so many maps

Imagine, if you will, that we are map makers... making maps for as long as we can remember, and so too our parents, and our parent's parents... making maps for so much and for so long that the maps themselves rule experience... as we make maps of maps of maps... having forgotten reality, forsaken fundamental mystery, distracted from the basic substrate of existence which makes a map meaningful.

What is reality? Physical reality seems very compelling/pervasive/persistent, and so too, abstract/symbolic reality. Indeed, it appears to be an implicit superset of physical reality, as the mysterious nothing whence every thing springs.

One fundamental difference between the physical and the abstract is locality/existence/embodiment. Physical existence requires specific location in space-time, thus physical objects are unique, giving rise to the problem of property/possession/ownership. The structures of abstract reality (or information space) are also necessarily unique; however, anything capable of thought/imagination can wander throughout information space without displacement of either the observed or other observers. Information space remains eternal, without time/change – it is the observation which may change.

For example: If in some meadow, I pluck a pretty flower and give it to you, it is yours, no longer mine (nor the meadow's); by contrast, if in some field of imagination and thought, I find an interesting idea and show you to it, it is ours (without taking), an eternal object in the commons of mind.

Property is naturally bound to the physical, while by contrast, the abstract is naturally a commons. We may think we create ideas but we find them. Finding ideas is often associated with great expense of time and energy spent in exploration, and the subsequent tendency for secrecy and compensation, but information space remains open and free, without security, without commodity. Ironically, it seems we consider information and idea as commodity while we peddle our maps, whether for commerce or for pride.

Consider communication as the exchange of coordinates/symbols/language such that each observer may locate the same structure in information space, and though each individual perception remains unique, to converge on a common object in abstract reality.

I have not given you something that is mine (no more than a map to define), but the will to bring you somewhere that I have been, for you may look upon that which I have seen, with your own unique perspective/experience/perception, possibly to reveal to me, something of the real mystery between.