Editing Map–territory relation (section)

{{Short description|Relationship between an object and a representation of that object}}
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The '''map–territory relation''' is the relationship between an object and a representation of that [[Object (philosophy)|object]], as in the relation between a geographical territory and a [[map]] of it. '''Mistaking the map for the territory''' is a [[logical fallacy]] that occurs when someone confuses the semantics of a term with what it represents. Polish-American scientist and philosopher [[Alfred Korzybski]] remarked that "the map is not the territory" and that "the word is not the thing", encapsulating his view that an [[abstraction]] derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself. Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with territories, that is, confuse [[conceptual model]]s of reality with reality itself. These ideas are crucial to [[general semantics]], a system Korzybski originated.

The relationship has also been expressed in other terms, such as "the model is not the data", "[[all models are wrong]]", and [[Alan Watts]]'s "The menu is not the meal."{{efn|Widely attributed to Alan Watts, "The menu is not the meal" may be an unrecorded quote, or it may be a paraphrase derived from two recorded quotes: 1) "Money simply represents wealth in rather the same way that the menu represents the dinner."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://alanwatts.org/transcripts/not-what-should-be-but-what-is/ |title=Intelligent Mindlessness |date=31 October 2022 |publisher=alanwatts.org |access-date=2024-03-12 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231003133609/https://alanwatts.org/transcripts/intelligent-mindlessness/ |archive-date=2023-10-03}}</ref> 2) "[W]e confuse the world as it is with . . . the world as it is described. . . . And when we are not aware of ourselves except in a symbolic way, we’re not related to ourselves at all. We are like people eating menus instead of dinners."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://alanwatts.org/transcripts/not-what-should-be-but-what-is/ |title=Not What Should Be, But What Is |date=31 October 2022 |publisher=alanwatts.org |access-date=2024-03-12 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231209014704/https://alanwatts.org/transcripts/not-what-should-be-but-what-is/ |archive-date=2023-12-09}}</ref>}} The concept is thus quite relevant throughout [[ontology]] and [[ontology (information science)|applied ontology]] regardless of any connection to [[general semantics]] per se (or absence thereof). Its avatars are thus encountered in [[semantics]], [[statistics]], [[logistics]], [[business administration]], [[semiotics]], and many other applications. 

A frequent coda to "[[all models are wrong]]" is that "all models are wrong (but some are useful)," which emphasizes the proper framing of recognizing '''map–territory differences'''—that is, how and why they are important, what to do about them, and how to live with them properly. The point is not that all maps are useless; rather, the point is simply to maintain [[critical thinking]] about the discrepancies: whether or not they are either negligible or significant in each context, how to reduce them (thus [[iterative and incremental development|iterating]] a map, or any other model, to become a better version of itself), and so on.