Spaces of Geographical Thought

Abstract

To survive in the world we simplify it. This strategy is adopted by both individuals and collectives – although the distinction between the two is blurred because one cannot exist without the other, and so even the first sentence of this introductory chapter involves binary thinking! Our simplifications do not have to be binary, of course: binary divisions are a particular case of the wider activity of classification and categorization. But using too many categories denies the goal of simplification: psychologists argue that the average person can control her or his thinking along seven dimensions – hence the classic paper on ‘the magic number seven, plus or minus two’ (Miller 1956) – but most people, most of the time, use a coarser-grained structure to aid their thinking and decision-making