General Semantics To understand the importance of Slavespeak, we need to operate at the level of observing, analyzing, and evaluating the implications, effects, and consequences of language. How do words influence the perception of reality? How might people unjustifiably constrain their behavior because of the language they use? How might people take incorrect or destructive actions because of the words they take for granted? Like going to war for God and Country! General Semantics (GS), a discipline founded by engineer, mathematician, student of mental illness, and scholar Alfred Korzybski, addresses the same level Slavespeak does: How do our words influence the way we think, communicate, and behave? A basic understanding of GS cannot but help anyone to understand and transcend Slavespeak. The following excerpt from an article by the late George Doris, first published in 1983 in Self and Society: European Journal of Humanistic Psychology, gives an idea of where GS fits into the scheme of things [edited into E-Prime]: GRAMMAR deals with word-to-word relations. It embodies rules about how to put words together into sentences, and does not concern itself with how sentences relate to each other or how sentences relate to facts. LOGIC goes further. To a logician, sentences serve as assertions and he concerns himself with relations between assertions (if A, then B). But for the logician, words need not have any meaning except as defined by other words, and the assertion need not have any relations to the world of fact. SEMANTICS goes further than logic -- to the semanticist, words and assertions have meaning only if they are related operationally to referents in the world of nature. The semanticist defines not only validity (as the logician does) but also truth. GENERAL SEMANTICS goes furthest -- it deals not only with words, assertions and their referents in nature but also with effects on human behavior. For a general semanticist, communication consists not merely of words in proper order, properly inflected (as for the grammarian), or assertions in proper relation to each other (as for the logician), or assertions in proper relation to referents (as for the semanticist), but all these, together with the reactions of the nervous systems of the human beings involved in the communication. The following GS principles (with my personal interpretations and extensions) I regard as most germane to the subject of Slavespeak. Words Dont Have Meanings; People Have Meanings Many people suffer from the basic linguistic illusion that words have meanings. If a word has a meaning, where do you find it? Can it be found in the sound when you say it? Can you find it in the ink when you write it? Can you find it in the dictionary, or does the dictionary contain only words? What characterizes or distinguishes a meaning and how can you recognize it? Consider the possibility that: Meanings reside in the individual brain; Individuals create, maintain and update their meanings; Meanings consist of a neural-patterns-of-instructions-and-associations; A neural-pattern-of-instructions-and-associations can be compared to a computer program that essentially tells the user how to use a particular word; In order for an individual to use a word in a manner such that he or she can think and communicate effectively, using that word, requires a brain program vastly more complex, than the brief-user-instructions in the dictionary; Even if you claim that the brief-user-instructions constitute the meaning of a word, an individual couldnt use that word effectively without integrating at least the meanings of all the words used in the brief-user-instructions; In order to use a word effectively, the brief-user-instructions have to be enriched a thousand-fold, maybe a million-fold; Operating on the basis that you personally create all the meaning in your universe greatly increases your control over your mental processes, enabling you to think, communicate, and act much more effectively. Corresponding to the word chair I have in my brain a generalized picture or template of a range of kinds of objects that qualify as chairs. This forms part of my meaning for the word chair. I also have links to other patterns and memories I relate to chair. All of this complexity constitutes my meaning for the word chair -- a meaning unique to me and vastly greater and more complex than any meaning to be found in a dictionary -- yet similar to the meanings others have for the word chair. My meaning (brain-program) for using the word chair includes a module enabling me to determine, when others use the word chair, whether they use it more or less the same way I do. (No such meaning can be found in the dictionary.) We can communicate because (we have to assume that) when I say chair, you trigger, engage, or boot up in your brain a meaning similar to mine. Through observing responses to communication we discern whether or not we refer the same object when we say chair. Most importantly, we individually create, maintain, and update our personal meanings. Over time, we can improve our ability to use any particular word more effectively. We can learn vastly more about any given word than can be found in the dictionary. For example, I utilized a variant of English called E-Prime to write the portion of this report dealing with GS. E-Prime does not contain the verb to be or any of its variants; otherwise E-Prime mirrors standard English. (Youll find the reasons for writing this way, below.) Youll also find below, that my meaning for to be and its forms varies dramatically from any meaning you can find in a regular dictionary. Now, what if our meanings constitute our most important creations by a long shot? If so, to what extent do we render ourselves oblivious of our most important creations? Can we create anything physical, without first