The map is not the territory
A term coined by Alfred Korzybski, basically implying that we are separated from reality. The map is a metaphor for our belief system, values and principles (How we view the world), the map of the world we have in our minds is not the real world but just a reflection of our beliefs. Each person has a different reality, based on the fact that we all have different maps and ways to view the world. Most people (or all of them), instead of interacting with the world, interact with their map.
Two different people can look at the same problem and see two different things. they might come with an idea for a solution and each will think he is right but in reality both could be right or wrong. There are many religions in the world, each has a different religious story with base ideals and rules, each has thousands - millions of followers, but they cant all be right... Yet, each believer is sure that his religion is the right one! He will argue for that and wont accept other Ideas.
This example talks about religion but it could be politics, ideas, music taste and basically anything ... But why is that? People has different ideas and each sure his right or has higher value based on their maps of reality.
Old lady or young lady?
NLP communication model
NLP came up with a practical model that helps us understand how we receive and process information, forming our reality and reacting to it. How we see the world? this model shows us what influence each of us to interpret the reality individually.
External event (Territory) is happening, we receive information with our five senses: sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. The information translated to about 2 million bits of information (that's a lot of information!) and then get processed. In order for us to understand the event, our brain has to filter the information based on our values, beliefs, language, decisions and meta-programs (subject for another post), and he does that in three main ways:
Deletion:
Deletion occurs when we remove any unnecessary information. When you are looking at something you are not seeing the whole picture but only focusing on a certain point. When you talk to someone in a bar, consciously you don't hear what other people say even tho they speak loud enough because you focus on hearing your friend. Without deletion you would be overloaded with unnecessary information.
Distortion:
Not all information get received perfectly, sometimes we observe something as a different thing. Person can see a rope in nature and think its a snake. We can observe objective information and distort it to negative, positive or different information based on many things like proportion, conclusion jumping , taging and many others.
Generalization:
Maybe the main filter happening which places the information in the matching group in your brain. When you look at a door you don't need someone to explain to you what is a door, you know automatically what is a door and how its working. That's because the information get generalized and stored in order for us to understand it faster in the future. The brain always looking for the similar!
People who had bad experience with something automatically assume the result will be the same next time because they generalized the experience and formed a belief.
Internal representation
After the the information filtered we get internal representation (Our Map) about the external event. Our map is built with pictures, sounds, feelings, smells, tastes and self talk. This is our representation of reality!
This representation of reality influence our state and our physiological state as a result. Our behaviors influenced by our state and form results.
Here's a video of Doug OBrien explaining the concept of perception and beliefs. I feel like this video can visualize many of the things I've written in here.
Now we understand the concept of subjective and individual reality! We can carefully observe ourselves and see where we have aspects of our life that are influenced by our map which has few false beliefs (We all have few of those). More importantly we can understand each other and not get angry when someone's reality doesn't match ours.
The written things have not been proven scientifically or claimed to be absolute truth. Those set of ideas and methods a person can try and see if it has an effect. This is a personal empirical prof and not scientific (yet). Would recommend simply trying those ideas and feel the positive effects it has on your life! you can base your decision on that.
What is NLP?
NLP Presuppositions
🙂Thank you for reading!🙂
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This content is not for all, I'm sure. It's difficult to understand in one go. However, thank you veru much for bringing up content like this.
My pleasure, I tried to simplify it as much as possible :)
I enjoyed this. It's great to remember this post while dealing with other people.
Thank you, try to remember it while dealing with every kind of information :P
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
- Albert Einstein
Not simple enough? :)
I got it and I'm pretty simple. It's a very interesting article, and very true. It will be interesting to see how they use these studies to teach computers to learn. As a dad, it lends good guidance how to teach as well.
Funny you said that because I was reading about AI and one of the most important discoveries they did is the importance of a body for the system, we learn through our feelings and body language and they affect each other. So it will be really interesting to see how they address this problem ;)
Thank you for the comment!
