quote:

Originally posted by Ronald Rutherford:

quote:

Originally posted by /rén:
Regarding: "The map is not the territory," I said the following:

quote:

/rén:
The words that we see here are the "maps," so to speak, in that metaphorical statement from Korzybski. The "territory" -- the "us" that makes those maps is not in the maps, then, if that phrase makes sense to anyone -- and it does to me, and that it does based on my own direct experience and self explorations of what I see in language and other aspects of my internal awareness.

Do you see how that correlates with the following from Wiki?:

quote:

The map is not the territory is a remark by Alfred Korzybski, encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself, e.g., the pain from a stone falling on your foot is not the stone; one's opinion of a politician, favorable or unfavorable, is not that person; a metaphorical representation of a concept is not the concept itself; and so on. A specific abstraction or reaction does not capture all facets of its source—e.g., the pain in your foot does not convey the internal structure of the stone, you don't know everything that is going on in the life of a politician, etc.—and thus may limit an individual's understanding and cognitive abilities unless the two are distinguished. Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with territories, in this sense.

Korzybski's dictum ("The map is not the territory") is also cited as an underlying principle used in neuro-linguistic programming, where it is used to signify that individual people in fact do not in general have access to absolute knowledge of reality, but in fact only have access to a set of beliefs they have built up over time, about reality. So it is considered important to be aware that people's beliefs about reality and their awareness of things (the "map") are not reality itself or everything they could be aware of ("the territory"). The originators of NLP have been explicit that they owe this insight to General Semantics.

Now the problem you are saying you are having some puzzlement about is with what's been pulled from what I said here:

quote:

That concept itself is now an integral part of what we are calling since about the 1980s, "cognitive science," a science that is behind what Thom has brought to this board as Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and others have been mentioned who you are familiar with, though with some expressions on your part that appear as disdain in their grammatical construction, and those would be folks like George Lakoff.

But it's also a statement that reflects a long struggle that goes back to Plato and Aristotle about what we can actually know outside ourselves about the world, and how we can know it.

So, if we have this limitation in what we can know (from the Wiki quote):

quote:

So it is considered important to be aware that people's beliefs about reality and their awareness of things (the "map") are not reality itself or everything they could be aware of ("the territory"). The originators of NLP have been explicit that they owe this insight to General Semantics.

Where is that point where you would separate POV from anything else represented on this board in the way we can perceive it through language? How can we know the "actual" territory of someone's meaning other than through the abstract representation of that territory in the words we read, or, in other words, through their mapings of what they perceive? And since the words are the formulations of the given posters, are they anything but their abstract representations of what they perceive, from their point of view of what they can only hope is reality?

How else can you get to any sharable notion of what POV means than through the maps we share here, which are drawn from each of our points of view, and are not by any stretch of the imagination what's actual?

While you may reject the science of NLP and how it correlates to that form of abstract thinking, it does remain a significant body of understanding which many people have begun to incorporate into their thinking, thus making that understanding itself a part of their point of view. How can you even talk about someone's point of view without an understanding about that? How does that not help to explain what someone like myself might mean by my "point of view," if taken into account?

quote:

Originally posted by Ronald Rutherford:
Then what is the "science behind" it (NLP)?

quote:

I am hypothesizing, now, that you are completely lost about what is being discussed. That's my current working hypothesis. I hope that one proves to be ungrounded.

quote:

In response to my question of whether you understood what I've been discussing has to do with this topic, you just suggested someone here -- I'm not sure who, I thought the conversation was between the two of us -- has copped out and is not "trying" to work with the problem presented on this thread:

quote:

To answer your reference: I am still talking about that conundrum of what we can know

quote:

Originally posted by Sue N:
For Thom's explanation of NLP, click on "NLP classes" on the left. "The map is not the territory" is in lesson 3.

quote:

It came out of the research that John Grinder and Richard Bandler did, back in the 1960s, late 1960s and early 1970s looking at the behavior patterns of people who were truly, startlingly, amazingly effective communicators who produced change in other people through their communication.

quote:

Originally posted by Loganthor:
While that is a noble road to walk on the path to enlightenment, doesn’t serve this thread, this topic nor the community.

quote:

But what I would like, is a better understanding of what can be done to make this an enjoyable environment in which to more deeply explore my maps with the help of a GPS system. If you can reframe a question that better envisions this end goal and provide the thread with a better forum to engage in cooperative dialog. That would also be a noble task.

quote:

Originally posted by Sawdust:


You should have been waterboarded.

quote:

How do we learn to read closely and imagine the possibilities that any individual might have in mind when they write something? How do we learn to ask better questions to find out what they are trying to say? How do we learn to recognize the limitations of our own awareness and be humble enough to acknowledge them, and thus perhaps learn to respect that we are all in the same boat trying to make sense of each other with this ongoing human problem of not being able to know much beyond the words, words which each of us may take with slightly different nuances and perspectives, thus misconstruing the meaning intended in the process?

quote:

My discussion with PeeWee seems to me to have a metaphorical meaning within that context. PeeWee and I have never connected well. Isn't that the point of your thread? How do we get around those problems? Or, even, can we?

quote:

Originally posted by /rén:

quote:

Exactly.

quote:

You are so totally predictable

quote:

Too bad you can't come up with something original.

quote:

Originally posted by Loganthor:
I think I am going to need some aspirin for this.

I see your “maps”, I acknowledge what Korzybski is saying and accept the inherent difficulties surrounding individual point of view. You ask “how” a multitude of times regarding understanding. My answer, “ask the question”.

I can already accept that everyone’s (including myself) POV is inherently biased by any number external and internal factors developed over however many years into an infinite combination of values and beliefs making up one single person.

However since this thread is asking the question for individual POV, that I have already accepted as inherently bias by their individual interactions here, I very much expect every answer to be unique and not necessarily reflective of a common reality. I would have no way of knowing these answers without taking the initiative to Ask the Question.

Will this lead to a better understanding of discussion board dynamics, an altering consensus POV of the good and bad features of a discussion board, will it serve as an example of what not to do in threads titled “Your POV of this forum”, will there be cooperative dialog on a topic or a series of meaningless time consuming rambling regarding various unrelated topics. I have not gathered enough information to determine any possible outcome yet regarding this thread or how it will be assimilated in my collective external and internal factors making up my inherently bias POV, will it eventually alter my neuro-linguistic programming? Will I ever even know? I guess I will not know till I ask the question.

quote:

It seems to me that Ren, in his essay, discussion how we get to a point of view in the first place.

quote:

Anything else?

quote:

Originally posted by --Kate:
Yeah.

I think you're a paid correspondent.

Anything else?

quote:

Originally posted by --Kate:
Yeah.

I think you're a paid correspondent.

Anything else?

quote:

Originally posted by Loganthor:

quote:

How do we learn to read closely and imagine the possibilities that any individual might have in mind when they write something? How do we learn to ask better questions to find out what they are trying to say? How do we learn to recognize the limitations of our own awareness and be humble enough to acknowledge them, and thus perhaps learn to respect that we are all in the same boat trying to make sense of each other with this ong