On Maps (1900-1949)

"It must be remembered that the object of the world of ideas as a whole [the map or model] is not the portrayal of reality - this would be an utterly impossible task - but rather to provide us with an instrument for finding our way about more easily in the world." (Hans Vaihinger, "The Philosophy of 'As if': A System of the Theoretical, Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind", 1911)

"Thinking is an experimental dealing with small quantities of energy, just as a general moves miniature figures over a map before setting his troops in action." (Sigmund Freud, "New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis", 1932)

"A language is like a map; it is not the territory represented, but it may be a good map or a bad map. If the map shows a different structure from the territory represented-for instance, shows the cities in a wrong order, or some places east of others while in the actual territory they are west - then the map is worse than useless, as it misinforms and leads astray. One who made use of it could never be certain of reaching his destination. The use of ellanguage to represent events which operate as-a-whole is, at least, equally misguiding and semantically dangerous." (Alfred Korzybski, "Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics", 1933)

"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. If the map could be ideally correct, it would include, in a reduced scale, the map of the map; the map of the map, of the map [...]" (Alfred Korzybski, "Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics", 1933)

"[…] statistical literacy. That is, the ability to read diagrams and maps; a 'consumer' understanding of common statistical terms, as average, percent, dispersion, correlation, and index number."  (Douglas Scates, "Statistics: The Mathematics for Social Problems", 1943)

"[…] learning consists not in stimulus-response connections but in the building up in the nervous system of sets which function like cognitive maps […] such cognitive maps may be usefully characterized as varying from a narrow strip variety to a broader comprehensive variety." (Edward C Tolman, "Cognitive maps in rats and men", 1948)

"The first of the principles governing symbols is this: The symbol is NOT the thing symbolized; the word is NOT the thing; the map is NOT the territory it stands for." (Samuel I Hayakawa, "Language in Thought and Action", 1949)

"We all inherit a great deal of useless knowledge, and a great deal of misinformation and error (maps that were formerly thought to be accurate), so that there is always a portion of what we have been told that must be discarded. But the cultural heritage of our civilization that is transmitted to us - our socially pooled knowledge, both scientific and humane - has been valued principally because we have believed that it gives us accurate maps of experience. The analogy of verbal words to maps is an important one [...]. It should be noticed at this point, however, that there are two ways of getting false maps of the world into our heads: first, by having them given to us; second, by creating them ourselves when we misread the true maps given to us." (Samuel I Hayakawa, "Language in Thought and Action", 1949)