Off the Map

In light of my recent reading of Walter Polakov in Wallace Clark’s 1922 book The Gantt Chart, I’ve started to see general semantics from the productivity perspective, a perspective that seems historically appropriate given Polakov’s essay in this book.

And in seeing that perspective, I’ve again begun thinking about the topics of thinking and language in general semantics, and which might matter more when it comes to defining general semantics.

I wrote the definition of general semantics as seen in the title of this blog post before fully considering it.  I wrote “General semantics is the study of the effects of language on productivity,” and what motivated this is something that came to mind: “Thinking is what we tell ourselves.”  Putting thinking in this light, it seems to me that thinking could be considered a language.  In other words, language isn’t so much what we say, but it’s what we hear.  “Speech” might be a better word for what we say.  So, input is language, output is speech.

Not exactly sure how that sits with me, but this blog is essentially “notes” and not too formal so let’s just let that simmer a bit.

How does the definition of general semantics as “the study of the effects of language on productivity” measure up to what I know about general semantics?  This definition zeroes the student on two different subjects–language and productivity–and their presumed causal relationship.  It gets the student to consider the impact language may have on productivity, and to wonder whether different language may effect productivity for the better, for the worse, or in some other way.

When you consider that Alfred Korzybski aimed at improving the sanity of people who exhibited “mental illness,” it would seem in light of this definition that he aimed at making them more productive in their lives.  Specifically, his approach involved curing delusions, introducing scientific thinking, and revising speech (what-we-say) because it affects language (what-we-hear).  Very generally speaking, this is the methodology for someone trying to advance technology in order to make a more productive society.  In order to develop technology, scientific understandings of resources need to be adopted, else the technology may be dooming rather than helpful.

I have to let this sit a bit more in my brain, especially in considering how to market general semantics for a popular audience.  Perhaps you have something to say?  If so, please post a comment below.

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See also: definition, gantt-chart, marketing, productivity, wallace-clark, walter-polakov

Long things in PDF pretty much go unread by me.  I got a Kindle this week, not so much for reading books from the Kindle Store, but for reading PDF files.  For some time, I’ve had things to read in PDF version (of note, Steve Stockdale’s new book Here’s Something about General Semantics).  I thought a Kindle might make reading long PDFs easier for me because it is portable so I can take it with me to set, and it’s more like a book than a computer screen is.  So far, I really like it.  I ultimately prefer hardcopies–you can’t jump around eBooks.  But this will do.

I loaded up my Kindle with PDF versions mostly of items directly or indirectly related to general semantics.  I’ve loaded Korzybski’s Science and Sanity, his Manhood of Humanity, Walter Polakov’s Mastering Power Production, and some of the original issues of the General Semantics Bulletin.  I also have Hume and Keyser and Bréal.  And of course, I have Stockdale.  In no way could I practically cart these texts with me to set.  With a Kindle, I can cart them all, plus jump back and forth between them.

What motivated this blog entry was reading a book I downloaded for free from Google Books.  It is titled The Gantt Chart: A Working Tool of Management by Wallace Clark.  It was published in 1922.  In the appendix of this book is an essay by Walter Polakov, a good friend of Alfred Korzybski’s who was around when Korzybski was formulating his notion of time-binding and even served as Korzybski’s liaison in the United States around the publication of Korzybski’s Manhood of Humanity.

Polakov’s essay, titled “The Measurement of Human Work,” provides what I find a much clearer perspective of time-binding than Korzybski ever published.  However, Polakov provides that perspective in piecemeal, and I’d encourage the person deeply interested in general semantics to read the short essay.

In the essay, Polakov clarifies that the notion of time-binding relates specifically to the notion of production, and “production” refers specifically to things man-made as opposed to things accidentally made or made by nature.  First, Polakov writes on pages 152-153 (pages 171-172 of the Google Books PDF):

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Production may be defined as human work organized on the co-operation of living and dead men for the conscious purpose of changing the form of matter or direction or character of force.  The outstanding factor in production is human work.  That distinguishes production from any other activity.  It is human, and therefore, a logarithmic function of time which defines the human dimension.

In this passage, Polakov notes that the human component is a differentiating mark.  Differentiating from what?  On page 154 (page 173), Polakov clarifies:

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Coming back to our definition of production as human work organized on the co-operation of living and dead men for the conscious purpose of changing the form of matter or the direction or character of force, this sharply distinguishes production from animal effort, physical occurrence, individual discovery, disorganized conflicting effort, or activity independent of results accomplished by past generations of men.

Much as Korzybski differentiates human from animal in Manhood of Humanity, Polakov differentiates human from animal in his discussion of production.  It makes you wonder if Korzybski was talking about Polakov’s notion of production without more clearly stating it in Manhood of Humanity.  To drive home the connection, Polakov explicitly references time-binding in his essay on page 153 (page 172), bolding mine:

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This co-operation of living and dead men creates all our material, intellectual, and spiritual wealth.  Before we begin any work we have at our disposal sciences, knowledge, machinery, materials, ideals, methods–all created and handed down by those who worked before us.  It is our part to bring to the work our energy and the ability to co-ordinate and apply what we have received from preceding generations and thus by means of our time-binding energy to create further material, intellectual, and spiritual wealth.

