Don't Care About Much

Job please. I need one. I need one now. I could always sell drugs to kids. I've always been unscrupulous like that.

Robert Anton Wilson's New Inquisition is just the ticket! Its basically a book about advocating agnosticism in all forms - be it science or otherwise. Hey, there's fundamentalist Christians, why not fundamentalist Scientists? (Oh, but Tom, they're just committed to the scientific method...right?) Like that fucknut Martin Gardner. Infallible empiricism my arse.

This day hasn't been the best. But it will end soon, this is something I am almost (always almost!) certain of. And I finally have In at the Death by Harry Turtledove. Fucking mint.

Soft Head, Hard Heart

After five days straight of partying, my cirrhosis and black lung disease hasn't killed me, so I guess that can only make me stronger.

Behold - the greatest music video of the 21st Century - absolutely brilliant! Weezer are the kings of sincere power-pop rock. I'm beginning to appreciate them much more. Especially when the lyrics are so cheekily self-referential you can't help but smile.

General Semantics: Your Own Un-Reality

Welcome to Part 4 of my exploration of my introductory series on General Semantics.

The Structural Differential
Korzybski wrote about 500 pages in his Science and Sanity before he touched upon the Structural Differential, since people were so entrenched in their way of confusing words with objects, partial facts with total realities. In Science he says that adults would have a hard time digesting the various premises of the Structural Differential, declaring it more useful in the education of children, so their semantic reactions could be corrected before they were entrenched in thinking and acting using Aristotelian logic by adolescence.

Here it is, in all its odd shaped glory.

E stands for an event in space-time. The event or object has multifarious and indefinite characteristics on the microscopic and macroscopic levels. The scene which one sees/hears/feels is not the complete picture. (O - object, non-verbal reaction) This is all one can sense on the objective, silent level. The strings tie our awareness of this information to the different levels. As you can see, some strings from the E level do not make it to the objective "O" level. Then, once we introduce words to label such an event or object. (D - verbal name) For instance, using Hayakawa's example of "Bessie the cow" we identify Bessie (D) as a "cow" (I1 - inferential level) which is part of an abstraction "livestock" (I2 - general level) which can be abstracted even further to "commodity" (I3 - higher-level abstractions) which can continue indefinitely. Using the Structural Differential is essential in developing the consciousness of abstraction.

This consciousness is the awareness that words cannot ever accurately describe the totality of an object, event or person etc., (what Robert Anton Wilson would call "sombunallism" - that we can only know some, but not all of what we know) and that we abstract certain parts of our experience without touching an objective, non-verbal level (the "silence" in your mind when one perceives something) that can develop imbalances in our thinking, neurosis and what Korzybski struggled all his life to prevent - unsanity.

Next time: Preventing unsanity - GS and its links to therapeutic and cognitive psychology

References
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski, Institute of General Semantics, 1950, 4th edition.
Language in Thought and Action: Fourth Edition, Samuel I. Hayakawa, Harcourt, 1972.
The New Inquisition, Robert Anton Wilson, New Falcon Publications, 1986.

Cramped Style

I got the new Opeth, Kataklysm, In Flames and Children of Bodom albums in the mail yesterday. Three of them jewelcase retail releases, one promo. Free, except for shipping and the inevitable reviews I'll have to write by the 28th. Great - but I've sort of run out of room in which to put them.

I've been writing metal reviews and interviews since high-school. My heady, wide-eyed and overeager reviews won't be posted here for your viewing (dis)pleasure, because they're so shoddy I doubt you'd be reading a review - it would be more like a heavy metal hagiography. I've collected most of them, save for a few that I sold on eBay for tidy and criminally overpriced sums. (They were horrible sounding records. Truly terrible.) I own a bed with a bookshelf in the bedhead. It used house a mixture of books and CDs. Then the books were overrun and had to be relegated to another bookshelf. Now it's full of CDs. Inside the bookshelf and on top, with overflow residing on my bedside table (with duplicates and "unworthy" discs, for example: the original CD release of British Steel by Judas Priest sits there - the re-master takes pride of place in the "real" CD collection.) I have about 300 CDs, promos included. Promos I can't really sell, because they aren't groundbreaking/awesome/decent enough for anyone to give a shit about.

