Let's Get Psychophysical - Newsletter #9
Let's Get Psychophysical - Newsletter #9
The Map is Not the Territory
Hello, it’s Kevin.
Here is your weekly list of 5 things I’ve found that promote wholeness, integration and “waking up” - rather than fragmentation, dis-integration and falling asleep.
Let’s get psychophysical.
This week’s newsletter is on the relationship between your “physical” structure and your “psycho” structure.
Learn why when it comes to posture and coordination, your internal maps might need a little updating . . .
BOOK:
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics
by Alfred Korzybski
This is one of those books that stands on its own. I have been going back to this book, on and off, for 20 years. The old and dusty copy I found in the university library hadn’t been checked out since the 1960s. It smelled great! (And it still does, by the way… nudge nudge wink wink.)
Korzybski is most well known for the concept: the map is not the territory.
“Two important characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.”
“If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure, and structure alone.”
This is a big, fat book that requires multiple readings. What interests me most right now is Chapter IV “On Structure.” It has helped me understand the interactive relationship between the anatomical structure (posture) and the language we use to describe it (self talk.)
I teach pupils how to self-regulate their postural system. To do this they need to “draw” a new map of the anatomical structure, which includes all the important interrelations between specific body parts.
Your existing map was designed by a young child, doing the best he could at the time with limited information, and it could probably do with a little updating. Would you use a child’s drawing of a house to build a house?
When it comes to posture, the fascinating thing is once you design a new map you can begin to make changes to the territory…
ART:
The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci
There is more than enough profane geometry to be getting on with before we even get to sacred geometry.
I have included the whole page here on purpose and not just the man itself. You will see that the “map” in the middle - it is called an atlas of human anatomy for a reason - is surrounded by words describing the order and relations of the different parts.
He reasoned out the relationships in sequence using words (based on an older book) and then translated them into a diagram, a map, to visualise the structure as a whole. The diagram is a “whole” but the words are in a sequence.
Now we have an information rich diagram to study, we can also unpack all the relationships back into words if we want.
We can then use this map to see the territory a bit differently.
QUOTE:
“If you learn to draw something then you also learn to see it.”
Roger Scruton
“If you learn to draw something then you also learn to see it.”
If you learn to describe something in words then you also learn to see it.
And if you learn to see something, then you also begin to change it.
VIDEO:
First of all, please accept my apologies for linking to a Ted talk but I stumbled across this earlier in the week.
It gives a good example of how making new, more accurate maps - where you see the relationships between parts - can help you change the territory they represent.
This is the same general principle I use in the posture lessons.
EXPERIMENT:
Drawing lines on maps
The purpose of this simple experiment is to start analysing your posture in terms of structure, order and relations.
Record yourself sitting side-on to the camera.
Locate your sternum bone (breastbone.) This is the long flat bone down the centre of your chest. Touch the very top of the sternum bone, AND, the very bottom of the sternum bone.
Now place your palm flat on the sternum bone, with your index finger touching the top and your wrist at the bottom.
Which part of the sternum bone is further forward, the top or the bottom??
Draw a line in your mind between these two parts. Is this line vertical or at an angle?
Play with changing the angle. What affect does this have on your lower back, and on your structure as a whole?
Watch the video. How accurate were your guesses? Now compare the feeling of the parts you had then, with the structure of the whole you SEE now… which is more accurate?
You can also take a screenshot image of the video and use a graphics program to draw on lines and directional arrows, to help you learn how to see.
I do this for people in the 1-to-1 lessons.
Have fun updating your maps,
Thanks for reading,
Kevin
P.S.
If you want to Stop Your Posture Getting Worse As You Get Older, then you first need to SEE what you are doing wrong.
The tricky thing is it might not feel wrong. The role of a teacher is to help you see, and then give you the specific techniques you need to change what you see.
To Book a Posture Consultation & Body Audit - reply to this email, or message me on Twitter.