Map vs. Territory I

"The map appears to us more real than the land." (David W Lawrence, "Study of Thomas Hardy", cca. 1914)

"If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure, and structure alone." (Alfred Korzybski, "Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics", 1958)

"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." (Alfred Korzybski, "Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics", 1958)

"The map is not the territory, and the name is not the thing named." (Gregory Bateson, "Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity", 1979)

"The most promising words ever written on the maps of human knowledge are terra incognita, unknown territory." (Daniel J Boorstin, "The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself", 1983)

"None of us see the world as it is but as we are, as our frames of reference, or maps, define the territory." (Stephen Covey, "Principle Centered Leadership", 1992)

"But ignorance exists in the map, not in the territory. If I am ignorant about a phenomenon, that is a fact about my own state of mind, not a fact about the phenomenon itself. A phenomenon can seem mysterious to some particular person. There are no phenomena which are mysterious of themselves. To worship a phenomenon because it seems so wonderfully mysterious, is to worship your own ignorance." (Eliezer Yudkowsky, "Mysterious Answers To Mysterious Questions" 2007)

"It is hard to navigate across one’s environment without having some ideas, however coarse, about it. Indeed, to face any situation we must know whether it is real or imaginary, profane or sacred, sensitive or insensitive to our actions, and so on. This is why even lowly organisms develop, if not worldviews, at least rough sensory maps of their immediate environment – as noted by ethologists from the start. But it is generally assumed that only humans can build conceptual models of their environments. And, except for some philosophers, humans distinguish maps from the territories they represent." (Mario Bunge, "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry", 2010)