Another error is to consider that abstracting in higher order is 'bad' (resp. 'good') while lower orders are 'good'
(resp. 'bad'). There is no moral judgment attached to the level at which one abstracts. For example, today's
science represents our highest levels of abstractions. This error was that of one of the first popularisers of
the work of Korzybski, Stuart Chase, in his book The Tyranny of Words. A way to abstract in higher orders
is to use category-words. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. We use category-words routinely in science
and general semantics, and build new words of that kind when useful. Modern languages usually include some easy
ways to do that. The danger in these words does not come from the fact that they represent categories but from
failing to discriminate between the category and an actual object it represents, in other words in the confusion of
levels of abstracting (identification).
Finally, an error frequently made by beginners in general semantics is to believe that animals (other than Man) cannot
abstract in higher orders at all. We all know how smart some animals can be and there is no doubt that, in order
to behave as they do, they must have abstractions of some kind. But what we know is that this abstraction process
stops somewhere, while a man can potentially continue the process of abstracting indefinitely, stopping
when he pleases. And above all that, a man can be conscious that he abstracts.
On the basis of this mistake, some criticise non-allness as a general principle, believing that it is
self-contradictory and would require an overprecision that we are somehow unable to achieve.
Quite the opposite, in fact: by applying non-allness, we know that an attempt to say all about anything
is doomed to fail, thus we have to remember that we did not say all and we don't try to
achieve an impossible overprecision. This error is often made by the casual readers who confuse
"general semantics" with "semantics" and those who believe general semantics is only about
'crisp' communication, thus falling in the very allness trap that we are supposed to avoid.
Some 'crispness' in some aspects of communication is certainly to be recommended, but is certainly
useless for others (poetry, love talk, etc.). Let's remember that general semantics as a general system
applies to 'all' human activities, as the old Aristotelian system did.
Another far-fetched mistake, made by some 'postmodern' persons, is to compare non-allness to
Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and/or Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Those who use these
theorems as 'supporting' general semantics usually cannot even state them correctly. These theorems
have limited applications and work in a definite context. Taking them out of this context and pretending
they can be applied to daily life is committing a blunder of the kind mentioned in Sokal and Bricmont's
Intellectual Impostures, Fashionable Nonsense.
A second error made by beginners is to consider "Aristotelian" as 'bad'. From the above, we know
that everything that can be considered as Aristotelian is also non-Aristotelian. In science; we do not always
use the newest system to reach a conclusion; we sometimes use an older one that is most easy to apply
and that we know will yield a result correct enough (remember that overprecision is a failure to apply
non-allness). For example, Newton's laws are applicable to predict the position of most
planets, except for Mercury due to its relatively high speed.
What consciousness of abstracting is not: abstracting consciously, a kind of superpower, a kind of
introspection, etc.
Another striking example was shown in a recent scientific experiment about gambling. The findings suggested
that in many situations our brains rush to judgement. This shows the inability of thalamus alone (and in this case
anterior cingulate cortex) to evaluate correctly the situation. Of course, a delay in the reaction could help the
cortex make more correct calculations and, by feedback, correct the erroneous evaluation.
"Organism-as-a-whole" is a formulation that neither excludes consideration of specialised body parts
like liver or kidney separately from the 'mind', nor considering 'emotions' separately from 'thinking,' as aspects
of a whole. But nevertheless, influence of 'mind' on health, shown in various scientific experiments (placebo
effect, for example), cannot be accounted for by the old religious elementalism (i.e. 'body'+'mind'), thus
requiring non-el formulations.
Analysis, breaking down a 'big' problem into bits 'small' enough to deal with, widely used in mathematics
and a powerful tool to deal with real-life problems, has nothing to do with elementalism, of course.
For example, it is not possible to analyse placebo effect by studying effects on the 'mind' and effects on the 'body'.
But it is possible to do it by studying 'body-mind'.
Elementalism is not 'bad' per se, just as the Aristotelian system, Newton's laws, Euclidean geometry
or a gun are not 'bad'. What is 'bad' is to use them when they are not the appropriate tools to solve a problem.
Abstracting
Allness (Non-)
Aristotelian System (Limits of the)
Consciousness of Abstracting
Delayed Reaction
Elementalism (Non-)
General Semantics
Identity (Non-)
Inferences
Intensional and Extensional
Multiordinality
Structural Differential
Time-Binding
Undefined Terms
Abstracting
Non-Allness
Limits of the Aristotelian System
Consciousness of Abstracting
Delayed Reaction
Non-Elementalism
General Semantics
Scientology | General semantics |
Based on blind faith, as a 'religion' | Based on modern science, supports 'critical thinking' (extensionality) |
Based on body and mind elementalism | Cautions against elementalism, bringing psychosomatic integration |
Tendency to split 'personality' | Integrating 'personality' |
Pathologically reversed order of evaluation | Natural order of evaluation |
Influencing toward un-sanity | Influencing toward sanity |
Adjusting empirical facts to verbal patterns | Adjusting verbal patterns to empirical facts |
Non-similarity of structure between language and facts | Similarity of structure between language and facts |
Profitable business | Strictly not-for-profit, as far as the official organizations are concerned |
Opposes to psychiatry and psycho-therapy | Based on psycho-therapy (Korzybski studied the 'mentally' ill for two years in a psychiatric hospital before he wrote Science and Sanity) |
Aristotelian-based and uses identity and allness unmercifully | Based on the premises of non-identity and non-allness |
Full of science-fiction like fantasies originating from Lafayette Ron Hubbard's imagination (or nightmares) | Based of well-known scientific data |
Lafayette Ron Hubbard had no scientific background but pretended to be a mathematician, a physicist, etc. | Korzybski officially graduated as a chemistry engineer |
Etc.
