Map is not the territory

Alfred Korzybski, the founder of semantics, exhorted us to remember that the map is not the territory. Any map is only an abstraction about the territory. No matter how many places on your maps are marked productive agricultural area, you won t get much nourishment from eating the paper on which those words are printed. We must remember then that scientific data, observation, and experience are primary and that the theories (the maps) are secondary. If the maps do not agree with the territory, we must redraw them. 

As a psychologist, I find that we frequently operate on a different version of Korzybski s statement, one that says, in effect, The map is not the territory the map is better than the territory. We become attached to our ideas and explanations and prefer to ignore those inconsiderate aspects of reality that do not fit our beautiful maps. Sometimes, reality forces us to redraw our maps at other times, we neurotically hold onto inaccurate maps all our lives. Science is a good discipline because it reminds us to keep checking back against observation and not to get too attached to the map. 

I must, however, caution the reader against taking this discussion of the observer too concretely. I am using words to describe a certain kind of experience, but the words are not the experience. As Korzybski said "The map is not the territory." unfortunately, we not only habitually mistake the map for the territory, we prefer the map to the territory-it is so much clearer I find it difficult to express the concept of observing, and words can do no more than create analogies that point to aspects of your own experiences. The term observer is a... 

Korzybski, the founder of general semantics, constantly warned that the map is not the territory. As a psychologist 1 agree, but have to add that much of the time people seem to prefer the map to the territory It is often easier to make the map, the internal simulation of reality, do what you want than it is to deal with the territory, the external world. 

Of course, the drug dose does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key - it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures. The nature of the experience depends almost entirely on set and setting. Set denotes the preparation of the individual, including his personality structure and his mood at the time. Setting is physical - the weather, the room s atmosphere social -feelings of persons present towards one another and cultural - prevailing views as to what is real. It is for this reason that manuals or guide-books are necessary. Their purpose is to enable a person to understand the new realities of the expanded consciousness, to serve as road maps for new interior territories which modem science has made accessible. 

CBV map), reflecting autoregulatory vasodilation. CBF appears to be mildly decreased in most of this territory (arrows on CBF map) showing that this autoregulatory response is not entirely successful, and snggesting that this tissne is threatened by ischemia. The lesion is more clearly seen in MTT, Tmax, and TTP maps... 

The web application is based on web standards. To function, it only reqnires a modem web browser and does not include any additional software requirements. The user interface is designed to be clear, universal and easily comprehensible to the user and is set out in the Slovenian language. Its main component is the interactive map which enables the display of any arbitrary segment of the Slovenian territory and the data associated with it. The search criteria entry form allows for adjnstments of the traffic accident display in accordance with the user-set criteria. Any display of the data prepared this way can be accessed through a direct permanent link. 

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