I just read the opening of an article on a correlation between pesticides and attention deficit hyperactive disorder.

The article opens in this way:

‘

New research suggests that exposure to high levels of organophosphate pesticides, commonly found on berries, celery and other produce, could raise the odds for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children.

At this point, though, there is no evidence that pesticide exposure can actually cause ADHD, stated the authors of a paper appearing in the June issue of Pediatrics.

In my opinion, a general semantics treatment of this passage needs to be made. A general semantics treatment would note a few factors:

1. There is no definitive test leading to the diagnosis of ADHD (as far as I know). The diagnosis of ADHD hinges on human interpretation of observable behavior (including any brain studies).
2. The interpretation is arrived at by a process. We might call this process the diagnostic process. There is no mention of that process in the opening of the article.
3. Since there is no mention of that process, and since there is no definitive test leading to a diagnosis of ADHD, it is improper to say that someone has or is ADHD, and it is proper to note that someone has been diagnosed as or is diagnosed as ADHD.

Here is how I would reword the opening of the article in light of my general semantics treatment.

‘

New research suggests that exposure to high levels of organophosphate pesticides, commonly found on berries, celery and other produce, could raise the odds for being diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children.

At this point, though, there is no evidence that pesticide exposure can actually cause a diagnosis of ADHD, stated the authors of a paper appearing in the June issue of Pediatrics.

Granted, this wording is slightly improper in that the opening reports the findings of the authors of a paper, not the opinion of the reporter. But here’s what major difference you should note:

When studying mental illness, it may be more important to study the practitioners who make the diagnosis than the people who have been diagnosed. That is, there may be more interesting findings in the motivations that lead a practitioner toward diagnosis than in the conditions the practitioner apparently “finds.” There may be outside factors that lead a practitioner to a diagnosis. Organophosphate pesticides, maybe? 🙂

This means that people who are diagnosed as “ill” may not actually be so (since there may be no definitive test), and the “illness” may actually be in the perception of the practitioner. A patient should not be treated elementalistically; a patient should be treated with the appreciation of who actually diagnosed the patient, for perhaps the illness is a function of the diagnostic practitioner. The patient should be treated non-elementalistically (relative to the diagnosis).

It is my belief that this is the case in a number of people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness. Many people make their “illness” their identity, and thereby make the condition more terminal. Practitioners enforce their interpretations by legislating medication that has its own complicating effects.

Point being: When talking about mental illness, don’t say that people have or are their illness. Instead, make a point of saying that they’ve been diagnosed with their illness. This calls attention to the diagnostic process, the human interpretation involved, which better allows for disputation and contest of the practitioner’s perspective.

COMMENTS

Leave a Comment (1 So Far)

See also: adhd, definition, diagnosis, elementalism, identity, mental-illness, non-elementalism, process

I’ve just come off one hell of a week.  Each day’s work started by rising before 5am (at least once by 3am) and involved a rather large number of hours.  In the case of Monday’s work, I played a 7-foot-tall costume character and had to navigate the obstacle-laden innards of the New York Stock Exchange, even moving to the famous the platform to clap as we rang the opening bell.  Tuesday’s work meant a 4:15am departure to arrive by 5:48am for a calltime for the film The Smurfs.  The other days were on the television show White Collar doing crosses and finding time to rest as I started to succumb to my first cold in ages.

When my days are taken up by work, I am left with just a few hours left in my day to get other things done before I get to sleep.  Oftentimes it’s not a few hours but simply an hour, or maybe even just a few minutes.  In that precious amount of time, I have to cram things that are demanding on my life that I can’t do when I’m at work or asleep.  It is at these times I can become irritable and grumpy, or I might just spontaneously scream because I’m conflicted: I have two or more goals I need to achieve without enough time to achieve them both, at least comfortably.

It is in these extremely busy periods that my life becomes meaningful.  That is, nearly all of my minutes must work toward the achievement of my goals.  When I’m spending my time toward the achievement of my goals, I am relatively productive.  If I do not spend these precious minutes toward the achievement of my goals, I waste my time and I limit my ability to achieve my goals.  I am relatively unproductive.

