The Map Is Not The Territory


All models are wrong; some are useful.

The map is not the territory. All models are wrong (but some are useful). If we are surprised by some occurrence, it is not the world that is weird, it’s our view of it that is. Reality is reality; your perception is your perception. (Source: Think Like Reality, by Yudkowsky).

Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.
— George Box

It’s a problem when your understanding is of the map, rather than the underlying territory. Remember that you’re relying on a model (which is, by nature, limited) of reality, not reality itself.1

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Footnotes

  1. The Great Mental Models ↩

Incoming links: Mental Models