"The map is not the territory."
-Alfred Korzbyski
I've been fortunate to exchange emails with one of the
twelve men who walked on the moon... the man who founded the Institute of
Noetic Sciences... Dr. Edgar Mitchell. Mitchell shares my fascination with
the fields of parapsychology and physics, in pursuit of a better
understanding of consciousness and the way we interact with this amazing
universe.
I was discussing topics of zero point energy and string theory with
Mitchell, when he charmed me by reminding me not to confuse the map with
the territory. It's so easy for us to be delighted with the mathematical
and physical models we come up with to describe this universe... and so
easy for us to contemplate the sections where "There be Dragons
Here" to the point we forget that our original purpose was to most
completely comprehend what is real.
This is something of an conundrum, since the human brain is designed with
pattern matching and sorting as one of its main skills. How can we ignore
what we think we know (the map) in order to best observe what is real?
This is probably the most important single question that anyone seriously
pursuing scientific knowledge can address.
I can't say that I know what the answer is, aside from being ever alert to
the potential problem... that at some point, the theories and ideas can
seduce us into believing we've found the answer... and only much later do
we learn that we're holding yet another beautiful map.
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