On Maps (1950-1959)

"A fundamental value in the scientific outlook is concern with the best available map of reality. The scientist will always seek a description of events which enables him to predict most by assuming least. He thus already prefers a particular form of behavior. If moralities are systems of preferences, here is at least one point at which science cannot be said to be completely without preferences. Science prefers good maps." (Anatol Rapoport, "Science and the goals of man: a study in semantic orientation", 1950)

"No map contains all the information about the territory it represents. The road map we get at the gasoline station may show all the roads in the state, but it will not as a rule show latitude and longitude. A physical map goes into details about the topography of a country but is indifferent to political boundaries. Furthermore, the scale of the map makes a big difference. The smaller the scale the less features will be shown." (Anatol Rapoport, "Science and the goals of man: a study in semantic orientation", 1950)

"Many proofs in mathematics have been actually found by extremely roundabout processes. A man starts to prove this theorem and he finds that he wanders all over the map. He starts off and prove a good many results which don’t seem to be leading anywhere and then eventually ends up by the back door on the solution of the given problem." (Claude E Shannon, "Creative Thinking", 1952)

"Good design looks right. It is simple (clear and uncomplicated). Good design is also elegant, and does not look contrived. A map should be aesthetically pleasing, thought provoking, and communicative."  (Arthur H Robinson, "Elements of Cartography", 1953)

"The design process involves a series of operations. In map design, it is convenient to break this sequence into three stages. In the first stage, you draw heavily on imagination and creativity. You think of various graphic possibilities, consider alternative ways." (Arthur H Robinson, "Elements of Cartography", 1953)

"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. The only usefulness of a map or a language depends on the similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map-languages. If the structure is not similar, then the traveller or speaker is led astray, which, in serious human life-problems, must become always eminently harmful. If the structures are similar, then the empirical world becomes 'rational' to a potentially rational being, which means no more than that verbal, or map-predicted characteristics, which follow up the linguistic or mapstructure, are applicable to the empirical world." (Alfred Korzybski, "Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics", 1958)