This really does give me comfort, because it's probably the most daunting obstacle I believe I face in the world today. It's tangible. The problem can be seen, not abstracted. Everything else is pretty much imaginary.

A year ago, I'd break a sweat because one of my friends could have possibly sort of given me a blank stare instead of a wistful silence. A friend told me "your psychology helps a lot" after giving her an impromptu session (because I'm a wanker like that) the other night. I'd like to think its helped me too, but I can't tell if it has or not. I spose that's a fairly good thing.

Catch and I are working on a new project. He's always wanted to become a stand-up comedian, and I'm helping him write some material. I think i've got some fucking killer jokes and anecdotes from encountering people and what they do. A fundamental element of comedy is making light of other's misery, and another is conflict. Combine the two and you just cannot fail. It's impossible.

General Semantics: Indetermination

Welcome to Part 3 on my journey through another wonderful map of General Semantics.

The Multi-Valued Orientation
A lot of people make the semantic mistake of ascribing two values for concepts or actions without realizing what they do is folly.

Nothing can be either/or, or in other words, have a simple two-valued orientation. There are too many indefinitely calculable actions that cannot be described at any one time. Most people fall into the semantic trap of dichotomizing likes and dislikes with absolute terms instead of considering the spectrum of views that can be held at any one time. This is commonly referred to as the multi-valued orientation.

We tend to make generalizations such as "the government is bad" or "X is a saint" when we must realize that these words are too abstract and over/under defined for us to definitively pin one, singular value to each of them. Even written words themselves have multi-valued or multi-ordinal terms, in a lexical (such as "fast" meaning both rapid and to abstain), contextual (same word, different situation) or neurological (same word, different "brain" - a different reaction is formed.)

The multi-valued orientation is the recognition that something can never be "all" - either/or, completely true or false in essence. There are degrees that can be evaluated and do not have to be sided with completely, as father of Gestalt therapy, Dr. Frederick Perls, M.D. demonstrates with an experiment to position oneself with the multi-valued orientation:

[H]old in abeyance your standard evaluations of good or bad, desirable or repugnant, sensible or silly, possible or impossible. Be satisfied to stand between them—or, rather, above them—at the zero-point, interested in both sides of the opposition but not siding with either.

Examples and Applications
The ultimate "multi-ordinal" or multi-valued system is the SI system of measurement. It makes no judgments and never confuses logical levels like two-valued systems. Instead of "huge" or "small" an SI unit for length may be 20Km. This may be a long distance to walk but a relatively short distance to drive. We make our abstractions, inferences and judgments from this information alone rather than depriving it of context and making immediate, higher-order abstractions based on it.

The multi-valued orientation is useful in critical thinking as we are able to "stand between and not side with" any argument or supposed "truth" and evaluate the good and bad in every point of view, or to expand upon and explore what Hayakawa calls our "non-belief system." This also promotes mental health, as it provides clarity in our thoughts and interactions with the world - thinking in absolutes can effect beliefs and behavior and can become one of the many ideas that cause and sustain neurosis. The multi-valued orientation makes the world a much more involving, vibrant and interesting place to live.

References
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski, Institute of General Semantics, 1950, 4th edition.
Language in Thought and Action: Fourth Edition, Samuel I. Hayakawa , Harcourt, 1972.
Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Gregory Bateson, University Of Chicago Press, 1972.
A New Guide to Rational Living, Dr. Albert Ellis and Dr. Robert Harper, Wilshire Book Company, 1975.
"A General Semantics Glossary" by Robert Pula in ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Dec. 22, 1993.
Gestalt Therapy: Growth and Excitement in the Human Personality, Dr. Frederick Perls, Gestalt Journal Press, 1951.

