{"id":1038,"date":"2011-01-09T23:44:11","date_gmt":"2011-01-10T04:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/?p=1038"},"modified":"2011-01-09T23:44:11","modified_gmt":"2011-01-10T04:44:11","slug":"the-central-choice-as-explained-in-general-semantics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/2011\/01\/09\/the-central-choice-as-explained-in-general-semantics\/","title":{"rendered":"The Central Choice, as Explained in General Semantics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I poured over a transcript of a recording of Alfred Korzybski, the founder of general semantics.\u00a0 In the recording, he spoke a lot about extensionalization, which I characterize as becoming oriented to the non-verbal referents that words denote (that is, actual things<\/em>).\u00a0 Its contrast is intensionalization.\u00a0 I characterize that as becoming oriented to the verbal referents the words denote (that is, other words<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Korzybski complained quite a bit about the intensional orientation that many people had, and he worked steadily at retraining people to develop more extensional orientations.\u00a0 He seemed to feel that this was a central orientation in the development of a sane attitude.\u00a0 While I won’t get into his argument right now, I’ll just say that there’s a ton of value that I’ve personally derived from becoming more extensional.\u00a0 That is, instead of paying attention to words, I put more interest in the actual things they denote, and I start to see a) how people try to persuade me by using emotional or deluded language, and b) how I might believe in\u00a0a reality that doesn’t actually exist.\u00a0 With a big grain of salt, I start to take people’s use of language, say, to\u00a0characterize others and their stories.\u00a0 I tend toward a “show me” attitude.\u00a0 I need a lot of evidence before I believe the simplest story or characterization.\u00a0 I find that people spread a lot of bullshit, even without their knowing, and getting extensional has helped me become a better “bullshit detector.”<\/p>\n

As I see it, intension is just one kind of extension.\u00a0 “Extension” is the word used to denote the behavior of defining a word by pointing at its subject.\u00a0 The extension of the word “zebra” is pointing at a zebra, or maybe a photograph of one.\u00a0 “Intension” is a word used to denote the behavior of defining a word by listing properties.\u00a0 The intension of the word “zebra” is something like “a horselike animal with black and white stripes.”\u00a0 Note that the intension is other words<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What if you think of intension as just pointing at words?\u00a0 Well, then intension becomes a special kind of extension<\/em>: intension becomes extension when pointing specificially at words.\u00a0 That is, I might point at actual things when I define a term, and thus provide an extension,\u00a0but when I point specifically at words, I still provide an extension, just a special kind I call\u00a0“intension.”<\/p>\n

It might be a bit hard to wrap your head around the problems that come from intension.\u00a0 But try this: Let’s take my name.\u00a0 And let’s say you’re reading my name on a list, and there’s a checkmark on the list suggesting you need to talk to me about my membership status in your hypothetical organization.\u00a0 So you say, “Ben Hauck.”\u00a0 That’s a term.\u00a0 You ask, “Where’s Ben Hauck?”\u00a0 I don’t step forward from the crowd.\u00a0 You ask again: “Where’s Ben Hauck?”\u00a0 Someone in the group sees me from afar and says, “There he is!”\u00a0 You ask, “Where?”\u00a0 She says, “There!”\u00a0 You say, “Point him out to me.” …<\/p>\n

And so you’re looking for the extension of the term “Ben Hauck.”<\/p>\n

… But say she points me out but you still don’t see me.\u00a0 I disappear.\u00a0\u00a0Wondering\u00a0about my membership status, you\u00a0ask, “Who is Ben Hauck?”\u00a0 Another person speaks up: “He’s a member who joined in 2005 and he volunteers at our annual meetings.”<\/p>\n

And so you get an intension of the term “Ben Hauck.”<\/p>\n

The difference between extension and intension is the amount of characteristics associated with each referent.\u00a0 When you point to me<\/em>, I have a large amount of characteristics associated with me, and you see quite a number of them.\u00a0 But when you point to words-about-me, I have a significantly smaller amount of characteristics associated with me.\u00a0 If I’ve stepped out by this time and you never actually see me, I only seem to have a relatively small amount of characteristics associated with me.\u00a0 The actual quantities of associated characteristics is of no matter.\u00a0 What matters is that in terms of number of associated characteristics:<\/p>\n

extension of a word > intension of a word<\/strong><\/p>\n

That inequality is a lot like saying “A picture is worth a thousand words.”\u00a0 It says that the denotation of a word–“pointing at the actual referent”–conveys innumerably more characteristics about a person than a list of properties associated with that referent.\u00a0 Another way to say this is that pointing at something better represents something than providing words about that thing.<\/p>\n

When you’re asked to define words, what do you do?\u00a0 Do you ever<\/em> provide an extension?\u00a0 If I ask you “What’s a Republican?,” I am essentially asking for a definition.\u00a0 Do you ever point out people you call “Republican”?\u00a0 Or do you simply list properties?\u00a0 The thinking might go that when you provide intensions, you simplify reality, but you potentially over-<\/em>simplify reality.\u00a0 You present a words consisting of relatively few properties, but the actual world consists of indefinitely more.<\/p>\n

I could define “Wal-Mart” as a department store … but what to make of it when there’s also a grocery store inside it?\u00a0 If I pointed to Wal-Mart, you might see the number of different components it has, rather than over-simply defining it in words, which are perhaps always overly simply.<\/p>\n

So what is the central choice?\u00a0 The choice is to provide an extension or an intension when you’re asked, “What does that word mean?”\u00a0 “What’s a terrorist?”\u00a0 Well, I could give you an extension by pointing out individuals I apply the label to, or I could give you a list of properties of a terrorist, which probably would not cover the total list of individuals I apply the label to.\u00a0 That is, characteristics would go ignored when I provide you with the intension of the word.<\/p>\n

Extension essentially aims to point to actual reality, in order to circumvent delusional reality, a product in some respects of intension, which can construct an overly simple world in its innocence, and can construct a persuasive (or dissuasive) world in its malevolence.\u00a0 In hopes of “seeing the truth” and “becoming saner,” the general-semantics advice is to become extensional.\u00a0 “See what-is-going-on.”<\/p>\n

From the neglect of the extensional orientation, a number of unsane problems thus follow, whether they be from the belief in delusion or the persuasion away from healthier choices.\u00a0 Perhaps unsanity is not bad, or even desired, and for that, worry not about the extensional orientation.\u00a0 But if unsanity is unwanted, a saner lifestyle appreciated, and a better harmony with actual reality desired, extensionalization may be just the ticket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I poured over a transcript of a recording of Alfred Korzybski, the founder of general semantics.\u00a0 In the recording, he spoke a lot about extensionalization, which I characterize as becoming oriented to the non-verbal referents that words denote (that is, actual things).\u00a0 Its contrast is intensionalization.\u00a0 I characterize that as becoming oriented to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,9,157,106,158,264,265],"class_list":["post-1038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-semantics","tag-alfred-korzybski","tag-definition","tag-extension","tag-extensional-orientation","tag-intension","tag-intensional-orientation","tag-the-central-choice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1038"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1053,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions\/1053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}