Map–territory relation
Etymology
From Alfred Korzybski’s dictum "the map is not the territory," stated in "Science and Sanity" (1933). The image contrasts a "map" (any symbolic representation) with the "territory" (the reality it charts), warning against confusing the two.
noun phrase · /MAP TER-ih-tor-ee rih-LAY-shun/
The reminder that any model or description of reality is not the reality itself and can never capture all of it.
What it names
A handle for the gap between representations and the world they stand for — reach for it when a plan, metric, or theory gets mistaken for the thing it merely depicts.
Example
Treating the org chart as how the company really works confuses the map with the territory.
Related idea
Closely tied to reification, which turns an abstraction into a concrete thing; the map–territory point is the broader warning that all our models are simplifications.