Semantic Disturbances

“The map is not the territory, the word is not the thing it describes. Whenever the map is confused with the territory, a ‘semantic disturbance’ is set up in the organism. The disturbance continues until the limitation of the map is recognized.”
- Alfred Korzybski

Our minds create maps or models of everything that we encounter or think about. These maps are abstracted versions of the real events around us. They are stripped down to bare bones to make them easier to process and store. A semantic disturbance is when there is a discrepancy between our mental map and the actual territory that is interfering with our reasoning processes. Semantic disturbances cause a breakdown in comprehension and our ability to navigate through our ideas and thoughts.

Semantic disturbances are involved in the root causes of most neurotic and psychotic behavior. Semantic disturbances make it difficult for us to understand, comprehend, or communicate accurately. When we identify or think some abstracted feature found in the map is the same exact thing as the real event, we are not likely to reason well about that feature. We are likely to make mistakes.

Every language based description is a map of an event. Every linguistic map is highly abstracted from the reality it represents. While semantic disturbances are not limited to language, they are wildly prevalent in all language based knowledge.

It is important to be aware of levels of abstraction. It is important to know where our maps differ from the territory they describe. Sane thinking depends on how well we do this