Understanding Map-Territory Relationship in General Semantics

NODAL CENTRE FOR GENERAL SEMANTICS

Certificate Course on

“Creative and Critical Thinking: A General Semantics Approach”

September, 2014 – February, 2015

Golden Jubilee Year 2014-15

Smt. Chandibai Himathmal Mansukhani College Ulhasnagar-3

Understanding Map-Territory Relationship in General Semantics

Dr. Dipesh Karmarkar

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"A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the

territory, which accounts for its usefulness".- Alfred Korzybski

Structure & Knowledge

• ‘Things’ & ‘What those things do”– ‘Building’ (noun) – ‘stay’ (verb) – ‘tall’ (adjective)

• We identify a thing by its structure & function– Structure of a brain (anatomy) & Function of

controlling sleep (physiology)

• Can we really perceive ‘brain’ & ‘its function of controlling sleep’ separately?

• Both terms refer to processes, activities that are not separable in the non-verbal world

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• A complex or pattern of relations

• A sense of relations and order

– Symmetrical relation: ‘Spouse’

– Asymmetrical relation:

• ‘Husband’ & ‘Wife’ : Order cannot be reversed

• ‘We cannot unboil an egg’ : Dates cannot be reversed / We cannot go backward in time to undo something

• Most relations are asymmetrical

– Before/after, younger/older, first/second, more/less



• We gain knowledge through the process of abstraction

• “Structure as the only content of the knowledge.” (Korzybski)


Mapping as Representation

• Structure of maps & the mapping process

• Structure of world & how we make sense of it and talk about it

• Map (1910): “a representation, on a plane and a reduced scale, of part or the whole of the earth’s surface”

• How far this definition holds ground in 2014?

• Map as a representation


Mapping as Abstraction

• Mapping process as a useful analogy for any form of representation

• Forms of representation: perceptions, pictures, movies, videos, equations, words

• Understanding of how we map represents how we abstract

• Mapping represents abstraction


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Process of Abstraction

Process of Mapping


Structure of Map & Territory

• Territory has a structure

• A useful map or representation of this territory must have some similarity of structure to the territory. – What if the map shows Kalyan between Neral and

Karjat?

– With this map, can a person reach Kalyan or can he predict the distance & time of travel?

• Inaccurate maps lead to inaccurate predictions


Structure of Map & Territory

• When relations, our maps show do not fit, that is, do not appear similar in structure to the territories we seek to represent with them, these maps may lead us to confusion

• Can we insist that Kalyan city should change its location to suit our map?

• Can we be aware that we should change our map to suit the territory?


Map as Language & Territory as Reality

• Do we readily give up trying to fit territories to our maps?

• Can a map exactly be identical to the structure (patterns & sense of relations & order) of the territory? Yes? Then what’s the use of map?

• Can a language express exactly identical structure of the reality? Yes? Then what’s the use of language?


Map as Language & Territory as Reality

• We use maps because we cannot represent exactly identical structure of the territory

• We use language because we cannot express exactly identical structure of the reality

• So we should be aware of the basic General-Semantics premises


Basic General-Semantics Premises


Aristotelian

Premises

Non-Aristotelian or General-Semantics Premises

Map-Territory Language-Reality

A is A.

(Identity)A map is not the territory.

(Non-Identity)

Words are not the things

they represent.

Anything is either A

or not A.

(Allness)

A map covers not all the

territory.

(Non-Allness)

Words cannot say all

about anything.

Something cannot

be both A and not-A.

(Non-Contradiction)

Maps of maps condense

the territory.

(Self-Reflexiveness)

We can use language to

talk about language.

“The Map is not the Territory”


“A Map covers not all the Territory.”


“Maps of maps condense the Territory.”


Towards Critical Thinking

• Are you all aware that with GS approach, you have already started thinking critically about the way we represent our reality?

• Can we make an attempt to be creative and to change the way we express the reality?


Instead of this map (World: Literacy)


Can we try this? (World: Literacy)


World: Nuclear Weapons (2002)


World: Indigenous Living Languages


Towards Critical Thinking

How many of you think that these differently-cartographed maps represent the reality

better than the old-styled maps?


“The only man who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measure anew each time he sees me,

whilst all the rest go on with their old measurements and expect them to fit me.”

- George Bernard Shaw


Be Aware!

Basic reference is the presenter’s

abstraction of the following:-

• Kodish, S. & Kodish, B. (2011): ‘Drive Yourself

Sane - Using the Uncommon Sense of General

Semantics’, Extensional Publishing, Pasadena,

California

• http://www.worldmapper.org/

• Google Earth

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Understanding Map-Territory Relationship in General Semantics

Documents

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