Off the Map

I explained in the previous post that a generic term represents far fewer characteristics than what its subject actually has.  As explained in this post, a generic term also represents a great number of subjects.  This kind of stratefication of connection between subjects and the words used to represent them leads to the kind of imagery seen in Alfred Korzybski’s model, the Structural Differential.

A generic term, by definition, represents a great number of subjects.  Take for instance the generic term “thinking.”  The word “thinking” stands for a lot of different mental behaviors.  It stands for pondering, dreaming, and hoping.  It stands for postulating, hypothesizing, and theorizing.  It stands for calculating, strategizing, and concentrating.  It stands for searching.  It stands for ruminating.  It stands for a great number of other mental behaviors.

That is, thinking is not some separate kind of mental behavior.  Instead, it is a generic term (“thinking”) that stands for a great number of other mental behaviors.  You won’t find thinking.  Instead, you might find a number of behaviors we call “thinking.”

The stratefication comes when you think of a generic term like an umbrella, one which covers a great number of more specific terms.  It’s hard to represent in text what I mean, but hopefully you’ll see what I’m getting at below:

“t h i n k i n g”
/                     |                     \ *
pondering theorizing concentrating **

* (and so on with these branches)
** (and so on with these behaviors represented by the generic word “thinking”)

 There is a stratefication represented in the diagram–a hierarchy of sorts–wherein there are a lot of different behaviors listed on the bottom, and one word used to represent them all on top.

What draws each of these behaviors together under a single word may be arbitrary, but usually it’s at least one characteristic, maybe a cluster of characteristics, that do so.  In this case, the characteristic (or characteristics, depending on how you see this point) is that each of these processes take place centrally in the brain.  Because they all share this characteristic, we call them “thinking.”  Punching is not listed under “thinking,” nor is “gorilla” nor “Scent of a Woman“–these don’t share the “thinking” characteristic.  They’re each different things altogether.  So we don’t call them “thinking.”

Our diagram above has the word “thinking” pointing to actual behaviors.  (You might not see that, but it’s what I intended.)  But, of course, we can just stay verbal with our diagram, too.  In order to do so, we would have to put the lower tier of words into quotation  marks.  This would distinguish them specifically as words.  This would also make a synonym tree:

“t h i n k i n g”
/                     |                     \ *
“pondering” “theorizing” “concentrating” **

What is the difference between the two diagrams?  In the first, a generic term represents a number of things (behaviors).  In the second, a generic term represents a number of specific terms.  That is, the first has non-verbal referents, and the second has verbal referents.  In some sense, the second tree is a special case of the first tree–it is the case where the non-verbal referents are, well, verbal.  Thesauri list verbal referents for generic terms.  Picture books are probably a good representative for lists of non-verbal referents for generic terms.  “[See photo.] This is a zebra.”

So if synonyms only deal with words, then what would I call the first kind of tree, the non-verbal tree?  Maybe a synothing tree.

But who cares really.  What’s more important is to notice the stratefication, and that generic terms represent great numbers of subjects, and that generic terms refer to other things–they aren’t the things themselves.  (That is, you won’t find thinking, but you might find pondering.)  This all meshed together nicely with Alfred Korzybski’s Structural Differential, which he outlines in his major work, Science and Sanity (currently for sale on the IGS website).

In this video, Korzybski describes the Structural Differential:

What Korzybski doesn’t describe in the video is that you can invert the Structural Differential.  By doing so, you get the synothing tree I outline up top.  Each label could be thought of as a generic term.  The labels more closely tied to the object level are more specific terms (“pondering,” “theorizing,” etc.)  The object level would be non-verbal referents (pondering, theorizing, etc., i.e., the words without the quotes).  The labels farther away from the object level are more generic terms.

Here’re some examples of Structural Differential chains employing my notion of generic terms:

Object Level // 1st Label // 2nd Label // 3rd Label // etc.
a snake // “snake” // “reptile” // “animal” // “lifeform” // etc.

Object Level // 1st Label // 2nd Label // 3rd Label // etc.
Ben Hauck // “Ben Hauck” // “actor” // “freeloader” // etc.

Based on the second example, you can see where biases might show up inside one person’s scheme of generic terms (i.e., someone’s personal genus structure).  Someone appears to see actors as a specific kind of freeloader!