Another error, rarely made, is the belief that general semantics is having a 'semantic rigor'
or even worse, 'spelling rigor'. Any error in grammar or spelling error is thus seen as a proof
of disrespect to the discipline. General semantics has little to do with semantics and even less
with spelling, of course.
A second error, made mostly by beginners, is to confuse "to identify (gs)" with "to recognise (traditional)."
A good way to avoid that error is to substitute "identify" with "recognise" and see if your formulation is still
valid. Of course, general semantics does not advocate that we should not recognise our usual objects as a way
to sanity, quite the opposite: it would look like Alzheimer's disease. For details read the article
Identification, in general semantics.
As a consequence of the above, some are tempted to speak of "bad identification" ("to identify (gs)")
vs. "good identification" ("to recognise"). Once the above is understood, identification (gs) remains as
an undesirable and avoidable feature of our semantic reactions.
Finally, some confuse (identify) two different meanings of "projection": one is projecting beliefs outside
our skins, as for a paranoid person, or believing that the 'greenness' is inside the leaves for instance (a typical
confusion of levels of abstracting, an identification in the vocabulary of general semantics), and the
second is a survival mechanism of our nervous system, hardwired at early-age, which reconstructs four-dimensional
space-time from our perceptions, a mechanism which is 'perfectly normal', even if it can have some limitations
such as in the case of the so-called 'optical' illusions.
Another rare blunder is to consider that "intensional is inside my head, extensional is outside my head,"
as if what happen inside one's head was only 'abstract.' Of course it is not and we have some vivid PET
imagery to prove it. These errors were made in a notorious French book listed in the French
bibliography.
Another model, Bourland's ZEOS shows some misunderstanding of the term "abstracting" and proceeds to
'add' what was already included. It also shows misunderstanding of what the event level is and
misrepresents it. Korzybski called the event "the scientific object," i.e. what science talks about.
Many blunders have been made about the 'arrow' that connects the highest abstractions with the
event, such as a kind of "bio-feedback" to the lower centres of the brain. The correct answer is in
Science and Sanity: science (highest abstractions at a given date) speaks about this event level
to which no one has a 'direct' access (since perception occurs at object level). Besides, science is the
only way by which we might be conscious of the existence of that level. Thus, Korzybski pegged
the highest abstractions to the event level, or drew a long arrow that goes from the highest
abstractions to the event level.
Another blunder is to confuse the term "object" with a physical object. In the case of the SD, "object" refers
to a construct inside our brains from our perceptions, not to the physical object that could be referred on the SD
at the event level. The SD levels beyond and including object level describe something happening inside our
heads. Event level can be anything happening, 'inside' and 'outside' having no meaning at this level.
This formulation is even better conveyed by Henri Landier's poem. A consequence of
that stratification is that a feeling, such as hunger for example, belongs on the SD to the same level as any other
observation of events outside our skins. In other words "hunger" is as objective as "blue." There, we see that
the SD doesn't treat differently something that happens inside or outside our skins: the SD is a non-elementalistic
tool.
Some criticised the SD because it did not mention 'ideas'. Although Korzybski addressed that in another
presentation of the SD in his booklet The Role of Language in the Perceptual
Processes, there is no necessity to do so. Except for the first and basic event level, all other levels can be
considered as multiple without any change in the usefulness of the SD. In other words, it is only useful, for
our purpose in general semantics (which is not any kind of neuroscience), to use one object and some small
number of labels (usually considering three of the latter is enough, provided we are
conscious that the chain of labels can be arbitrarily long).
Now, the worst known misinterpretation of Korzybski's formulation of time-binding is to believe
that time-binding is equivalent to that religious 'God-like' origin of Man in the monotheist religions.
First, because of what have been said above (time-binding applies to a human group and not
to individuals), and second because time-binding is not a 'plus' affair: Man is not "an animal + time-binding".
And as Darwin said, "the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, is one of degree
and not of kind."
Some may be tempted to blur differences between time-binders and space-binders by mentioning
many experiences with space-binders who can use language to some extent (such as dolphins, killer whales,
higher apes, chimpanzees and even parrots), can be taught to communicate to some extent with humans,
etc. Considering that left to themselves, the knowledge they have acquired with humans would be soon lost,
their rate of progress (linked directly with time-binding ability) is infinitesimal compared with humans'.
So that it can be totally neglected under current circumstances. This is not to advocate or justify any kind
of non-humane treatment of space-binders, of course, quite the opposite since they are part of our environment.
Finally, time-binding is not about 'being nice' to people, despite what some people who advocate that
general semantics is a kind of 'self-help' psychotherapy seem to believe. But anyway, 'being nice'
is not harmful under usual circumstances, is it?
Non-Identity
Inferences
Intensional and Extensional
Multiordinality
Structural Differential
Time-Binding
Undefined Terms