Before reading Polakov’s essay, I’d been generally confused about the notion of time-binding as taught to me by Alfred Korzybski when I thought about it in more detail.  On the surface, it made sense: Humans progress by means of passing information on via symbolism we call “language.”  That behavior is a differentiating mark of humanity that means they are different from animals and should not be called animals.  Yet, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable about this differentiation of humanity when thinking about the biological or zoological categorization of humans.  In that perspective, humans are classified as animals and I don’t disagree with that speciation.

But Polakov provides a context for the notion of time-binding that Korzybski seems to generally neglect, or at least doesn’t seem to drive home enough for me: That animals don’t produce in the way that humans do.  Humans produce in a different way than animals.  Animals cooperate with their current generations.  Humans cooperate with their current generations, but also with their past generations.  As a point of comparison, notice how Cassius Keyser explains time-binding on page 4 of his extraordinary work Mathematical Philosophy:

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If human being are by nature civilazation-builders, or “time-binders,” and if all time-binders, or civilization-builders, are both inheritors from the toil of bygone generations and trustees for the generations to come, then we humans stand in the double relationship–debtors of the dead, trustees of the unborn–thus uniting past, present and future in one living, growing reality.

Keyser’s use of the synonym “civilization-builder” for “time-binder” implies the production aspect of time-binding that Polakov explicates and Korzybski generally neglects (in my opinion).

What does this all mean?  For me, it means that the term “time-binding” means something more like “generation-binding.”  That is, “time” refers to generations of people rather than to the reading on a clock or a duration.  “People of another time” cooperating with “people of the current time.”  It is dead people binding with living people.

But it is dead people binding with living people in the context of production.  Looking to general semantics as a whole, its value becomes seen as a helpful study of productivity, and how people inhibit their productivity, as well as how people develop or increase their productivity, along with advice to move from the former to the latter.  That is, I might define general semantics as “the study of thinking and its effects on human productivity.”  If I want to emphasize the language role in productivity, I might say general semantics is “the study of language and its effects on human productivity.”

Whatever the case, I’m adding in “human productivity” to the definition as a point of clarity on what general semantics aims to help.  This seems to make a lot of sense when we reflect on what Korzybski called what he was doing in Manhood of Humanity: He was calling what he was doing “human engineering.”  Korzybski was trying to engineer a more productive human being.

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See also: cassius-keyser, definition, gantt-chart, kindle, manhood-of-humanity, mathematical-philosophy, pdf, productivity, time-binding, wallace-clark, walter-polakov

I get stricken a lot.

I like to start off saying things when it comes to general semantics by saying “It strikes me that …”  Today is no exception.

Today it strikes me that the word “identity” has two diabolically opposing meanings.

I recently had a meeting with an agent. It felt as if on the surface it went generically how I wanted it to go, but I left feeling a profound amount of rejection.  The feeling was as if what I said during the meeting amounted to a turnoff.  I’m not exactly sure why it went as it did or felt as it did (something to do with the concluding facial expression of the agent), but it was a sharp reaction I had.  It was confounded by the non-glance from the person with whom I did the audition as I left her, as if she couldn’t bring herself to look at me when I said goodbye.  Honestly, she was in the mirror doing her makeup.

I can’t explain what really happened in the meeting.  For all I know, it went superbly well in the agent’s eyes and my scene partner was highly impressed with my work with her.  For that reason, it’s not really worth trying to figure out exactly what happened because I probably will never figure it out.  Speculation is wasteful energy for me.

But one thing I did wonder was, Was my identity lacking?

In these kinds of meetings, I enter the room assuming it’s obvious I’m an actor.  However, the people who preceded me looked like a mother-daughter combination.  What were they?  Were they mother and daughter?  Were they both actors?  How did they distinguish themselves?

Notice that last question:

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“How did they distinguish themselves?”

Our identities are essentially how we distinguish ourselves from the multitude of sameness we swim in.  I’m a white guy, but my identity helps to distinguish me from all the other white guys.  I’m an actor, but my identity helps to distinguish me from all the other white guys.  My identity helps me to stand out.  My identity is how I characterize myself apart from all the others.

Notice, though, something quite peculiar: This meaning for the word “identity” is completely opposite the meaning Alfred Korzybski assigns to the word in general semantics.  He defines the word “identity” as “absolute sameness in all respects.”  So, we have one sense of the word “identity” meaning “absolutely the same,” and another sense of the word “identity” meaning “what is differentiating.”  In the korzybskian sense of the term, true identity contains nothing differentiating.  But in the daily use of the term, that’s mainly what it contains: what’s differential.