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Since talking to you, my lucid dreams have become physically blurred. My "perceived" detail is now a mere distortion. And there is a block. It's quite interesting but it's so new I have no idea what it means, I just know it has something to do with you, your posts and what my subconscious is doing to that information. If you wouldn't mind could you read my post, it's called something like "my waking life" tell me what you think? I'm curios 🙃
Sure!
I will read it later, I'm working right now on my new post :)
If I happen to forget just reply again to remind me ^^
Yes, like your article. Being a member in the church of perpetual astonishment NLP is a useful tool and mindset as it keeps you astonishingly curious of how the different modalities keep interacting...Will follow you and have up voted you.
Thank you very much! Happy that you liked it :D
I just scanned through it but will get back to it later again. I have become highly critical of mainstream psychology but NLP definitely works. I do not perform hypnosis on people who are under the influence of the system though, because I think it is helping the system which has huge problems.
as a certified practitioner of hypnosis and metaphilosopher and financial analyst, I am following you
Thank you very much!
I don't really like the mainstream psychology as well, does not bring great results. One of my dreams is to bring this domain into psychology and science.
Thank you again for the great comment and follow :D
This reminds me of the philosophy of Kant regarding the noumenal and phenomenal realms. I am not sure about his metaphysical assertions but, to be honest, was he even sure that there is a world independent of our ideas or perception. I haven't read his work extensively so please, if you do know, let me know if I am off.
I do believe it is possible that one may have portions of their map so to speak that do represent the real world. In other words, there are absolutes which we may arrive in our thinking. Do we know if they are asolutes? Perhaps not but, if absolutes do exist then it is reasonable that there is a human mind that may have a conception of them and thus possess a good portion of the map.
Maybe we all have a sliver of the map of the territory but surely no man does in toto. That is why we are able to learn from one another and cooperate. A wonderful dynamic of interpersonal relationships if I do say so myself.
Keep blogging. I like where this is going. ;)
Thank you for awesome comment brother!
About Kant's work, I did not have the chance to check it but I will.
You could say there are absolute, there are facts, and facts are true no matter what our perspective. The earth is round, that's a fact, but there are still people with the belief it's flat.
Thank you for great comment again :D
Congratulations @paps!
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category:
I do agree, "the map" is a figment of the imagination. The map is a mental interpretation of the world but it is not the world. We all have different interpretations but become of those differences we never truly can understand each others point of view; thus, it is nearly impossible to know reality (the territory). Buddhism teaches that to know reality the ego must be removed. Only when you get rid of the ego (aka your sense of self) will you come to know reality as it truly is.
Interesting concept, gonna write about it in the future!
Thank you for the comment!
This is a very important truth. Sometimes when we changed the way we perceived the situation that we are, we become more empowered and happy. As the say goes, there are different versions of truth, why choose the one that makes us unhappy.
Agreed, if there are two kinds of illusions then I rather pick tge positive one :)
In life, we need to empower our selves.
This was a pretty informative post.
I had actually researched briefly these concepts of individual and subjective reality, but never went too deep into them...your post provides a nice, simple insight into what these things are and how they work :)
Good piece man :D
Loved some of the details provided, especially about differences in perception and how often the notion that the objective point of focus may be what is static and its perception may be the matter of debate, not the other way around. Its really cool :)
Also, that artwork gets me every single time...its actually scary just how well designed it is.
Thank you so much for reading and leaving this great comment!
I'm really happy you liked it ^^
Which art work you meant? the communication model?
You're very welcome, good sir :)
Its a very well constructed piece.
Naw, the old-lady young-lady one. Its just too eerily well made. Like how'd they get them proportions and whatnot just right enough to look convincing, right? I'd never be able to pull that off myself, I know that for sure.
well, I can bearly draw a normal face XD
But there are a lot of illusions like this :)
Its hard to grasp reality. One would say that this is real and one would say that theirs are real. If we focus on searching for the reality, I guess we are going to fail because reality (like what you said) is not a reality from the others.
Great article.
Thank you :)
I like to think of it : " there is no absolute reality we can observe"
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@paps upvoted
nice post
Thank you!
