Alfred Korzybski
The map is not the territory
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 the map could be ideally correct, it would include, in a reduced scale, the map of the map; the map of the map, of the map; and so on, endlessly. People react to their abstractions — beliefs, labels, feeds, slogans — as if they were reality itself. This is identification. The harder, saner path is consciousness of abstracting: this is my map, not the land.