I agree that there’s something which draws us toward similar map structures. However, I’d avoid the word “natural” for describing this, as I suspect it’s cultural or shared-experience rather than inherent in the territory. I therefore suspect that how one identifies “us” will result in very dissimilar map choices. Thee’s likely to be much divergence between the categorization by ML models vs humans, and some variance between humans with wildly different cultural norms.
I agree that there’s something which draws us toward similar map structures. However, I’d avoid the word “natural” for describing this, as I suspect it’s cultural or shared-experience rather than inherent in the territory. I therefore suspect that how one identifies “us” will result in very dissimilar map choices. Thee’s likely to be much divergence between the categorization by ML models vs humans, and some variance between humans with wildly different cultural norms.
I might say “cultural shared expectations” as the thing you’re trying to name.
edit: or maybe “comfortable map structures” or “focal structures”/”Schelling structures” (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_point_(game_theory) ).
summary: I think these structures are from similarity of mapmakers, rather than anything in the territory.