Editing General semantics (section)

== Overview ==

=== "Identification" and "the silent level" ===
In the 1946 "Silent and Verbal Levels" diagram,<ref name="image1">[[Marjorie Kendig|Kendig, M.]], "Alfred Korzybski's 'An Extensional Analysis of the Process of Abstracting from an Electro-Colloidal Non-Aristotelian Point of View.'" ''General Semantics Bulletin,'' Autumn–Winter 1950–51, Numbers Four & Five. Institute of General Semantics, Lakeville, CT. pp. 9–10.</ref> the arrows and boxes denote ordered stages in human neuro-evaluative processing that happens in an instant. Although newer knowledge in biology has more sharply defined what the text in these 1946 boxes labels "electro-colloidal",<ref>Wright, Barbara E., "The Hereditary-Environment Continuum: Holistic Approaches at 'One Point in Time' and in 'All Time'". ''General Semantics Bulletin,'' 1986, Number 52. Institute of General Semantics, Englewood, NJ. pp. 43–44. Wright, professor of biology at the University of Montana, wrote, "In the 1930s, when Korzybski wrote about colloids, they represented the frontier of our emerging knowledge about the complex interdependence of cellular structures and biochemical systems.... Today, the word colloid is used very rarely; I could not find it in the indices of several current textbooks of biochemistry. Perhaps this change in usage came about because we now know so much more about individual kinds of colloids; the word became so all-inclusive as to lose its usefulness."</ref> the diagram remains, as Korzybski wrote in his last published paper in 1950, "satisfactory for our purpose of explaining briefly the most general and important points".<ref name="korzybski2">Blake, Robert R. and Glenn V. Ramsey, editors (1951). ''Perception: An Approach to Personality''. New York: Ronald Press, pp. 170–205; chapter 7: "The Role of Language in the Perceptual Process" by Alfred Korzybski, p. 172.</ref> General semantics postulates that most people "identify," or fail to differentiate the serial stages or "levels" within their own neuro-evaluative processing. "Most people," Korzybski wrote, "''identify in value'' levels I, II, III, and IV and react ''as if'' our verbalizations about the first three levels were 'it.' Whatever we may say something 'is' obviously ''is not'' the 'something' on the silent levels."<ref name=korzybski2/> 
[[File:G semantics1946model.png|thumb|right|600px|[[Institute of General Semantics]] "Silent and Verbal Levels" diagram, circa 1946<ref name=image1/>]]

By making it a 'mental' habit to find and keep one's bearings among the ordered stages, general semantics training seeks to sharpen internal orientation much as a [[GPS]] device may sharpen external orientation. Once trained, general semanticists affirm, a person will act, respond, and make decisions more appropriate to any given set of happenings. Although producing saliva constitutes an appropriate response when lemon juice drips onto the tongue, a person has inappropriately identified when an imagined lemon or the word "l–e–m–o–n" triggers a salivation response.

"Once we differentiate, differentiation becomes the denial of identity," Korzybski wrote in ''Science and Sanity''. "Once we discriminate among the objective and verbal levels, we learn 'silence' on the unspeakable objective levels, and so introduce a most beneficial neurological 'delay'—engage the cortex to perform its natural function."<ref>Korzybski, ''Science and Sanity'' (5th ed.), p. 404.</ref> British-American philosopher [[Max Black]], an influential critic of general semantics, called this neurological delay the "central aim" of general semantics training, "so that in responding to verbal or nonverbal stimuli, we are aware of what it is that we are doing".<ref>{{cite book |author=Black, Max |title=Language and Philosophy: Studies in Method |publisher=Cornell University Press |location=Ithaca, NY. |page=239}} Black's chapter about general semantics originated as an April 1946 lecture at the State University of Iowa.</ref>

=== Abstracting and consciousness of abstracting ===
Identification prevents what general semantics seeks to promote: the additional cortical processing experienced as a delay. Korzybski called his remedy for identification "consciousness of [[abstraction|abstracting]]."<ref>Korzybski, Alfred. ''Science and Sanity'' (5th ed.). p. 500</ref> The term "abstracting" occurs ubiquitously in ''Science and Sanity.'' Korzybski's use of the term is somewhat unusual and requires study to understand his meaning.{{citation needed|date=May 2018}} He discussed the problem of identification in terms of "confusions of orders of abstractions" and "lack of consciousness of abstracting".<ref>Korzybski, Alfred. ''Science and Sanity'' (5th ed.). p. 36</ref> To be conscious of abstracting is to differentiate among the "levels" described above; levels II–IV being abstractions of level I (whatever level I "is"—all we really get are abstractions). The techniques Korzybski prescribed to help a person develop consciousness of abstracting he called "extensional devices".<ref>Korzybski, Alfred. ''Science and Sanity'' (5th ed.). p. lx.</ref>

