The Map and the Territory
El mapa y el territorio
A student reflects on watching a baby develop its first mental maps of the world, prompting a discussion about how conceptual mapping overtakes direct experience.
The Map and the Territory
A student reflects on watching a baby develop its first mental maps of the world, prompting a discussion about how conceptual mapping overtakes direct experience.
I was living with my sister and her husband, and they foster a mother and baby. We've had a baby living with us from when she was born until now, at ten months. When you were talking about mapping, I was thinking about the experience of seeing this baby grow from not being able to hold anything or put anything in her mouth to where she is now.
No map.
Right, no map. Seeing the map actually being written. She's just started to clap her hands together and mirror all of us. It felt like a good guide, having this baby to show how the mapping happens.
That's exactly it. Jesus said, "When you are as children, you will enter the kingdom." He also said, "When you make a hand where there is the image of a hand, you will enter the kingdom."
In a sense, what I'm talking about is not about going back to no map. Rather, when the mapping appears, something is forgotten, because it has actually never gone anywhere. What happens is the map gets taken as reality. It's very hypnotic.
How the map overtakes reality
We can hear a sound and instantly have the image of what's making the sound. Then we can have the sound itself replayed in thought. We can have a sensation and then have the image of what the sensation is, and then have the sensation replayed in thought.
The mind is going to reflect reality and create a virtual mental representation of everything that's happening right now. It also creates all of the narrative based on memory: where it's all coming from, where it's going, imagining the future, direction. And at the center of all of this is the image of "I" in this world.
All of what I'm describing is mind, thought. Meanwhile, the actual sensations, the actual sounds, the actual experience of the mystery of this reality becomes like a thin afterthought in the background, when in fact it's the other way around.