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The '''map–territory relation''' is the relationship between an object and a representation of that [[Object (philosophy)|object]], as in the relation between a geographical territory and a [[map]] of it. '''Mistaking the map for the territory''' is a [[logical fallacy]] that occurs when someone confuses the semantics of a term with what it represents. Polish-American scientist and philosopher [[Alfred Korzybski]] remarked that "the map is not the territory" and that "the word is not the thing", encapsulating his view that an [[abstraction]] derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself. Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with territories, that is, confuse [[conceptual model]]s of reality with reality itself. These ideas are crucial to [[general semantics]], a system Korzybski originated.
The relationship has also been expressed in other terms, such as "the model is not the data", "[[all models are wrong]]", and [[Alan Watts]]'s "The menu is not the meal."{{efn|Widely attributed to Alan Watts, "The menu is not the meal" may be an unrecorded quote, or it may be a paraphrase derived from two recorded quotes: 1) "Money simply represents wealth in rather the same way that the menu represents the dinner."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://alanwatts.org/transcripts/not-what-should-be-but-what-is/ |title=Intelligent Mindlessness |date=31 October 2022 |publisher=alanwatts.org |access-date=2024-03-12 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231003133609/https://alanwatts.org/transcripts/intelligent-mindlessness/ |archive-date=2023-10-03}}</ref> 2) "[W]e confuse the world as it is with . . . the world as it is described. . . . And when we are not aware of ourselves except in a symbolic way, we’re not related to ourselves at all. We are like people eating menus instead of dinners."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://alanwatts.org/transcripts/not-what-should-be-but-what-is/ |title=Not What Should Be, But What Is |date=31 October 2022 |publisher=alanwatts.org |access-date=2024-03-12 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231209014704/https://alanwatts.org/transcripts/not-what-should-be-but-what-is/ |archive-date=2023-12-09}}</ref>}} The concept is thus quite relevant throughout [[ontology]] and [[ontology (information science)|applied ontology]] regardless of any connection to [[general semantics]] per se (or absence thereof). Its avatars are thus encountered in [[semantics]], [[statistics]], [[logistics]], [[business administration]], [[semiotics]], and many other applications.
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