[Synapse elist] elist Digest, Vol 7, Issue 4

Wed Jul 9 21:57:18 CST 2008

Hi all

to take up Jeremy's point about objectivity - I agree map-making  
becomes more objective as technology allows the representation to  
more closely resemble the referent. But i think things get really  
complicated here because in order to represent something adequately  
one has to isolate it form its context somehow. To cartographically  
define a river system, we need to exclude it from the landscape that  
it drains. To make the London underground map useful to users it  
needs to be grossly distorted and excised for its urban context while  
maintaining its underlying topology, i.e. the connections between  
lines. One has to ask whether the acts of representing and  
interpreting the external world rely on a level of abstraction and  
internal processing that puts paid to any possibility of 'objectivity'

On the other hand, Stephen Pinker, the neuroscientist in his 'the  
Blank Slate' (a great read) made the salient point that the visual  
perception of depth is the result of complex brain circuitry but that  
this perception also happens to map perfectly what is happening out  
there in the world - a sort of subjective/objective mutuality.

Perhaps maps are becoming more subjective as we fill our personalised  
maps with that which is significant to ourselves. We know from  
cultural history that the same piece of territory has very different  
significance for different people. One has only to think of the utter  
mutual bewilderment that has occured between indigenous inhabitants   
and European colonisers in the Americas and Australia regarding land  
and land use.

The same piece of territory will have very different meanings and  
resonances to, say, a geologist working for an oil company, an eco- 
tourist and a local farmer. I would think that each of thier personal  
hand-held gps devices would show very different aspects of this  
territory. Another issue that arises from GPS and in-car navigation  
is the ability to navigate in real space. One of the things I  
sometimes ask my students to do on thier first day with me is to draw  
a map of the UK in as much detail as they can including things like  
mountain ranges, rivers, mototways and cities. It worries me that  
many of them appear to have little awareness of even the most  
significant features of the country they live in. Basic relationships  
like that of Wales, Ireland and Scotland to England are often not  
captured. The maps they submit make medieval cartography seem highly  
empirically sophisticated by comparison! I find this strange in the  
age of Google Earth when any of us can explore the most remote corner  
of the earth with panoptic ease.

So maps are useful only in so much as the reader can decode them, can  
relate them to what they represent. As Alfred Korzybski an early  
cyberneticist said 'the map is not the territory' as a caution  
against the danger of confusing or conflating representations of  
reality and reality itself.

According to Victor Papanek, the eminent design theorist, the Inuit  
have extraordinary mental maps. They can remember many miles of  
complex coastline and carve a piece of wood to represent this with  
almost the same level of accuracy as GPS mapping. They can do this by  
by traveling on foot or sledge through the landscape once.

best

Simeon

www.simeon-nelson.com
On 9 Jul 2008, at 03:30, elist-request at synapse.net.au wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Erika on emergence (Leonel Moura)
>    2. Mapping (jeremy wood)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:22:49 +0100
> From: Leonel Moura <leonel.moura at mail.telepac.pt>
> Subject: [Synapse elist] Erika on emergence
> To: fur_princess at yahoo.ca,Synapse elist <elist at synapse.net.au>
> Message-ID: <mailman.2.1215570601.3770.elist at synapse.net.au>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
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>
>
> Erika,
> Sorry not to answer before, I have been in Brazil and very busy...
> But just consider this quote of Carl Sagan:
> If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create
> the universe
>
> In emergence is not really important who or what started it, but the
> process itself. By nature the outcome is not predictable, hence it is
> always autonomous from what or who triggered it.
>
> Best
> Leonel
> http://www.leonelmoura.com/
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 21:45:57 +0100
> From: "jeremy wood" <jwood.net at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Synapse elist] Mapping
> To: elist at synapse.net.au
> Message-ID:
> 	<b60d7fb70807081345i3a17ff8eyf1613c3b029cd12d at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Hello All,
> To assume objectivity in cartographic representation is to assume that
> we know all there is to know. In terms of objective opinion and fact,
> map making becomes more objective as we refine our tools. Perhaps it
> is the inaccuracies in maps that capture where we are.
>
> The recent burst of digital technologies has produced tools and
> equipment that we have absorbed with ease. We can now locate ourselves
> and gain access to information around us from our cell phones. In our
> hands we have access to multiple maps of our surroundings, all
> packaged in a compact spacetime calculator that utilizes billions of
> dollars of rocket power and atomic trail and error.
>
> We can all make maps and maps are made for us. I'm thrilled to hear of
> Esther Polak's reports of the farmers engaging with GPS. The use of
> GPS has also rapidly infiltrated our lives and industries. As we weave
> our tracks into the landscape I'd like to know how our movements are
> being tweaked by the technology.
>
> The levels of self awareness towards inscribing the landscape, as
> Simeon Nelson touched upon, resonates through my work. From the
> recording and mapping of my daily GPS tracks since 2002 I have
> certainly changed the way I treat my journeys, it has even influenced
> the way I mow the lawn.
>
> jeremy wood.
> www.gpsdrawing.com/maps.htm [&]
> www.gpsdrawing.com/gallery/experiments/lawn/lawn06.htm
>
>
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> End of elist Digest, Vol 7, Issue 4
> ***********************************