It is this value that is high in general semantics: Productivity.  Productivity, as I will choose to define it, is progress toward the achievement of goals.  Time spent toward those achievements is meaningful; time not spent toward those achievements is wasteful.

This would mean that the concept of the meaningful life is the concept of spending all of one’s time on this planet while alive toward the achievement of one’s goals.

You probably don’t have much of a care to live a meaningful life when you are young.  When you are young, you have what seems like an unlimited amount of time to live.  Time does not bog you down.  However, as you get older, you slowly start to become more aware of the limit of your time.  Then you experience a death in the family, and you become all the more aware of the limits of time.  Or you have a near-death experience.  You quickly reshape your values.  You start to care for your productivity, your progress toward the achievement of your goals.  You realize if you waste your time, you won’t achieve your goals, but if you appreciate your time, you just might achieve them.

I have to live a relatively meaningful life because of the obvious limits of time my work puts on me.  My work often doesn’t tell me until the night before when I need to be up the next day.  My work doesn’t tell me when I’ll be done.  My work doesn’t tell me if I’ll be working tomorrow.  If it does, it doesn’t tell me when I’ll know if I’m working tomorrow.  My work may be on the same project or on a different project, and my being on a different project may take no sympathy on my having a good night’s rest.

I am forced to care how I appreciate my time, because if I don’t care, my goals can consume me.  I can drown in unlaundered clothes, lack of food at home, marathon goals missed, webmastering backlogs, and a number of other productivity problems.  I can mismanage others’ expectations about when I’ll be able to get something done for them, if at all.  I can invite social problems.  I can invite a whole heap of negative by not spending my time meaningfully.

This is but a taste for now of the concept of the meaningful life.  I have other things I need to be doing right now.  Other meaningful things.

COMMENTS

Leave a Comment (0 So Far)

See also: acting, concept, goals, meaning, the-meaningful-life

It came to me the other day: the lure of general semantics.  The attraction.  Why did it make such an impression on me back in college?  Why did it amaze me, its observations?  What did it offer me that I was wanting?  What exactly was this stuff?

It started to become clearer to me that what general semantics provided me was “the truth.”  It clarified for me what beliefs were false and why, and pointed to other beliefs that were true and why.  It taught me about how we process, how we abstract, how we don’t mention those aspects as we talk about the world, and why we should.  I had an underlying search for truth in college, and probably still do, and when I discovered general semantics, it gave me an edge, because with general semantics, I felt I was learning truth.

But it was also very practical.  In learning the truth, I was learning about what was false, so when I was discussing something with someone, arguing, debating, or just writing a paper, I could confidently make true statements rather than false statements, and thereby circumvent another’s ability to undermine my perspective.  General semantics taught me ways to tweak what I said in order to move from making a false statement to making a true statement.  Just a small change in language could do this, and general semantics taught me these things.

But it wasn’t just a language tweak: By forcing myself to change my language, I was forcing myself to take on different thinking.  With general semantics, I started to think in true terms rather than false terms.

Maybe that’s why so many people have remarked to me that I “think different.”  Perhaps I speak in a more truthful way than most people.  I avoid exaggeration.  I qualify my statements with to-me-ness.  I press people for facts when they state opinions.  I point out the difference between inference and fact.  Etc.  I’m not perfect in my practice, but I damn do it a lot.  General semantics is very much a part of my behavior now, and while I still have the ability to have facts off, as least I’m less wrong more often.

I’m betting I’ll have more to say on this in the future.  But if you are searching for the truth right now, general semantics may be the next field you want to study.

COMMENTS

Leave a Comment (0 So Far)

See also: truth

Recently I wrote the essay below as a definition of general semantics.  It is informed by my readings of Alfred Korzybski’s contemporary intellectual influences like Walter Polakov and H.L. Gantt.  Reading them, I became much more attuned to the engineering roots that general semantics has, its productivity bent, as well as a clearer understanding of time-binding.