creating it internally in a form that includes meaning? If we render ourselves relatively oblivious of creating our meanings, how do we affect our awareness of our physical creations and how much control do we have? How much responsibility can we demonstrate? If we ascribe the creation of our meanings to agencies outside ourselves (words have meanings), do we perhaps disown a most important part of ourselves? Do we perform most of our meaning-processing more or less unconsciously? For a more extensive discussion of this principle, see Report #TL50A: Semantic Rigidity, Flexibility, and Freedom -- . The Map Differs from the Territory The word differs from the thing. In our minds we make all kinds of maps and models of how we think the world works. Our concepts (basic ideas) and words constitute maps or models which represent or reflect (we hope) aspects of the world. Our models and maps can be more or less useful, measured by the results we produce using them. Our models and maps -- including our words -- can never do more than approximate the actual world or the actual phenomena they seek to represent. Our maps, models, and words (symbols) constitute incomplete abstractions -- condensed, simplified, and approximated. Ultimately, the actual territory defies verbal description. Ultimately, the word cannot describe the thing. The world (territory) has its form or nature. Our description of it (map) includes at best incomplete details. Hense the GS aphorism (converted into E-Prime): Whatever description you give something differs from the thing itself! The word differs from the thing it tries to describe, reflect, or represent. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), describes three basic ways in which our models or maps differ from the territory: Deletion -- at best we use partial maps; they can seldom (if ever) include all the details of the territory. Distortion -- our maps often include minor or even major inaccuracies; one person sees a red car with two people, another sees a brown car with three people; one tennis player sees the ball as in, the opponent sees it as out. Generalization -- we often have one generalized map that represents many different parts of the territory. For example, my generalized cow map might represent cows in general. If someone asks me what breed of cow I saw, a Jersey, Guernsey, Hereford, etc.?, I reply, What do I care! All cows look the same to me! A fourth way in which our maps may differ from the territory, weve already covered briefly: addition or hallucination. We see and put into our map what does not exist in the territory. We see a constellation where only individual stars exist. Our map contains more than what can be found in the territory -- addition or hallucination. When scientists tried to find a substance corresponding to the way they understood the word heat, they attempted to add to the territory an expected substance they could never find. Of course, scientists eventually discovered their error because they require physical evidence which they could never find. Preponderance of Means over Ends As far as I know (a GS qualification), Hans Vaihinger first enunciated this principle in his book The Philosophy of As If. He said that our means tend to become more important than our ends. For example, we want to become happy. We figure if we make lots of money well be happy. Money becomes the means to achieve the end of happiness. Many of us then focus on making money (means), to the extent that we lose sight of becoming happy (end). The money becomes more important than the happiness; means preponderate over ends. In GS a specific aspect of the more general principle above, can be formulated as: The preponderance of the map over the territory; or, regarding the map as more important than the territory. Making the word more important than the thing. Korzybski called this Intensional Evaluation -- Facts Last. If we elevate our words in importance above our experience of the world, we evaluate intensionally. He called this orientation un-sane because its linguistic delusions can endanger our success or survival. For example, if we believe that we can achieve good health by saying, I create that whatever I eat is good for me, and continue with unhealthy habits, we behave intensionally or in an un-sane manner. Korzybski claimed that elevating words over facts causes much human misery, because it leads to dysfunctional, un-sane, evaluating and behavior. To achieve more sane behaviors, we must look first to experience. Korzybski called this Extensional Evaluation — Facts First. The term extensional refers to elevating experience above language. When we observe, sense, and then describe, we evaluate extensionally. Korzybski considered this a sane way to make our evaluations of the world. To look, observe, touch, feel, test, sample, etc.; and then to describe. Now, if you look back at our two tribes, youll find that tribe 1 (the sane ones) practice extensional evaluation, while tribe 2 (the un-sane ones) practice intensional evaluation. It may be worthwhile to reread the two-tribes story to better grasp the extensional/intensional distinction. The scientists looking for a substance corresponding to the word heat, evaluated intensionally. They started with the description heat, then looked and searched the territory in vain for the fact of heat. We experience the world in at least two basic ways: Through our senses; Through language. We experience the world through our senses as directly as we can. We could call it extensional experience -- tends toward greater sanity. When we experience the world through the intermediary of language indirectly, we could call it intensional experience -- tends toward less sanity.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:10:29 +0000
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