The map and the territory : exploring the foundations of science, thought and reality /

This volume brings to mind a joke by comedian Steven Wright: "I have a map of the United States ... Scale: 1 mile = 1 mile. People ask where I live, and I say 'E6.'" Maps are representations of a territory, but they are necessarily imprecise in some way; they cannot possibly contain all information about any given territory. Likewise, any description of a thing, such as an apple, will be incomplete, depending on what characteristics are described: the apple's price, taste, color, geographical origin, etc. This limitation is often forgotten or overlooked because the representation of a thing is so handy--in some cases, handier than the thing itself. Paradoxes can ensue when one attempts to describe the description (or represent the representation). And that is just the very tip of the problem. In this epistemological and ontological investigation into the nature of the relationship between things and their representations (or the map and the territory), more than three-dozen prominent thinkers in the fields of philosophy, computer science, mathematics, cognitive science, and physics--along with a couple of noted cartographers--set out to explore the details of this problem, and offer some solutions. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above. --Robert C Robinson, Georgia State University