GENERAL semANTICS

A general semanticist is someone who, upon encountering a person with a beard, would say it was probably a man, but would hold open the possibility that it might be a bearded lady.  - Richard P. Marsh

The subject of General Semantics (and Count Alfred Korzybski) came up quite often when studying with RAW, even if only indirectly (as in discussions of E-Prime, for instance, or Non-Aristotelean Logic).

GS aims to improve one's ability to evaluate the world and one's place in it.

The younger generation(s) appear to know little of GS, but it had a period of great influence on people like William Burroughs (born 1914) who actually went and studied with Korzybski in 1939. 
Details of that amazing sounding set of lectures, here.

I guess RAW learned about GS later, perhaps via Burroughs, and A.E.Van Vogt, etc - or through the founders of NLP - Bandler and Grinder (say). Or maybe Bucky Fuller, Alan Watts or Gregory Bateson.

Bob himself gave a lecture at the Institute of General Semantics - here in PDF format.

More recently, Graham Rae gave this interesting presentation:

GENERAL SEMANTICS MEETS EXPERIMENTAL LITERATURE: THE LIFELONG EFFECT OF ALFRED KORZYBSKI ON WILLIAM S BURROUGHS

He posted the text of the talk on this forum at Reality Studio.


This OM post has appeared now in response to our hearing about  a huge biography of Korzybski written by Bruce Kodish which sounds fascinating (to me).

Kodish has a blog related to this material here.

And here, on the relationship to Burroughs.

For those who do not know anything about the subject, this brief summary by Piero Scaruffi might give you a glimpse, although whether such a brief description may confuse more than enlighten, who can say?

Synopsis:

• Animals: hunters and gatherers = bind to territory, i.e."space-binders"
• Humans: agriculture = bind to a memory of the past and prediction of the future, i.e. "time-binders"
• Time-binding is enabled by a nervous system that is capable of constructing and manipulating symbols
• Time-binding allows to transmit knowledge to succeeding generations
• The rate of growth of human knowledge is exponential  (aka the Jumping Jesus Phenomenon)
• Language allows time-binders to categorize/generalize experiences and communicate them to others
• General Semantics to remedy the limits of language:
• We have fewer words and concepts than experiences: we "confuse" similar situations
• We must evaluate a situation less by intension (its category) and more by extension (its unique features)
• We must avoid categorization/generalization and spot the unique characteristics of a situation

This link goes to the Institute of General Semantics, relating to the new biography.

New York Society of General Semantics - about Korzybski by Susan and Bruce Kodish

Random Research

fUSION aNOMALY on Korzysbski

fUSION aNOMALY on Burroughs

Steven Lewis - brief bio of Korzybski

Steven Lewis on General Semantics

Donald Fagen mentions GS, RAW, Van Vogt and Burroughs

Language, a virus?    By Florian Cramer

The Road to Interzone: Reading William S. Burroughs Reading    by Michael Stevens

Michael Stevens - The Road to Interzone Interview        by Paul Hawkins

The Holy Bible, in E-Prime

I stumbled upon this today and thought readers of this blog might find it of interest-

Dr. David F. Maas began composing the New American Standard Bible in E-Prime in February 2009 and published the version below on the Institute of General Semantics website in July 2010.

I still consider E-Prime the Swiss Army Knife in my toolkit. Wonder what might happen if I could get an E-Primed bible in the hands of every Christian in amurika...?

imagine a world where maybelogic and e-prime becom the norm

imagine a world with the pope saying "maybe an ordained priest can turn
a piece of bread into the body of a dead Jew but the priest needs a Willy
for the magick to work"

imagine Jerry Falwell bellowing "maybe Jesus hates gay people as
mch as i do"

imagine a rabbi chanting "Hear O Israel:the Lord God seems one, maybe"

imagine every tower in Islam resounding with "There
'is' no god except maybe Allah and maybe Mohammed 'is'
his prophet"

The world might go stark staring sane?

- Robert Anton Wilson, Quantum Psychology Course, Maybe Logic Academy, 13 January 2005

Old's Cool

The most recent issue of MQ comes out for the solstice - and if you enjoy calendars you could also describe it as:

Gregorian: Wednesday, 21 December 2005
Mayan: Long count = 12.19.12.16.3; tzolkin = 8 Akbal; haab = 1 Kankin
French: 1 Nivôse an 214 de la Révolution
Islamic: 20 Dhu al-Qada 1426
Hebrew: 20 Kislev 5766
Julian: 8 December 2005
ISO: Day 3 of week 51 of 2005
Persian: 30 Azar 1384
Ethiopic: 12 Takhsas 1998
Coptic: 12 Kiyahk 1722
Chinese: Cycle 78, year 22 (Yi-You), month 11 (Wu-Zi), day 21 (Ji-Mao)
Julian day: 2453726
Day of year: Day 355 of 2005; 10 days remaining in the year
Discordian: Setting Orange, The Aftermath 63, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3171
'Pataphysical: 21 Sable 132 de l'Ere Pataphysique . [St. Tape, pompette]
Frank Zappa's Birthday 1940 CE

Bob wrote a piece to explain the benefits of using multiple calendars, back when people had got obsessed by a Gregorian millenium. You can find it here.

You can get the "Old's Cool" T-Shirt (and other great stuff) at Any Old Icon
Yes, I know they didn't write it in E-Prime.

Thanks to the master who makes the grass green

(Zen Clue: I don't mean Bob! - although Example 9 in Bob's "E and E-Prime" essay might prove enlightening)



I'd like to take a moment to thank all my fellow participants on Bob's 12+1 week online course, The Tale of The Tribe.
I don't intend to stop and review or sum up what we learned right now, but I know as sure as I know anything that we all feel grateful to Bob for taking the time to comment on our wayward speculations, and I hope he learned a thing or two, too. heh. He stuck with us, even when going in and out of hospital.

Thanks Bob. amor et hilaritas