If you wish, this same relationship exists between a map and the territory that the map is supposed to represent. If you make the map too simple, you will miss many fundamental aspects of the area you are interested in. On the other hand, you cannot make the map as detailed as the entire territory actually is, because you would need a map as large and complex as the real thing, which would take away the whole point of any model: achieving a reasonable (and useful) simplification of a complex problem.
