This Matter Of Maps

(For pretext look here.... and then here....)

Have you heard that the 'map is not the territory,' that the 'menu is not the meal?'

The finger pointing to the moon is not the essential element. Of course if we are unaware of the moon then a finger may be necessary in alerting us to the existence of said moon. And yet saying just that is not sufficient enough to aware us to the problematic nature of maps relative to numerous human pursuits and adventures.

For instance, or example, does a map tell us how to relate, to be, to travel, to exist? Is there any meaning or significance in a map or a model? Or might we more honestly confess that maps are empty of meaning and significance--whcih is to effectively say, 'empty of any and all humanity.'

Think about it for just a minute, if you will. What is the nature of a map? What does a map do? What is a map for?

Isn't the nature of a map to point out and indicate the whereness of objects? Isn't a map all about the spatial and temporal relations of objects one to another. Isn't that even the case for 'maps of consciousness' or 'maps of the psyche?' Don't even those hold to the rule that maps are about the whereness of objects in space and time? 

Can A Where Be A How?

Now I am getting into the juice of what I initially started conveying in the two previous entries (those linked above). I know realize that the trouble I have been having with reconciling my prior affection for all things Integral, via Ken Wilber, with a more recent welling up of dissonance with the same became, is a result of my previous ignorance regarding this distinction between 'where?' and 'how?'

I was so enthralled with the nature of 'maps of consciousness' and 'models of the human psyche.' It was captivating to me how someone like Ken Wilber was even able to approach a mapping of the whole Cosmos. Or, should I say, Kosmos... from---as he has put it---its dust to its Divinity.

What a grand vision this was for me to ecounter in my early adulthood! What a grand vision for anyone to encounter! One can suddenly comprehend how it all is related. You see on the map how these different 'holons'---a term Ken Wilber borrowed from Arthur Koestler--are all related. Even the holons--or can I simply say... objects?--that reside in different domains. Objects that arise in consciousness are related somehow to objects that arise as instances of--what is deemed, through a more staunchly material perspective--a material world. Dreams and Deserts are related. They exist as different expressions of a Greater Whole--as instances of Eternity.

Yet for all of the grandness of the vision unfurled before my eyes there is this matter of how. How do you walk, live, sleep, eat, and fuck? Yes, the map can tell us where objects are located in space and time. Yes, the maps can tell us the relative position of vision-logic to subtle or psychic. Yes, the maps can tell us that this is left of that and that is right of this. But the maps cannot tell us the most important and crucial truths of all: the maps cannot tell us how to be.