Today\u00a0I write what I\u00a0understand about general semantics (at least as Alfred Korzybski originated\u00a0it).\u00a0 Ask me tomorrow and I may have a different understanding!<\/p>\n
My challenge here?\u00a0 To summarize general semantics in just a few sentences.\u00a0 Here goes.<\/p>\n
‘<\/span><\/div>In order to develop a saner society, individuals must work on their personal sanity.\u00a0 That requires work on themselves, particularly their thinking and thoughts.\u00a0 What we call “thinking” and “thoughts” are\u00a0basically electro-colloidal configurations in the brain.\u00a0 What we call “unsanity” is\u00a0presumably the result of\u00a0trademark electro-colloidal configurations, which are manifest as habits and so-called “disturbance.”\u00a0 By\u00a0working on\u00a0themselves, people can change their electro-colloidal configurations to allow what we call “sanity” to habitually manifest and “disturbance” to disappear.<\/p>\n
In particular, work on the understanding of how reality presents itself to\u00a0their nervous systems<\/em> (that is, how reality re-presents*<\/em> itself neurolinguistically in humans) and work at becoming more\u00a0oriented with non-verbal reality as opposed to verbal reality<\/em> (which we are more inclined to attend to) can make sizeable\u00a0progress in rehabituating\u00a0the\u00a0unsane individual\u00a0toward exhibiting sanity.\u00a0 To aid their work at becoming saner,\u00a0individuals can add to their\u00a0speech a\u00a0 collection of linguistic devices (known as “extensional devices”) that help them to become more oriented to non-verbal reality and less oriented to verbal reality.<\/p>\n
The foreseeable result, which admittedly is difficult to achieve, of rehabituating individuals to become saner is a saner society, and even better, a saner humanity.<\/p>\n
* I.e., “re-presents,” with a hyphen, in case your line break doesn’t make the hyphen evident.\u00a0 This hyphen calls attention to the reader that representation is re-<\/em>presentation (hyphen).\u00a0 That is, when we are representing something, we are re-<\/em>presenting it\u00a0(hyphen), so there is a difference between the original presentation of something and the next presentation of it.\u00a0 This is my take on Korzybski’s term “abstracting process,” which describes the path reality takes as we process it with our nervous systems.\u00a0 Korzybski says that reality becomes more and more abstract as we process it; I might say instead that our nervous systems continually re-<\/em>present reality\u00a0(hyphen), such that we are never actually presented<\/em> reality, only re-<\/em>presentations of it (hyphen).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In this passage, the words in quotation marks I will call “undefined terms.”\u00a0 Roughly speaking, they are labels for non-verbal reality, and it would be better for me to point to examples of things I call those words than to offer a verbal definition.<\/p>\n
But here are some verbal definitions to guide your understanding.\u00a0 Keep in mind, though, they are overly simple and not exact representations of the words’ referents:<\/p>\n
thinking<\/strong> = a generic term representing many mental behaviors like contemplating, reasoning, wishing, etc., not to mention those mental behaviors like sensing, loving, hating, and other so-called “feelings.”\u00a0 In general semantics, “thinking” and what is often call “feeling” are not seen as empirically divisible; they are so entangled that it is better to see them more as “thinking-feeling” than as separate processes.\u00a0 Here, the word “thinking” refers both to those processes familiarly called “thinking” as well as those processes familiarly called “feeling.”\u00a0 Korzybski refers to these processes as “psycho-logical,” intentionally putting in a hyphen in order to emphasize the interconnection of “feeling” (i.e., “psycho”) and “thinking” (i.e., “logical”).<\/p>\n
thoughts<\/strong> = a generic term representing the relatively discrete products of the behavior of “thinking” (see “thinking” above).\u00a0 That is, when we think, the products of our thinking we call “thoughts.”<\/p>\n
unsanity<\/strong> = a generic term representing a range of “psychopathic” (i.e., personally destructive) and\/or “sociopathic”\u00a0(i.e., socially destructive) manifestations.\u00a0 Admittedly, what constitutes “psychopathy” and “sociopathy” is relative to the interests of an individual and the interests of the individual’s society.\u00a0 That is, what is unsane to one person may not be unsane to the next; what is unsane in one society may not be unsane in the next.\u00a0 Generally speaking, what constitutes “unsanity” is a number of delusional behaviors that habitually interfere with an individual’s ability to live happily.<\/p>\n
sanity<\/strong> = a generic term representing a range of “non-psychopathic” and\/or “non-sociopathic” manifestations (see “unsanity” above).\u00a0 Similarly, what constitutes “sanity” is relative to individual and social interests.\u00a0 Generally speaking, it refers to the absence of<\/em> delusional behaviors that interfere with an individual’s ability to live happily.<\/p>\n
disturbance<\/strong> = a generic term representing a behavioral manifestation that is peculiar to the surrounding society, and particularly one that is “psychopathic” and\/or “sociopathic” in nature.\u00a0 Think of the familiar term “disturbed” for a sense of this word.\u00a0 One line of thinking is that what constitutes “disturbance” may be the result of electro-colloidal configurations out of synch with natural electro-colloidal configurations genetic to the individual.\u00a0 (Cf. No source; that might be my inference from reading general semantics.)<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Now, could I summarize general semantics even more succintly<\/em>?\u00a0 Here is an even shorter, franker\u00a0summary:<\/p>\n
‘<\/span><\/div>Sanity is a habit.\u00a0 If you want to get rid of your unsanity, you gotta work to rehabituate yourself.\u00a0 Your personal work will make a better society.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It doesn’t say as much, but it’s something people don’t always think.\u00a0 People often think they’re stuck with their thoughts, that they can’t do anything about them.\u00a0 Well, seen as a habit, there’s the hope that the habits can be reconditioned.\u00a0 But it’s not just “hope”: In my experience, it’s very possible.\u00a0 I speak a lot differently as a result of the advice I took from general semantics, and I believe that I stand out as a much saner person as a result.<\/p>\n
What might be a verbal definition of “general semantics,” in light of all of the above?\u00a0 An even more succint summary?<\/p>\n
‘<\/span><\/div>General semantics is sanity engineering.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today\u00a0I write what I\u00a0understand about general semantics (at least as Alfred Korzybski originated\u00a0it).\u00a0 Ask me tomorrow and I may have a different understanding! My challenge here?\u00a0 To summarize general semantics in just a few sentences.\u00a0 Here goes. ‘In order to develop a saner society, individuals must work on their personal sanity.\u00a0 That requires work on […]<\/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":[94,244,268,266,128,267,236,95,271,207,269,11,163,270],"class_list":["post-1054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-semantics","tag-alfred-korzybski","tag-behavior","tag-disturbance","tag-electro-colloidal-configuration","tag-generic-terms","tag-habits","tag-language-as-generic","tag-sanity","tag-sanity-engineering","tag-thinking","tag-thoughts","tag-unsanity","tag-ways-of-thinking","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054","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=1054"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1078,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions\/1078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}