Know the Limits of Your Tooling. Here Are Philosopher Alfred Korzybski’s 4 Rules For Navigating Reality
Alfred Korzybski was a philosopher and scholar from the early 20th century. He invented the mental model: “The Map is Not the Territory”.
What’s so great about this principle is it teaches us the limits of tools and guides.
It helps you recognize that these guides, as Farnam Street writes about, don’t fully describe the messiness of reality.
Here is a breakdown of the rules and how they apply:
Before we get to the rules, maps and territories are metaphors for simplifications and reality. They have many applications including:
- News vs current events
- Financial Statements vs Acme Corporation
- Mental Models vs expertise
Rule #1: Maps are useful
Maps are useful BECAUSE they are simplifications of the territory. Physical maps are foldable and fit in your pocket. Digital maps fit on your phone.
They don’t contain every single detail of the territory, otherwise they will cease to become practical.
The map makes it easier to navigate a territory in that it serves as guidance, all while being portable.
The simplification that a map provides is a core feature.
Using an example from above, Financial Statements are helpful summaries of a company’s results at a certain point in time.
Using Financial Statements, you can get a better understanding of how a company is performing financially, what are the company’s priorities, and even get some sense of the company’s culture.
You can glean a lot of information about a company from just a few pages of their annual report.
Maps and Financial Statements exist because we need these “reductions of reality”, since consuming all the details of something can be overwhelming.
Rule #2: Maps have their flaws
Because maps are simplifications, they by definition, have their flaws.
They miss details.
They can be out of date.
Continuing from the above example, Financial Statements do NOT, give you the full picture of what it’s like to:
- Work at a company
- Lead the company
- Sell to the company
- Buy from the company
Relying on financial statements to draw firm conclusions about all aspects of a company would be a mistake.
Just like following a map blindly without looking right in front of you could lead you off a cliff, or into a lake.
Rule #3: Maps are subject to biases
Maps have authors (cartographers). Authors are not objective. Whether they mean to or not, they carry, and publish certain biases. These biases show themselves within the map.
Details that may seem important to you might not seem important to the author, so they don’t show up on the map.
Other details that are important to the author may seem irrelevant to you. And show up on the map, ultimately confusing you or changing your view of reality.
This happens in the news all the time. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally.
The news is a map of current events. In the news, certain details of current events are:
- Omitted
- Included
- Embellished
- Downplayed
Knowing this tendency when following maps will help us know it’s limitations.
Rule #4: Maps are tools for exploration, not dogma
Maps are a tool to help us explore. They’re also not the only tool for exploration. Compasses are tools, even clocks are tools.
Knowing of a maps limitations will help us realize that the map doesn’t govern how the territory SHOULD look.
- A Financial Statement does not govern how a company MUST operate going forward.
- The news doesn’t dictate how current events actually happened.
- Mental Models don’t define expertise.
The map serves it’s user, not the other way around. And the user is free to use multiple tools.
Knowing these four rules help us get a better grasp of reality. We can be more mindful of a tools usefulness, their limits, and inherent biases.
This also helps us get better at knowing the right tools for a job.