The Map is not the territory
“A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” - Alfred Korzybski Science and Sanity (1933)
Paraphrased as:
"The Map is not the territory"
A phrase used by Alfred Korzybski to illustrate a central tenet of his system of General Semantics: that representations (symbols, words, maps) are not the things they represent. Confusing the model with reality can lead to misunderstandings and flawed reasoning.
The phrase means that any model, theory, or description (the "map") is not the actual thing it represents (the "territory"). Maps are simplifications—useful, but always incomplete or potentially misleading. Confusing the model with reality leads to misunderstanding.
This is the reason I treat knowledge as "sufficiently true" rather than True: our models are maps, and the territory is never inspected directly (see True and the Correspondence theory of truth).