The recent meeting made me wonder if my identity lacked as I entered that room.  Maybe a mother and daughter entering a room before me makes it confusing who or what I am when I enter the room.  Am I an actor?  Am I some guy who is trying out acting?  Do I bring something else to the table?  Am I am athlete?  Am I an improv comedian?  Am I something totally different?

So I then began to think about my website.  In designing my website, I consciously knew the value of expressing my identity.  This is what I have had up from December until early today:

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I’m an actor, a writer, and a teacher of both long-form improv and general semantics. Not your average dude.

If you clicked on the passage, you’d reveal a hidden passage, which shared with the visitor what you might call my less visible, more hidden identity:

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I’m also a marathon runner, a webmaster, and sometimes I sleep.

I’ve been reevaluating my goals as an actor in the last few days.  With reevaluating my goals comes a reorganization of my life around those goals, as well as a shift in my values.  But also comes a shift in my identity.  In light of my recent agent meeting and my sad feelings about how it went, I turn again to this identity on my website.  I feel charged to change it.  And I also feel charged to ensure that when I have my next agent meeting, my identity shines through unquestionably.

So here is what I am planning to put up on my website:

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I’m an actor, athlete, and improv comedian.  I’m also a writer and teacher of both long-form improv and general semantics. Definitely not your average dude.

It’s still to be seen how this will evolve.  But I tend to think in light of my recent meeting that this will help position me and differentiate me in these meetings.  It is not all that non-standard a description of an actor.  But I’m hoping it will position me in the head of the next agent I meet.  Instead of just this guy who does a scene and talks about what he’s done, I put out exactly how I see myself and focus the agent around that concept of me.  The first sentence is most important to my career.  The second sentence just rounds out my life.

With a change in identity comes a reorganization of my career and my life.  On a smaller scale, with a change in identity comes a reorganization of my website.  I see that I designed my website around my first identity.  With my newer identity, the design and organization of my website may need to shift.

I’ve pointed out the need in general semantics to differentiate ises of identity into the is of equation and the is of representation.  In light of the above, I think a better term than “is of representation” is “is of differentiation.”  It is a nice opposite to the term “is of equation.”  And it helps to point out just how problematic the term “is of identity” is in general semantics: Does it always mean equality, or might it at times imply inequality?

In light of all of the above, it definitely can imply inequality.

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See also: acting, identity, improv, marketing

Last Friday, I made a remarkable bus trip from New York City up to Montreal, Canada, to see Milton Dawes.  I’m the webmaster for Milton’s new website titled “General Semantics.”  I was there to help him conceptualize his new blog-based website, and teach him how to use it.  Five hours after arriving, I was headed back to NYC, having taught Milton how to use his website and having had a wonderful Indian dinner with Milton at a buffet called Maharaja.

Milton seemed to catch on pretty quickly how to use his new website, and being there helped me understand how he uses his computer.  It also helped me understand what he sees on his computer and how what he sees differs from what I see on my computer.  There were things on his computer I don’t believe I could possibly understand if he explained them to me over the telephone.  We worked together and fixed up his computer to make using his website better.

You might say that our meeting was also a lesson in general semantics.  Among the profound things general semantics taught me when I first started learning it, it was that there is no such thing as an absolute perspective.  Instead, each of us have perspectives, and each of us have nervous systems, and those nervous systems are not the same in structure.  That they differ in structure means that there is the potential that we process reality differently.  There are many perspectives and there is no absolute perspective.  That is reason enough to calm down an insistent person who believes that he sees something “the right way.”  By the general semantics logic, there is no “right way,” and instead there would be just “different ways.”

By seeing Milton’s computer, essentially I was seeing the internet through Milton’s eyes.  What Milton sees on his computer is different from what I see on my computer.  My screen is wide, his is comparatively smaller.  My browser window is open, his is slightly crowded by a search box.  My screen resolution is high, his is lower.  Each of these differences makes for quite a different perspective of his website.  On my screen, his website “floats” in the middle of a gray sky.  On his screen, his website wasn’t even completely visible.  Furthermore, presumably because of the older browser, some effects I saw on my browser did not display on his browser.  When it comes to talking about his website, if we did not account for these differences, we would probably have ended up talking at cross-purposes.

Milton is probably one of the most knowledgable and accomplished people out there when it comes to general semantics.  He has ingrained a lot of its principles in his life, with (he admits) still room for application.  It is funny that we didn’t talk about the general semantics lessons embedded in our website meeting, but they serve as a modern-day example of the importance of general semantics knowledge.  I could have insisted what I was seeing on my computer was what Milton should see, which probably would have broiled eventually into conflict if I grew frustrated with his not seeing what I saw.  But I never really took that insistence on, all the while wondering what Milton saw on his computer and having to ask questions to gain insight.  General semantics taught me that.  And that’s only part of the power of general semantics.

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See also: internet-browsers, milton-dawes, perspective