Cognitive mapping cannot literally be a map in the present era

Evidence

The problem with this particular slogan clearly lay in its own (representational) accessibility. Since everyone knows what a map is, it would have been necessary to add that cognitive mapping cannot (at least in our time) involve anything so easy as a map; indeed, once you knew what “cognitive mapping” was driving at, you were to dismiss all figures of maps and mapping from your mind and try to imagine something else. But it may be more desirable to take a genealogical approach and show how mapping has ceased to be achievable by means of maps themselves. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 875

Categorization

• DEFINE: Resolves a persistent ambiguity in Jameson’s signature concept: cognitive mapping is defined negatively, as what maps are NOT in our time.
• QUESTION: If cognitive mapping is defined by what it isn’t, is the concept itself vacuous/falsifiable? Feeds the reader’s stated push on whether the cultural-dominant thesis can be tested.