In general semantics, each label is regarded as an abstraction.  I’m arguing instead to call them generic terms.  While it’s true to refer to them as abstractions, I feel that doing so is more confusing than to call them generic terms.  Maybe better put: It’s less confusing to call them generic terms first, and see them as abstractions (“distortions”) later, as demonstrated in my second chain where there is an obvious distortion.  Putting the Structural Differential in terms of generic terms has helped me to better understand the higher levels of labels in the diagram.

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Language, by its nature, is generic.

That’s the opinion herein I forward, and I hope you take a strong liking to.

Seeing language as abstract is a common vision within general semantics, but seeing language as generic is an uncommon, new vision within general semantics which leads to seeing language as representing far fewer characteristics than the things it represents have.

The word “abstract,” we’re told, means “representing fewer characteristics,” but the use of the word “abstract” in portraiture suggests a different meaning: “abstract” roughly means “distorted.”  Employing that meaning within general semantics, “abstract” means that language, being abstract, may distort its subject.  Surely, language can and does, but that’s a whole different quality of language than its being generic.

Language, being generic, naturally represents fewer characteristics than its subject has.  That is, “generic” is a more proper word for talking about represented characteristics than the word “abstract.”  At least that is my opinion, and hopefully you will soon see why.

For example, take the word “apple.”  When you think of an apple, do all of its characteristics come to mind?  If you think so, did its seeds come to mind?  Did the worm inside it come to mind?  Did the cells of it come to mind?  What about the cellular structure of those cells?  What about the variability of structure amongst the cells?  Each speck on the skin–did those come to mind, too?  What about the dent in the skin?  Not all apples have them … but did each apple that exists come to your head?  Really?  The split second I said “when you think of an apple”?  Actually, only a relatively small number of characteristics come to mind when you hear or read the word “apple.”  That is not wrong; instead, that is the nature of language: It represents only a relatively small number of characteristics its subject has.

The truth is, only a few characteristics are represented by all words, and so, to that degree, all words (and more globally, language) is generic.  The profundity of such a claim is that you can never say all about something in a few words, or even in innumerable words.  Language will always be more generic than what it represents.  “Generic” means “representing fewer characteristics.”

Take for instance the sentence, “Two planes flew into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.”  Just how generic of a statement is it?  It is highly generic if you were in New York City that day.  The statement doesn’t detail anywhere near the number of characteristics that day had, either chronologically or emotionally for each NYCer.  We can use more language to make the statement less generic, to detail more characteristics represented in that sentence.  However, no matter how many words you write, the referents for those sentences will have more characteristics than the words represent.

Surely, the statement  “Two planes flew into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001” is like a map and abstract–a distortment to some degree.  However, saying that it’s abstract doesn’t call such precise attention to the sentence’s lack of representation for countless characteristics underlying the sentence.  Saying that it’s generic does.

What value does this lesson have to you?  As you listen to language, keep in mind that there are more characteristics to the subjects you’re learning about than are represented in their corresponding stories.  The news lacks innumerable characteristics.  The newspapers, the blogs, the rumors you hear, the stories you’re told.  Never think that you know it all.  Instead, you might know some, but there will never be knowing all.  Characteristics go unrepresented in the stories you digest.  But also in the stories you weave: You cannot say all, either.

And so I hope you will begin to use the word “generic” in your general semantics discussions when characterizing language.

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I hope to make a case over the next few posts to this blog that language, by its nature, is generic.  With respect to general semantics, this is a rival perspective to the notion that language, by its nature, is abstract.  I aim to show that “generic” is a better, more constructive term than “abstract” when talking about language in general semantics.

