The Map Collector

Think of a system. What picture comes to mind? A computer, or a roomful of them? A decision tree, with questions and arrows branching to different answers, all of which converge on “Then don’t worry”? What about a lake, the topography that allows it to stand, the rainfall, the vegetation, the things that live in an around it and eat one another? A system to Webster is as simple as a bunch of interconnected parts that form a whole. All of those examples qualify, and many more. What I want to explore is whether we can run into trouble by comparing certain types of systems that aren’t really comparable. A map is a metaphor, and all metaphors break down eventually, but eventually is a lot better than right away for the same reason that I don’t want to pull a new map out of the glove compartment every block. I’d rather a map with mileage.
( Read more... )

 

We have learnt, in our cultural setting, to classify behavior into ‘means’ and ‘ends’ and if we go on defining ends as separate from means and apply the social sciences as crudely instrumental means, using the recipes of science to manipulate people, we shall arrive at a totalitarian rather than a democratic system of life.

—Margaret Mead

My purpose in writing these essays is to examine various maps—systems of metaphors for an unknowable territory—in order to suss out their usefulness as aids in navigation, which means decision making. I’m interested in how things work in terms of these systems, so along the way I’m going to be leaning heavily on the works of anthropologist Gregory Bateson, not the first but one of the better-known names in systems theory and cybernetics. My interest in Bateson is not completely unrelated to my interest in chicken wings. Let me digress:

( Read more... )