Editing General semantics (section)

=== "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>