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.

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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.

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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

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