"Bourland studied under [[Alfred Korzybski]], a [[Polish]] aristocrat and émigré who founded the philosophy of General Semantics, made famous by his slogan, ‘The map is not the territory.’ **To think about and function in the world, Korzybski said, we rely on systems of abstract concepts, most obviously language. But those concepts don’t reflect the world in a straightforward way; instead, they contain hidden traps that distort reality, causing confusion and angst**. And the verb ‘to be’, he argued, contains the most traps of all." --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[the-map-is-not-the-territory]], [[mental-models]], [[semantic-creep]] **Source** -- [[20241114100017 - B - Help!]]