=== Extensional devices ===
Satisfactory accounts of general semantics extensional devices can be found easily.<ref>For example, a source reference for "scare quotes" and other extensional devices not treated in this article is Postman, Neil. "Alfred Korzybski," ''ETC: A Review of General Semantics'', Winter 2003</ref><ref>{{cite conference |last=Hauck |first=Ben |contribution=Extensional Devices Revisited |date=October 10, 2020 |title=2020 AKML and General Semantics Symposium |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fhvqPkupXo&t=218s}}</ref> This article seeks to explain briefly only the "indexing" devices. Suppose you teach in a school or university. Students enter your classroom on the first day of a new term, and, if you identify these new students to a memory association retrieved by your brain, you under-engage your powers of observation and your cortex. Indexing makes explicit a differentiating of students<sub>this term</sub> from students<sub>prior terms</sub>. You survey the new students, and indexing explicitly differentiates student<sub>1</sub> from student<sub>2</sub> from student<sub>3</sub>, etc. Suppose you recognize one student—call her Anna—from a prior course in which Anna either excelled or did poorly. Again, you escape identification by your indexed awareness that Anna<sub>this term, this course</sub> is different from Anna<sub>that term, that course</sub>. Not identifying, you both expand and sharpen your apprehension of "students" with an awareness rooted in fresh silent-level observations.<ref>Encyclopædia Britannica (1947). ''10 Eventful Years: 1937 through 1946''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica. Volume 4, pp. 29–32. "Semantics: General Semantics". The article, written by [[S.I. Hayakawa]], states, "Korzybski did not intend these extensional devices simply as things to say by rote or to sprinkle through one's writing. Each of them was intended to point beyond itself to subverbal levels—to observing and feeling and absorbing as directly perceived data the nonlinguistic actualities...." Explaining the name selection for the devices, Hayakawa wrote, "Appropriating from formal logic the term 'extension,' which means the aggregate of things denoted by a term (as opposed to 'intension,' the qualities of properties implied by the term), he [Korzybski] called his rules extensional devices."</ref>

=== Language as a core concern ===
[[Autoassociative memory]] in the [[memory-prediction framework|memory-prediction model]] describes neural operations in mammalian brains generally.<ref>Hawkins, Jeff. ''On Intelligence''. p. 99.</ref> A special circumstance for humans arises with the introduction of language components, both as fresh stimuli and as stored representations. Language considerations figure prominently in general semantics, and three language and communications specialists who embraced general semantics, university professors and authors [[S.I. Hayakawa|Hayakawa]], [[Wendell Johnson]] and [[Neil Postman]], played major roles in framing general semantics, especially for non-readers of ''Science and Sanity''.

=== Criticism ===
Korzybski wrote in the preface to the third edition of ''Science and Sanity'' (1947) that general semantics "turned out to be an empirical natural science".<ref>Korzybski, Alfred. ''Science and Sanity'' (5th ed.). p. xxxiv.</ref>  But the type of existence, if any, of [[universals]] and [[abstract objects]] is an issue of serious debate within [[Philosophy#Metaphysics|metaphysical philosophy]]. So [[Max Black|Black]] summed up general semantics as "some hypothetical neurology fortified with dogmatic metaphysics".<ref name="Black1">Black, Max. ''Language and Philosophy: Studies in Method''. p. 246.</ref> And in 1952, two years after Korzybski died, American skeptic [[Martin Gardner]] wrote, "[Korzybski's] work moves into the realm of cultism and pseudo-science."<ref name=Gardner>Gardner, Martin (1957). ''Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science''. New York: Dover Publications. ch. 23, pp. 280–291.</ref>
 
Former [[Institute of General Semantics]] executive director Steve Stockdale has compared GS to [[yoga]]. "First, I'd say that there is little if any benefit to be gained by just ''knowing'' something about general semantics. The benefits come from maintaining an awareness of the principles and attitudes that are derived from GS and applying them as they are needed. You can sort of compare general semantics to yoga in that respect... knowing about yoga is okay, but to benefit from yoga you have to ''do'' yoga."<ref name="Stockdale_Folly">{{cite news|title=FOLLY with Steve Stockdale |url=http://www.follymag.com/follyinterviews.html |publisher=FollyMag |date=June 2007 |access-date=2011-10-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425021231/http://www.follymag.com/follyinterviews.html |archive-date=2012-04-25 }} Stockdale: "First, I'd say that there is little if any benefit to be gained by just 'knowing' something about general semantics. The benefits come from maintaining an awareness of the principles and attitudes that are derived from GS and applying them as they are needed. You can sort of compare general semantics to yoga in that respect... knowing about yoga is okay, but to benefit from yoga you have to 'do' yoga." Reprinted in Stockdale, Steve (2009). ''Here's Something about General Semantics: A Primer for Making Sense of Your World''. Santa Fe, NM: Steve Stockdale. p. 36. {{ISBN|978-0-9824645-0-2}}</ref> Similarly, Kenneth Burke explains Korzybski's kind of semantics contrasting it, in ''A Grammar of Motives'', with a kind of Burkean poetry by saying "''Semantics'' is essentially scientist, an approach to language in terms of knowledge, whereas poetic forms are kinds of action".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.comm.umn.edu/burke/gm.html|title=Scholarly outline of Burke's "A Grammar of Motives" |first=Kenneth |last=Burke |year=1945|publisher=University of California Press|quote=[Burke] would encourage the "delayed response" (p. 238). Korzybski's technique recommends that an individual interpose a "moment of delay" between the "Stimulus and the Response" in order to control meaning (p. 239). According to Burke, Korzybski's doctrine of the delayed action, as based on the 'consciousness of abstracting,' involves the fact that any term for an object puts the object in a class of similar objects" (p. 240). Burke points out that Korzybski's technique falls short with regard to the "analysis of poetic forms": "For 'semantics' is essentially science, an approach to language in terms of knowledge, whereas poetic forms are kinds of action" (p. 240).}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Burke|first=Kenneth|title=A Grammar of Motives|year=1945|publisher=University of California Press|pages=238–242}}</ref>