Next week: The Structural Differential / Hayakawa's Ladder

Omnia Bellum Omnes

So I've been hailing my brothers the last few days. So here you go. o/ (it's a hail!) Peter - you are rock and roll!

Went to see Soilwork yesterday. Seeing Bjorn Strid, loose-cannon maniac is quite the experience after talking to him as Bjorn Strid, contemplative lyricist and dog-silencer extraordinaire.

Some great fun was had meeting some of Karen's mates as well as witnessing a thrilling high-energy rock show, although a conversation with an obviously speeding/peaking kid rather amused me:

(Wearing my beloved Dark Tranquillity t-shirt)
Kid: Yeah! Dark Tranquillity! They rock!
Me: Indeed they do.
Kid: They're fucking amazing! etc.
Me: They've never written a shit song, i reckon.
Kid: Yeah, they're great! HAVEN! What an album!
Me: Fuckin' a, mate.
Kid: But what about that song Fabric? Great song...but why did they call it Fabric? (laughing)
Me: Because they're Swedish and they don't know any better.
(pause)
Kid: Touche. (walks off, confused)

Two 21sts this weekend. Good luck with that.

General Semantics: Defining Defintion

Here is Part 2 of my amazing and insightful series on General Semantics.

Intensional and Extensional Definition

The other day I went to visit my good friend Catchy. We sat around his dorm room, trading discoveries and philosophies when I further explained General Semantics to him and a hapless girl who probably thinks I'm slightly insane since I couldn't adequately articulate myself.

I used Count Korzybski's example of the pencil to illustrate my case. We call a pencil a pencil because it has qualities that we, over time and through the consensus of others, have agreed to define as a pencil. What is a pencil? It's a long, slender wooden tool with a graphite stem running through the middle which is used to write with. And what is a long, slender tool that is used for writing? A pencil. This is an example of an intensional definition.

An intensional definition is describing a word with other words, leaving out an objective or "concrete" referent. To quote Hayakawa, it is like describing something while closing your eyes. Now, if we took the object in space-time, the pencil in question and gave a list of every pencil that ever existed and does exist in the entire world and compared it against that list, would be an extensional definition. Its like pointing at an object without abstracting it with words.

Now, what relevance has this to anything? A common question with a simple enough answer. The extensional orientation - a way of thinking extensionally - allows us to be as much as in touch with reality as possible, before we abstract and leave out facts, lower-level abstractions and non-verbal experiences. To rely on out-dated maps without exploring the territory that it no longer accurately describes would be folly - wouldn't you agree?

References:
Science and Sanity An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski, Institute of General Semantics, 1950, 4th edition
Language in Thought and Action: Fourth Edition, Samuel I. Hayakawa , Harcourt, 1972.
"Goethe's Extensional Orientation" in ETC.; A Review of General Semantics by David F. Maas, July 1, 2004.

Next week: The multi-ordinal orientation

The Contact Valve on the Point of Disorder

Visited my grandmother yesterday. The only person I'll ever trust. And she said this.

"The world is out there - do you trust anybody? Never!"

Pretty articulate in her own roundabout way, but usually always right. Except when she watches A Current Affair; I have to routinely deprogram her every few weeks or so...

Music is so wonderful. I can't wipe the smile off my face.

"If you don't see / I remain unseen
Until it's time to be remembered"

My pants just stopped drying. Please excuse this unscheduled interruption.

General Semantics: Introductory

Here's the first in a series of what I hope will be weekly explorations of General Semantics, to both satisfy my own readings on the subject and hopefully to pique the interests of others into this fascinating and life-changing area of intellectual discipline.

