What exactly does it mean to confuse the map for the territory?

[benny]

I get the sense that confusing the map for the territory means to dogmatically adhere to models and belief systems, when in reality, you may need to think and act outside those models and beliefs to properly navigate towards a successful outcome. For instance, if I have a map, and it tells me to walk through a canyon to get to town on the other side, but the entrance to the canyon has collapsed, I can't use the map. I now have to devise an alternative way to get to town.

 

Maybe I'm completely off-base, though.

[Tim R]

To confuse the map with the territory simply means to confuse ideas, concepts, models and abstractions with the real world. 

It's just a metaphor and has nothing to do with maps or territory.

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, benny said:

I get the sense that confusing the map for the territory means to dogmatically adhere to models and belief systems, when in reality, you may need to think and act outside those models and beliefs to properly navigate towards a successful outcome.

Confusing the map with the territory is about confusing a symbol (a thing) for the thing it represents (another thing).

A symbol is something that represents something other than itself. Models are in essence nothing but a collection of symbols. Maps are like that, and humans are map-makers.

Thoughts are symbolic in nature. For example, you have a thought (a thing) about a cat (another thing). The relationship between the cat-thought and the cat is symbolic. The thought is like an image of the cat. The image is not the actual cat - it's an image.

"Think and act outside models" is therefore not a very meaningful statement. You're already involved in the very act of modeling or map-making by interacting with the symbolic content of your thoughts. You drawing images of cats in your mind is similar to drawing images of cats on paper.

This video is a perfect illustration of what we're talking about (it's so funny ):

 

The confusion also lies in thinking that symbols somehow exist independently of map-makers (humans). That would be impossible.

These are all maps. They were all made by someone. In this case, if something is made by someone, it cannot be the territory. 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Preety_India]

I think confusing the map for the territory in the simplest form is about being excessively invested into the mechanics and logistics or ideas or concepts that are used to study and define reality rather than focusing on the reality itself. 

For example, if people kept discussing all sorts of concepts related to enlightenment and spiritual work instead of actually focusing on doing psychedelics or practices that lead to such truths. 

IMO, it's like theoririzing too much with not much to back it up with and then thinking that such philosophical conjectures is equivalent to knowing and experiencing the truth itself. 

For example, if someone was dying in a shipwreck and I decided to write a long book on it describing how they would feel in the last moments but their actual experiences being vastly different from my understanding and description of it  

 

 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Preety_India

[Gesundheit]

It's a pre-surrealist & pre-modernist fallacy.

[OctagonOctopus]

What is is what is, not a map. 

It is basically looking at the map and thinking that is what is true rather then looking at it as a map, model, or concept, rather then looking at what is so right now.

Wait until you realize that the map is the territory, that is one of the biggest mindfucks ever, all you are doing right now is relating to concepts that you are creating. Egos don't know how to do anything else.