This definition doesn’t say “all” about general semantics, of course, but I feel it puts it in a perspective rarely understood or uttered.  That is, you don’t hear much about productivity in general semantics, but if you read Gantt, you hear how it’s a frame for much of the reasoning, especially when you translate Korzybski’s notion of progress into terms of productivity.  (I did that for you here.)

If you have an opinion of the definition below, or questions, or especially if it helped you to better understand general semantics, I hope you’ll post a comment below.  Cheers!

‘

What Is General Semantics?

Have you ever found yourself stuck in a rut? Unable to progress? Does success continually elude you? Do you wish you had more options than what you see before you? Do you feel depressed, angry, or neurotic? Do you feel as if you’re born the way you are and can’t change?

Do you find yourself over and over again in arguments over words, opinions, perspectives, and facts? Do you wish you could reach agreements more regularly? Do you wish you were a better problem-solver? More creative? Do you wish you could speak better, write better, or communicate more effectively? Have you wanted to become more productive in your work? In your life? Do you aspire to be as good a person as you can be?

If you answered “Yes!” to any of these questions, general semantics is for you! General semantics examines your language and your thinking to see how they influence your productivity and overall success. If one statement could be said to characterize general semantics, it might be this: General semantics is like an owner’s manual for “how to use the brain.”

Introduction

to General Semantics

General semantics is a field dedicated to maximizing individual and social excellence. It focuses on human productivity—that is, actions, accomplishments, and overall achievement—and the impact the primary behaviors of thinking and language have on productivity. In layman’s terms, general semantics looks at your goals, what you’re doing, and whether the way you think and talk is helping you achieve your goals.

Developed from an engineering perspective toward solving the problem of human conflict and advancing human prosperity, the theories associated with general semantics—made famous by renowned authors, thinkers, and leaders—conceptualize thinking and language in ways that enable individuals to achieve optimal performance, sanity, and happiness.

General semantics has influenced a great many figures in the fields of communication, business, psychology, law, academia, and self-help, as well as countless individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and cultures around the world, enabling them to become more productive and functional in problematic areas of their work and lives.

History

of General Semantics

In 1933, Polish engineer Count Alfred Korzybski introduced the field of general semantics with the publication of his groundbreaking book Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. By 1938 Korzybski had founded the Institute of General Semantics, attracting people from innumerable disciplines to hear his transformative teachings on current states of humanity and the roles thinking and language had on those states. Upon his death in 1950, Korzybski had published books and essays on topics related to language and behavior, mental illness and mental health, scientific and unscientific thinking, not to mention general semantics, and he had taught tens of thousands of students as a charismatic guest lecturer on campuses and in classes, seminars, and workshops.

General semantics gained fame from books like Stuart Chase’s popular The Tyranny of Words and S.I. Hayakawa’s Book of the Month Club title Language in Action, which drew substance from the unusual attention general semantics paid to language and its role in problem-causing and problem-solving. Writer A. E. van Vogt also popularized general semantics with his famous science-fiction novel The World of Null-A. After Korzybski’s death, general semantics remained in vogue, and fields like rational emotive behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, neuro-linguistic programming, and media ecology developed explicitly using general semantics concepts. Today, general semantics competes for attention with a number of different cognitive and academic disciplines, yet few disciplines have demonstrated as transformative a power as general semantics in changing and developing thinking in individuals’ pursuits of personal excellence.

Foundational Concepts

in General Semantics

Alfred Korzybski applied his engineering background to the problem of world war. As a soldier who was seriously wounded in World War I, he had a very personal experience of the problem. In the early years of developing what would become general semantics, Korzybski called what he was doing “human engineering.” Korzybski aimed to engineer humanity in a direction that would lead people out of such dire interpersonal relations that led to world war, and in the direction of more cooperative, constructive interpersonal relations.

