Identification, in general semantics
José Klingbeil
(French version)
Copyright © 1997 José Klingbeil. The author hereby grants
permission to use this article in electronic form only, in part
or in whole, to any person or institution for educational purposes,
provided no charge is made for such use.
Considering the recent discussions on the Internet, I deem necessary to
bring some light on the term "identification" and to distinguish
between its uses in general semantics and its uses in usual language.
In the latter, the term "identification" is used with the
meaning of recognise (a person, an object, etc.). It is clear that there
is no special problem in this meaning: we recognise every day persons and
objects around us (except if we are a victim of Alzheimer's disease).
We do that nearly all the time and unconsciously, with a speed that
upset every scientists in Artificial Intelligence, who work at trying to
imitate this function with computers. Our brain's structure is specially
adapted to this fundamental function, with its parallel-tasking abilities.
It is also clear that general semantics does not advocate that we eliminate
this function of our brains: this would lead us directly to a 'mental' hospital
ahead of schedule, if there were a schedule for that.
What does Korzybski states, then, when he writes in Science and Sanity:
- p. 196: "'Identity', as we have seen, is invariably false to facts; and so
identification produces, and must produce, non-survival s.r, and, therefore,
must be considered pathological for modern man.",
- p. 198: "A
-system depends on a
complete elimination of identification which affects beneficially all our
s.r, as experience and experiments show.",
- p. 202: "Experience shows that such identification of symbols with the
un-speakable levels works very well with animals. With man, it leads only to the
misuse of the human nervous system, semantic disturbances of evaluation, and the
prevailing animalistic systems in practically all fields, resulting in the general
chaos in human affairs.",
- p. 304: "The key problem is to eliminate, first, the semantic disturbance
called identification or the confusion of orders of abstractions, and similar
disturbances of evaluation.",
- p. 408: "In training, it is of utmost importance to eliminate identification
entirely, which invariably appears as a delusional semantic factor." ?
Korzybski states that identification has a systematically harmful character and
that it must be completely eliminated in any
-system (not only general semantics but
also mathematics, physics, etc.). The above quote from page 198 is very
significant on this point.
What can the term "identification" mean, for Korzybski ?
An answer to this question is given by a thorough reading of Science and Sanity.
Actually, in a nearly systematic manner, Korzybski links the word "identification"
with the expression "confusion of orders of abstractions". It is difficult to quote
all occurrences of these terms in Science and Sanity—they are among the most
widely used in this book—but here are some examples anyway::
- p. 36: "...the animalistic identification or confusion of orders of
abstractions..."
- p. 105: "...confusion of orders of abstractions resulting from
identifications..."
- p. 133: "This is due, first, to a confusion of orders of abstractions and to
identification..."
- p. 170: "...is involved in identification or the confusion of orders of
abstractions..."
- p. 184: "Any identification of inherently different levels, or confusion of orders of
abstractions..."
- p. 185: "...all semantic disturbances represent nothing else but a confusion of orders of
abstractions, or identifications..."
- p. 187: "Identification, or the confusion of orders of abstractions..."
- p. 263: "...which simply vanish when we stop identification or the confusion of
orders of abstractions..."
- p. 276: "...called 'identification', or 'the confusion of orders of abstractions'
in general..."
- p. 278: "Any semantic disturbance, be it a confusion of orders of abstractions,
or identification,..."
- p. 294: "...such as identification or confusion of orders of abstractions,..."
- p. 304: "...the semantic disturbance called identification or the confusion of
orders of abstractions..."
- p. 306: "...disturbances of evaluation called identification or confusion of
orders of abstractions..."
- p. 338: "...identifications or confusions of orders of abstractions..."
- p. 372: "Thus the mechanism of identification or confusion of orders of
abstractions..."
- p. 396: "...based on non-identification or the differentiation between
orders of abstractions..."
- p. 399: "...due to identification or lack of differentiation."
- p. 417: "The consciousness of abstracting eliminates automatically
identification or 'confusion of the orders of abstractions'..."
- p. 423: "All of them involve the semantic identification or confusions of
the orders of abstractions..."
- p. 446: "... for the prevention or elimination of identification or confusion
of orders of abstractions."
- p. 448: "...feeling when identification, or the confusion of orders of
abstractions becomes particularly dangerous."
- p. 456: "Identification, or confusion of orders of abstractions, consists of
erroneous evaluation..."
- p. 502: "...or in identification or the confusion of orders of abstractions..."
etc.
It seems reasonable for me to state that Korzybski indifferently uses the two
expressions "identification" and "confusion of orders of abstractions" and reminds
it all the way through a more-than-800-pages book. In one case, he gives a name
to a neuro-semantic disturbance ("identification"), basis of many 'mental' disturbances,
and in the other, he describes an underlying process, systematic to this
disturbance ("confusion of orders of abstractions").
It is easy to change from one expression to the other in the following way:
when I confuse, at the object level (first level of abstraction)
pencil1 with pencil2, for example, I neglect the fact that
the events are different, that the atoms they are made of are different, etc.
In other words, I confuse the event level with the object level.
It is then a confusion of orders of abstractions. This formulation is valid for any
level and consequently, identification always implies a confusion of orders
of abstractions.
Conversely, if I confuse the event level with the object level, every time I
shall not be able to perceive a difference between two objects (at first level of
abstracting), I will identify them: the two objects will be the 'same' to me and
I will react to the second as if it was the other: in other words, I shall
identify. There, again, this formulation is independent of the level of abstracting.
The use of the Structural Differential allows a simple visualisation of this,
I thus recommend that you use it.
To get back to the common meanings of "identification", we see that there are
some similarities with the technical general semantics term, but also many
differences. To such a point that I consider that the neuro-semantic disturbance
revealed in gs is not a pathological distortion of the
usual function but a relic of an infantile semantic reaction, which could not
be completely eliminated in adulthood. For that reason, I recommend using rather
the expression "confusion of orders of abstractions", instead of "identification",
which can be confusing for people untrained in gs.