The map is not the territory :: Draft

This is not a pipe. TK Write a thousand words on this side of the penny, Zen and the art TK.

Describe what you are seeing right now.

“Words on a page” is one answer. To which we would ask “Oh, what words? Which letters? How big are they? What font? Describe the font. The lettering. How do you know it’s that shape? Compared to what?

Then, what kind of page? Paper? EReader? What kind? What colour? How did you know?

Beyond that, your hands. What are they doing? Slightly moving with your breathing, or not? Relaxed, clenched, curled?

… you cannot adequately describe anything. The best you can do is make a representation of it.

And that representation will be wrong. And sometimes useful. The general semantics dude TK summarised it as:

“The map is not the territory”.