The Infinite Mapmaker
Our Grasp For Truth
A truly accurate map of the world would need to be 1:1 scale and update itself at infinitesimally small increments. We cannot grasp this truth. Truth is infinite - it expands forever ahead and behind us across 4 dimensions.
It is trivial to talk about “truth” as though it’s something attainable, because that 1:1 map is simply impossible. We must reduce the infinite in order to have any semblance of rational discourse.
The mapmaker plays a key role here. The mapmaker editorializes and summarizes the infinite truth into an abstraction.
A map is made from the information that is currently known and relevant.
Sometimes we all agree with the mapmaker, and we wrongly say “this map is true.” But there are two problems here: 1) The map is not truth. It’s a summary of truth and 2) Many important issues are much more contentious and controversial than a map: cultural values, definitions of beauty, fundamental human rights.
All of our perceived reality is a system of abstractions of this infinite truth. We use abstractions because we understand abstractions and we can’t grasp the infinite. There’s a spectrum of abstractions, ranging from ones we all agree on to ones that are more contentious. Within a culture or subculture, different abstractions are accepted to different degrees.
We are grasping to carve out an abstraction from the chaos of infinity. Perception is fundamental to any attempt at truth, and it’s a fundamentally personal mechanism which we have, like breathing and digestion.
We are all mapmakers.