An engineer must have a solid understanding of the capacities of his resources, and Korzybski understood that humans were his resource. Part of the problem Korzybski saw in re-engineering humanity was the predominant concepts of humanity in his day. Rather than accepting the popular zoological concept of humanity wherein humans were “simply animals,” or accepting the popular spiritual concept of humanity wherein humans were “part natural, part supernatural,” Korzybski needed a new concept of humanity that properly framed humanity for its engineering. He accepted a revolutionary concept of humanity: that of the human as a time-binder.

For Korzybski, time-binding referred to the unique capacity humans had to cooperate with humans from another time. The term “time-binding” specifically referred to the cooperation between humans from different time periods: people of different time periods worked together, “bound” through their cooperation. Korzybski pointed out that humans in the present time did not simply cooperate with themselves in order to produce. Rather, humans in the present time cooperated with humans from a past time in order to produce. By drawing on the lessons offered by humans from a past time, humans in the present time had the capacity to expedite production relative to humans of a past time, and thereby enable relative progress. Progression, thus, was a unique characteristic of humanity that differentiated humans from animals since animals could not cooperate with animals of a past time and expedite production. According to Korzybski, given their unique time-binding capacity, humans should not be thought of as animals in the endeavor to re-engineer humanity.

Using this concept of humanity, Korzybski had armament for engineering humankind away from the behaviors that led to world war. As time-binders, humans’ overall direction was made apparent: To produce in cooperation with the present and past generations, to aid the production of future generations. Endeavors that interfered with the productivity and progression of humanity were counterproductive to human nature. War, ineffective communication, unscientific thinking, and delusion became topics of interest to Korzybski as he endeavored to engineer a more productive human and humankind.

Key Concepts

in General Semantics

Time-binding was only background information when Korzybski founded the field of general semantics. In Science and Sanity, Korzybski took aim at some of the worst examples of human productivity and some of the best examples, for what lessons the best may teach the worst for the overall benefit of humanity. Specifically, Korzybski noted the language habits of scientists and mathematicians and how their language facilitated great technological advancement. Comparatively, Korzybski showed how unscientific and emotional language habits greatly impeded technological advancement. In light of this contrast, Korzybski introduced concepts that taught his students and readers groundbreaking ways of thinking, writing, and speaking that overrode unproductive and counterproductive thinking and enabled sanity, productivity, and eventually progress.

In order to make for a more productive humanity, Korzybski paid special attention to the use of language. Korzybski chose to refer to his discipline as “semantics” because it was a discussion of the content of our language (the physical objects to which we refer, the concepts in our heads, etc.), but he specifically referred to his discipline as “general semantics” because it was a discussion not just of the content of language but also its structure—the organization of language, not simply on the page but also, more importantly, in the mind. The word “semantics” refers to meaning or significance, and Korzybski made the astute observation that not only are words siginificant and meaningful in communication, but so is their organization (“structure”).

Given this observation, Korzybski championed what is perhaps his most quoted teaching: “The map is not the territory.” Korzybski promoted a perspective of seeing language as maplike. Much as a map is intended to accurately represent a territory, Korzybski’s perspective of language taught to create language that more accurately represented the territories it describes. To this point, many people do not use language in a way that accurately represents the territories it describes. People are often emotionally upset or distraught, they are deluded, they project upon reality, etc. Korzybski pointed out the role language had in the manifestation of these symptoms. He pointed out how often people communicate emotionally and exaggerate; how often they promote unscientific ideas or forward as knowledge information that can’t be truly known; how often they give inaccurate and untrue reports with their words. He also demonstrated with countless students how adjusting language habits to more accurately represent the territories they describe led to a sizeable reduction of distressing symptoms, if not a full eradication of the symptoms.

From this approach, Korzybski taught his readers and listeners what was known scientifically about the human nervous system and its capabilities and processes, and encouraged his readers and listeners to amend their false-to-fact beliefs hardened in how they spoke and how they wrote, primarily for the benefit of eliminating emotional distress but also for the greater aim of becoming productive again in work and life.

COMMENTS

Leave a Comment (0 So Far)

See also: definition, engineering, h-l-gantt, manhood-of-humanity, marketing, productivity, science-and-sanity, time-binding, walter-polakov