Some points I aim to discuss:

• Language is generic.  Its referent is always specific (relative to language).
• To understand what it means to be generic, look to prescription drugs and their counterpart generic drugs.  What does “generic” mean in this case?  Generic means “lacking a quality,” in this case, a name brand. 
• Language never represents as many qualities as its referent has.  More specifically, never does all of the referent’s qualities come to mind when its language is invoked.  The word “circle” stands for a specific figure, and with that figure comes a lot of qualities, but the word is less specific than the actual figure.
• “Generic” is a better descriptor of language than “abstract” because “abstract” has a number of meanings that can make the concept of abstraction somewhat confusing.  Sometimes the word “abstraction” is used almost like a synonym for “extraction,” or perhaps should be.  But with Korzybski’s emphasis on the reduction of characteristics represented by each stage of the abstracting process as shown in his model, the Structural Differential, language is shown not so much to become more abstract but more generic.
• “Generic” may also apply in Hayakawa’s model, the Abstraction Ladder.  In that model, words can be seen in some respect as collections, and as a result, more abstract than the items in those collections, which are less abstract words.
• Truth and being generic are related.  Truthful statements maintain their truth insofar as they are generic.  Some statements, when made more specific, become untrue.  Take for instance, the statement “He was killed.”  That is a (relatively) generic statement.  You might call out the passive formulation of that sentence, and attempt to reformulate it into an active voice.  You might try to write, “She killed him,” but then, by assuming someone killed him, you may make an untrue statement, especially if it wasn’t a person that killed him, but a rolling boulder.
• In order to become specific, we use terms.  Terms are means for improving specificity.  “Are you happy?”  “Happy how?”  “Happy in terms of your relationship.”
• We consciously or unconsciously select our terms.  That is, there is choice involved in selecting terms.  We can tip a discussion in different ways based on how we define our generic language.  We can talk of freedom “in terms of speech,” freedom in terms of “privacy,” freedom in terms of “the press,” etc.  Each of those is a different discussion; however, generically, they are all discussions about freedom.
• In terms of critical thinking, we need to become aware that people can focus generic conversation around a selection of terms which may limit conversation needlessly and persuasively.  A political party may force conversation about marriage (generic term) in terms of sanctity (more specific term), and sanctity (now a relatively generic term) in terms of Western religion.  But another political party may focus the conversation about marriage (generic term) in terms of rights (more specific), and rights (now a relatively generic terms) in terms of what’s-outlined-in-the-Constitution.  Terms specify discussion, but there potentially is no absolute way of specifying a discussion.

Those are the sketches.

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There are words whose rock-solid meanings we rely on as a culture.  The use of these words can be correct or incorrect, or maybe proper or improper.  Their meanings, when it comes down to it, aren’t a matter of interpretation–they are largely set and incontrovertible.  I call these words “stable words.”

What are examples of stable words?

“All” is a stable word.

It means “every.”  It means “total.”  “All” is a completely consuming word that stands for each and every item in a collection.  “All of the apples in the cart.”  “All of my classmates.”  “All of the universe.”

The meaning of “all” is not a matter of controversy–its meaning is agreed upon without argument.  “All” does not mean “most.”  “All” does not mean “a few.”  “I’ve done all of my homework” does not mean “I’ve done most of my homework.”  There is a difference between “all” and “most” because the meaning of “all” is set.  As is the meaning of “most.”  “Most” is also a stable word.  Its meaning is “more than 50%.”  It’s meaning is “not all, but relatively close to all.”

To say “I’ve done all of my homework” when you’ve only done most of your homework would be using the word “all” incorrectly or improperly.  Certainly we can and do say “all” when we truly mean “most,” but those are the kinds of uses of “all” that general semantics combats.  General semantics, arguably, tries to get people to speak correctly or properly with respect to stable words.

So what is an unstable word?  An unstable word’s meaning is a matter of interpretation.  Its meaning isn’t totally set.  It may be controversial.  It may not have a correct or proper use.

What are examples of unstable words?

“Liberty.”  Or “blue.”  Both of these are matters of interpretation.  Their meanings are arguable.  What’s liberty to you may not be liberty to me.  What’s blue to you may not be blue to me.  You have abundant poetic license to use these words.  Iran can use liberty, and so can the U.S.A.  The sky may be blue to you, but so may be the pool to you, when it is more “green” to me.

The stability of these words’ meanings has a consequence.  Stable words create stable arguments; unstable words create unstable arguments.  That is, stable words create arguments that can be correct or incorrect, proper or improper; unstable words create arguments that are matters of interpretation.  Until an unstable argument gets reformulated into a stable argument, there is no possibility for being correct or proper; being correct or proper will continually slip through fingers and cracks.

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