General Semantics: An Introduction
General Semantics was first formulated into a logical, empirical system by Count Alfred Korzybski in 1921 with the publication of his treatise The Manhood of Humanity. This tract contended that humans are the only species capable of time-binding; that humanity is currently the only species on Planet Earth that increases its knowledge over time and posesses methods of passing this knowledge to future generations. His masterwork that built the structure of General Semantics, his non-Aristotlean system that coined the phrase "the map is not the territory" was published in 1933, entitled Science and Sanity. General Semantics has served as the basis for nearly all contemporary psycho-logical therapies and personal development programs such as Rational Emotive/Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Gestalt Therapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. (The ties that bind GS and REBT are well pronounced - the New York General Semantics Society regularly meets at the Albert Ellis Institute!)

"Whatever something is, it is not!"
Korzybski's basic premise was thus - that the word uttered is not the object spoken about; the symbol is not the thing symbolized; and most importantly, the map (our thoughts, words and inferences) is not the territory (reality) it stands for. Maps almost always tend to leave out information and are only used as guides to the actual territory. Search for your current location on Google Maps to really test it for yourself!

For example, the word "chair" cannot be sat on - we may sit on the object we affix the word "chair" to, but the sound we make for it is not the object described. This is denying the "is" of identity. If we say "the chair is red", we presuppose that the redness is inherent in the chair, when it only appears to be red at that current location and time. It is not red on the inside nor has it always been red and it would be irrational to assume it always will be.
Since atoms are constantly moving at a microscopic level, our speech leaves out changes from second to second, minute to minute. So we cannot definitively and accurately describe the "whole" chair at any location in space-time. The previous sentence presupposes there is an elemental chair to which I am referring, which of course there isn't! I have simply used your referential index of all the previous "chairs" you have encountered to illustrate a point.

The non-elemental chair can also be abstracted further, leaving out even more details. A chair can be described with sounds as a piece of furniture, which can be abstracted further as an object, or even into the purely abstract "goods." Succinctly put - the thing is not the concept.

The system is designed to deny the essence of an object - that a purely empirical and extensional orientation towards events and objects must be achieved for us to recognize the limitations of perceptions or our "maps" of reality.

Next week: Intensional and extensional definitions and the extensional orientation

References:
Science and Sanity An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski, Institute of General Semantics,
1950, 4th edition
Language in Thought and Action: Fourth Edition, Samuel I. Hayakawa , Harcourt, 1972.

You're Joking

Mixing and matching my subjects at uni again in an effort to minimize any potential damage, I also filled out a "points count" request form. It was completed today. They informed me I had 50 - not 75 - points remaining to complete. I could've finished it in one semester instead of spreading it out over two.

God damn, son of a bitch.

Why don't you just ask her yourself?

"You shone a light on my life / now I'm just sentimental" - Biffy Clyro - Semi-Mental

Saw the monumental and frenetic Biffy Clyro at the Hi-Fi. It was an unusual experience, in the literal interpretation of the term - so accustomed to black-clad metalheads with long hair and little regard for personal safety, I found it completely refreshing to stand in a crowd with a metal t-shirt (if you can call Limozeen metal) and be a bit of an individual. The power trio sizzled through a killer set, despite the power going off half way through one of my favorite songs! Heavy enough to melt your face but still catchy and raucous to get everyone jumpin'. The Scottish ex-pat/backpacker crowd was out in full force - I heard accents everywhere and met one bloke who had been backpacking since last May but hadn't gone to any Aussie gigs until that day!

On the way home, the Taxis were on strike to protest against conditions as one driver was stabbed. Leaving the gig that night (in a taxi, funnily enough) the mob was still camped on the intersection of Swanston and Flinders st. when I went back into work the following morning, decrying the Victoria Police for not adequately protecting them (although vigilantly patrolling the perimeter for exactly that reason) It was bizzare to see so many taxis lined up the entire length of Swanston St. without moving an inch.

Beat Magazine? Your reign of Wikipedia-sourced terror will end soon enough!