Ramachandran’s Claims:

1. A mapmaker is a “synapse” who synthesizes and relays interpretations of the world by using various skills and sources (p. 25)
2. Before maps, there were no visualized conceptions of the entire world because such a complete interpretation of the Earth is impossible without an enormous set of knowledge (p. 28)
3. Anatomy and geography both revealed visualizations of their respective subjects that were thus far impossible to see (p. 32)

Ramachandran’s assertion that a complete map of the world did not exist before a certain point in history (Claim #2) has several important implications. 

One conclusion that can be derived from this claim is that humanity never had even a rough idea of what the Earth actually looked like until cartographers of the 16th century created the first attempts at complete visual representations of our planet. Before this point, it was simply assumed in European society that sailing westward from Europe would eventually lead a ship to reach Asia, although the time and distance to complete such a hypothetical journey was unknown. Because of this, trade from Europe to Asia either sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, was carried through the Ottoman Empire, or journeyed on the Silk Road, and this economic reality defined maps for centuries.

Another consequence of this claim is the realization that humanity was never able to accurately confirm several millennia worth of maps until the advent of satellite imagery in the past few decades. Until this point, the world simply accepted the maps that it had been presented with and trusted cartographers to be objective and precise with their creations. Now, for the first time in history, it is theoretically possible to view the entire world simultaneously and in real time from space via a complex array of satellites, but this feat simply begs more questions. Would the image created from this technological triumph, if entirely accurate, be a map? If a map is, at least in part, a synthesis that has some amount of imagination and artistic flare from the cartographer, would this completed satellite image meet this criteria, or would it simply be the first in a new field of understanding of the world that supersedes traditional cartography? These are questions that must be thoroughly considered and explored as our technological capabilities continue to expand exponentially.