Really interesting content, thanks for share ^_^
My pleasure! really happy you liked it ^_^
upvoted.. I am familiar with this and am glad you are posting about this.
Im really happy you liked it! ;D
I was arguing over something with a friend the other day, and someone solved it by interrupting us and saying "You two are probably just seeing it differently..." I felt enlightened by a simple observation aha. Good article
Thank you very much, many people understand this concept the way you described it^^
Ty for reading ;d
Good stuff. A map of Paris is NOT Paris 😉
True :)
Yes very nice post, lots of good content!
Thank you!
Great post paps. Keep steeming hard.
Thank you, dear! :)
Great work, thank you for the time spent and great content enjoyed the read.
Thank you very much! I'm really happy to read such comments ^^
well done paps, once again!
TNX
Interesting information!
Thank you very much!
Really great post man!
So many things to ponder over XD
Haha, check my last post as well if you want to overload some information :P
Thank you! ;D
ya i am agree with you brother
great article .many thanks
Thank you!
Upvoted and following @paps 💖 I love this! Come back to my page in a couple of days I'm doing one similar to this with reality consciousness and death. See u soon!
I will!
thank you, soo much ♥
this is realy nice posting man keep it up
thank you!
Great post mate, keep them coming.
Thank you, I will!
Great article!
Maybe the title is a bit dated since we live in the digital age though? Maybe it should have read "The SatNav is not the territory"?? Especially when it tries to take you the wrong way down a one way street!
Haha nice point!
ty for comment :D
Lovely post @paps , Deep reaserch. Thanks for adding to our knowledge. Definately following you. I just found my calling.
Thank mate!
I'm really happy you liked it and found your calling ^^
This was very interesting and we should live like this.
Thank you!
It a representation on how amazing the human brain is... Well, it's not perfect... but having the ability to delete, distort and generalize is something we are gifted with...
People tend to choose what to believe... it's basically based on a lot of factors including human emotion... Sometimes, it's nice to believe something which is quite impossible, but we still hold on to the 0.0001% of possibility.. xD
Sometimes...
we chose not to believewe choose to deny real things... because we are scared... or it's just against what we believed in... :DThanks for sharing, @paps :) Such a good read! ^^
Thanks for your awesome comment ^^
hahaha... you're welcome.. :)
Great article, esp. for folks who are not familiar with NLP and related concepts. Upvoted & followed.
Thank you very much, brother!
Wow! I really like this post. I know that I have a closed mind in certain circumstances do to trauma that's happened in my life. Thank you for the insight. I uprooted you and followed you!
Thank you so much @stephiesawyer, I'm really happy my post helps ^^
extremely fascinating post.this is my first time here.i discovered such huge numbers of intriguing stuff in your string particularly its discussion..thanks for the post!
Im really happy you liked it, stay with us :D
why not sir
I personally Liked it and Upvoted it for sure!!!
It's a very interesting topic that I am not expert, and my english are not native, but I got the idea and the point!
I would be interested to learn more about NLP! If I am not mistaken Tony Robbins also knows NLP, correct @paps ?? :D
Yes you are absolutely right my brother, Tony Robbins publicly admitted to using NLP and it's totally visible in his seminars.
Thank you for the comment! :D English is not my native as well but I learn through writing ^^
haha it's so funny our posts are very similar.. i liked it and i agree with the best part of it.. keep writing, look forwards to your next post..
Thank you!
Another post coming today ^^
Sometimes I am bothered by my negative thoughts but I came to realizations that how I see myself is entirely different how others see me. So I don't have to trouble myself with problems that don't even exist.
And then you also act according to your beliefs! The best thing you can do is change the negative beliefs to positive even if that's also just an illusion.
I personally would like to see a post about Cognitive Dissonance. It seems like a prevalent issue in recent human history. :-)
Good Idea!
We all have contradicting Ideas that block us from taking the right step toward what we really want to do.
It could be, or... It could also be the way you perceive things :)
The fact alone that two people can take out of this article two different meaning shows us the "maps of reality"
and the "Filters" at work.
Thank you for your comment! not many take their time to read and comment like this.
Thank you!