Map vs Territory

Biological Parallel

A bat's echolocation map of the world is nothing like the visual territory we perceive—yet both models work for their users. Every species inhabits its own umwelt (perceptual world): the tick's three-signal map, the bee's UV-vision map, the snake's infrared map. None of these maps is the territory; each is a functional approximation optimized for survival in a specific niche. The map-territory gap exists in all perception because complete representation is metabolically impossible. Organisms don't perceive reality—they perceive useful fictions.