Ocean Jangda - On Cartography

Ten years ago, I started to become curious about the idea that objective reality and one’s
perception of that reality are two separate things. How else could two similar people experience
the same thing and believe in two very different outcomes? This curiosity slowly morphed into
a curiosity about ideologies of self improvement and learning, and then matured into a love for
maps. As a child growing up in an unstable household, I struggled for the power to have control
over my life… When I found that power described by the concept of cartography, maps became
for me a symbol of the capacity of the mind. Since then, I have tried to pursue a more beautiful,
more effective model of the world.
A striking story that illustrates the power of modeling is that of the Roman man
Claudius Ptolemaeus. Ptolemy, as he is more commonly known, was born 70 years after the
death of Christ. At the library of Alexandria he authored an eight-volume series of atlases and
cartographic knowledge titled Geography. Although it was written in ancient Greek, the work
went on to become the foundation for the modern science of geography. The Ancient Romans
knew the earth was round, and Geography detailed a method of projecting the round planet
onto a flat piece of paper. Its maps were the first to overlay the globe with a grid system, an
innovation which is still used today. Ptolemy believed the Earth was set at the center of the
universe, yet his map of the world became hugely influential more than a thousand years after
his death.
When the Roman Empire collapsed some three hundred years after Geography was
written, the book was lost. Then, some nine hundred and fifty years after its creation, it was
rediscovered by scholars in Constantinople, and was translated into Latin- the language of the
educated populace at the time. Soon after, the invention of the printing press made expensive
and rare books symbols of wealth, and the translated Geography became a best seller amongst
the European elite.
In the 14th century, an Italian navigator examined Geography’s map of the world and
concluded, in accordance with Ptolemy’s estimations, that Asia could be reached by sailing
west from Spain. This man was Christopher Columbus and his voyage and discoveries are now
well known. If Geography had depicted the scale of the globe correctly, the Catholic Monarchs
of Spain would likely not have funded his expedition, and he may have never sailed to his
discovery of the New World. Ptolemy’s measurements and estimations of the land and sea
originated in his mind as ideas which were given power in the form of a physical map. The
power of Ptolemy’s flawed model was so great that it changed the course of European history.
This story illustrates idea I became obsessed with years ago. This idea that reality and
the perception of reality are two separate things, is nowhere more evident than in cartography.
Cartography is at once an art form, a science and a metaphor. At first there is only an objective
reality. The earth, for example, is an objective reality. A map is an attempt to model that reality,
and as such, the process begins with observation. Only the cartographer’s mind and the tools
he has at hand stand between objective reality and his subjective estimation of it. That
fundamental premise is the power of cartography.
Maps are designed to intentionally elicit some particular response, to aid in
understanding and learning, to address some curiosity or question, or to accomplish some
task- such as navigation. For that reason, aesthetics and design are equally important as
precision and information. Mapmaking is the art of combining data with aesthetics; text with
symbols and illustrations; places with ideas. Maps hold power in the way that books hold
power, yet they are one of the rare mediums of communication which hold intrinsic authority
and are therefore powerful beyond words. They hold intrinsic authority because their motive is
naked to the reader. When you read a map, the creator’s motives are a story told to you through
the lines, shades, symbols and labels.
In mapmaking, details are generalized and patterns are extrapolated from
generalizations. The abstract paraphrases the actual. Each element of the model serves some
functional end in alignment with the cartographer’s intention or, with careful consideration of
context and scale, it is cast aside to maintain the overall clarity and purposefulness which
makes the model useful. The reality to be communicated by a map must be understood and
examined through measurement, and through the assessment of the measurements of others.
Scrupulous observations are made, features are noted, and the model takes form.
While each map has a unique purpose which guides the process of observation and the
integration of data, maps also have a unifying characteristic across all functions and styles: a
tendency towards completion. Each year, for thousands of years, the collective knowledge
contained in maps has grown. From a map of the stars Vega, Deneb and Altair sketched on the
walls of the Lascaux caves over 18,000 years ago, to the seemingly infinite complexity of digital
maps today, time has proven to bring increasing detail and efficacy. That trend is the ultimate
end and long sought future of cartography and of the human mind itself: to model the world
more effectively, so that the model and reality reflect each other in increasing harmony.
Since the expansion of world trade that began in the 16th century, we have relentlessly
pursued a more complete world map. It has been a process of constant learning for the world,
and with each new transcendental advance of the world map came an equally profound shift in
the collective perception of human kind. The most profound of these cognitive shifts was first
when the world came to agree that the earth is a sphere, and second as a result of the Apollo
Missions, when we first viewed that sphere from a distance. Seeing the whole earth, floating in
the black abyss of infinite space, was apparently quite a profound experience. Apollo 14
astronaut Edger Mitchell summarized the nature of what is now referred to as the ‘overview
effect’ when he recalled that

“you develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an

intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do
something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics
look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and
drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of
a bitch.’”

In an era of political maps that serve mostly to show the boarders that divide us, the
overview effect is often credited with having sparked the environmental movement by inspiring
a new sense of interdependence. The image of our pale blue dot, as Carl Sagan famously called
it, taken by astronauts on their journey to the moon, inspired a cognitive shift. For first time in
history, we became intensely aware that we are all in this together; flying through the ether on
Spaceship Earth. This powerful new idea has given us the most beautiful and effective map yet.
It is the end game of the world map and the reason why Columbus sailed from Europe. And
just as our collective pursuit of a more wholesome cartography of the earth serves to
understand our world’s place in the universe, my own personal pursuit of a more harmonic
map or reality ultimately serves to help me understand my place in the world.
We are each the cartographers of our own minds, on a path that wanders and jogs
towards completion. Our perception of the world is not the world itself, but rather a model of
it. We experience life and integrate the experiences of others in order to build an ever more
beautiful and effective model. From the moment we open our eyes as babies we are forming the
features of our map. We measure the world with our senses as we pass through it. We learn
from others through books and observations and often integrate their mistakes and biases
without even being aware of it.
Our model of reality is the underlying force which inspires our thoughts and actions. We
share knowledge and our thoughts and actions influence others; we are like Ptolemy. We model
the thoughts and actions of others and adopt errors from our parents and mentors, from
authors and teachers; therefore we are also like Columbus. What we express is the sum of these
elements which we have integrated. Our attitudes are the expression of our map’s aesthetics
and our decisions are dependent on the accuracy of our observations. We generalize details and
identify patterns from generalizations. Features which are not useful to our purpose are cast
aside for clarity and utility.
Just like the map of the earth, our inner map of reality serves some end as well. It helps
us to see context and guides us through life in the direction of our intention. Perhaps life is an
objective reality too, like the earth. If it is, one might conclude that oneness, continuity, or love
in spiritual terms, is that reality. In the pursuit of love we suffer over some details and cast
aside others in an effort to build a model which lets us see ourselves as not separate from the
world. Love is sometimes described as the absence of separation, or just as oneness. Since
before the days of the ancient Romans, we have been on the path of fully realizing that truth
which the astronauts have seen-that the reality we are laboring to model is one unified whole.