Mapping the terrain.

[nerinamakani]

If the terrain is the map and the map is an individual ego/personality then isn't the terrain also, conceptually, god?

Warning: Definitions may become blurry as you enter the white light of mysticism.

[Telarus]

The terrain is not the map. Maps are abstractions, terrains are part of the non-simultaneously perceived Universe impacting on your senses.

[nerinamakani]

I SAID the definitions become blurry damnit.

Terrain-Reality (experience, perception, whatever) And the map of your ego as a description of that.

Why do you seperate the two?

Or should I say, why do you seperate the one? :P

[Telarus]

The same reason you put the spaces between the words in your reply.

[nerinamakani]

The original statement was sort of an offshoot of that old bit of wisdom that the terrain is the most accurate map of all.

[Telarus]

Snark aside, if you want to communicate meaningfully about the topic in the OP, you have to differentiate. It's what language and abstractions are for (communication via abstraction, otherwise, meet me at the ZenDo and we can hit each other with sticks). Statements in language range between 3 (not two) value positions: True, False, and Meaningless.

Your position:

If T = M, and M = Ego_individual, then does T = God_{the divine undifferentiated}?


...falls squarely into Meaningless territory (signs that lack meaning behind them), mainly because there isn't a complete thought represented there (and I even gave you the benefit of the doubt and subscripted the term 'God' for you).

This is the classic problem of adepts who have experienced the '5th circuit' holistic, all-is-one sensory turn-on of Neuro-Somatic Bliss. The signs and symbols (i.e. the maps) that we use to describe and get around our every day world of social interactions fail spectacularly. There are a few out there who can put the experience into words. (Rumi comes to mind from the Sufi tradition, Rinzai (Zen/Chan Buddhist) may be another, and James Joyce and Ezra Pound (his post Chinese-studies poetry) probably fit here as well.)

Edit: Don't want to kill the conversation... do you think you can put your thought from above into some Context (where were you/ what were you doing/ how were you feeling when it came to you? )

[LMNO]

If the terrain is the map and the map is an individual ego/personality then isn't the terrain also, conceptually, god?

Warning: Definitions may become blurry as you enter the white light of mysticism.

Faulty premise: Many Discordians (including myself) tend to follow the idea that the map is NOT the territory.

If you wish to follow your initial premise, please support your assertion that the ideas in our ego/personality perfectly match external reality.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

If the terrain is the map and the map is an individual ego/personality then isn't the terrain also, conceptually, god?

Warning: Definitions may become blurry as you enter the white light of mysticism.

It may be easier if we consider that the map is a model of the terrain... or, the map is a model of the individual ego/personality. The ego can also be modeled as 'god' for some purposes, but the ego is not actually god.

[Cramulus]

This is not a pipe
   -- it is an image which resembles a pipe.

And to take it a step further - It is not even an image, it's just some electrical activity in your brain!



helpful reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map–territory_relation

[hooplala]

If the terrain is the map and the map is an individual ego/personality then isn't the terrain also, conceptually, god?

Warning: Definitions may become blurry as you enter the white light of mysticism.

No.  By your definitions, the terrain would be part of your ego and personality.  You pulled "god" out of that concept the way a magician would pull a woman sawed in half from a top hat.

And also, I agree with the above posters that the map is certainly NOT the terrain, and the terrain is not the map.  Where did you get the idea that it was?

Warning: Definitions may become blurry as you enter the vague blurry mist of bullshit.

[Hoser McRhizzy]

Related to what's already been said.

neri - Keep playing with metaphors.  Did you know that when imperialists were advertising land for settlement in North America and planning their trips, they sometimes made up maps of what the area might look like?  In many cases, they'd never been to the places they were mapping.  More often, maps were constructed to decide land ownership than to detail actual terrain.  People would come over to find out that (for example) no, there wasn't a fresh water lake where there was supposed to be one.  With map/grid in hand detailing the land they'd paid for, people would find out (surprise!) the place was already inhabited, it didn't exist, or what looked like awesome farmland was actually swamp. 

... Like the 'rugged northern adventure' novels that were so popular in England in the first stages of NA colonialism - writers who'd never been still wrote about the beneficial moral and physical transformations that living in the wilderness of Canada would confer on young English boys.  Canadians are still 'eating the menu' of that bit of propaganda. 

Just a few different ways of thinking the word 'map.'

[hooplala]

the beneficial moral and physical transformations that living in the wilderness of Canada would confer on young English boys.  Canadians are still 'eating the menu' of that bit of propaganda.  

Are they?

[Hoser McRhizzy]

the beneficial moral and physical transformations that living in the wilderness of Canada would confer on young English boys. Some Canadians are still 'eating the menu' of that bit of propaganda.  

Are they?

fixt for emphasis.  Good point.  I was still thinking in terms of colonial mentality.

And yeah, I grew up hearing folks talk about how the simple fact of living through winter made them god's chosen, tougher than 'southerners' and so on.  There's some kind of messed up osmosis that happens in the minds of the always/already righteous: wherever they happen to live, their location becomes proof of virtue.

Does that make more sense?

rhizome,
- also a canuk

[hooplala]

the beneficial moral and physical transformations that living in the wilderness of Canada would confer on young English boys. Some Canadians are still 'eating the menu' of that bit of propaganda.  

Are they?

fixt for emphasis.  Good point.  I was still thinking in terms of colonial mentality.

And yeah, I grew up hearing folks talk about how the simple fact of living through winter made them god's chosen, tougher than 'southerners' and so on.  There's some kind of messed up osmosis that happens in the minds of the always/already righteous: wherever they happen to live, their location becomes proof of virtue.

Does that make more sense?

rhizome,
- also a canuk

Definitely makes more sense.  I hear it a lot from people who live in big cities.  I hear it from a lot of Torontonians... "We're tougher because we have to put up with transit, crowds, shootings, etc etc etc...

[LMNO]

Toronto is compensated by having the most beautiful strippers per capita of any major city.