite regression, because it is self-referencing. How does this relate to the ego, which is a thought trying to reference itself? A strange loop perhaps. 

A map is a load of abstract shapes and squiggly lines on a piece of paper, without any inherent meaning. Just like these letters I'm typing on the screen.  The meaning occurs within our minds, ie the idea that the unreal picture represents, or points to, something real outside itself. But, this whole process is occurring within a single reality.  My mind is somehow creating this distinction between abstraction and reality, the idea of one thing pointing to, representing, another. 

Edited November 16, 2020 by snowyowl

[Inliytened1]

16 minutes ago, snowyowl said:

A couple of random thoughts: 

An accurate map, when you zoom in, contains a little picture of the map itself, and when you zoom in on that ... you get an infinite regression, because it is self-referencing. How does this relate to the ego, which is a thought trying to reference itself? A strange loop perhaps. 

A map is a load of abstract shapes and squiggly lines on a piece of paper, without any inherent meaning. Just like these letters I'm typing on the screen.  The meaning occurs within our minds, ie the idea that the unreal picture represents, or points to, something real outside itself. But, this whole process is occurring within a single reality.  My mind is somehow creating this distinction between abstraction and reality, the idea of one thing pointing to, representing, another. 

Mysterious isn't it mystical