Summary of the first part and translation : Isabelle Baudron

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DEFINITION:

Semantics : study of the meanings of the terms of the vocabulary and of its modifications.

General semantics of Korzybski : general theory of non-elementalist evaluation.

The expression : "General Semantic " is associated that with " non-aristotelian logic" or " non-aristotelian system".

Animal society : static society compaired to human society, fixed behaviour.

Human society : elaboration of cultures and evolution of civilisations :

Every generation transmits, enriches and shapes an acquired knowledge to the next generation which is going to modify it and increase it in its turn.

Definition of each species which reveals the basic characteristic of each of them and makes it different from the two others:

- plants : bind betwen them energies : "energy-binders",

- animals : bind betwen them points located in space : "space-binders",

- mankind : besides energies and points in space, binds between them moments in time beyond his own life : man is a "time-binder" : thanks to human language, points can be thrown between people separated by space-time distance.

The way we think and the way we express ourselves are intimately bound. The power of suggestion of words is such as it easily influences the mixing of the feelings and ideas which follows from our different behaviours.

The disorder which reigns in the use we make of language leads to a corresponding disorder in our thinking, our reflexion.

A confused or incorrect thinking has repercutions on the ways we express ourselves, and is reflected in them, hence uncertain or distorted verbal communication between individuals.

In our civilisation, we got a high degree of technical development; in other domains, primitive level :

- in technical domain : mathematical language, the structure of which is similar to the structure of facts.

- in the domain of institutions and human affairs, there is a discrepancy between the structure of facts and the one of language.

- mathematical language has a structure which is similar

- general semantics teaches to use the brain as if we were using a mathematic language.

What does "a language the structure of which is similar to the structure of facts" means ?

- In aristotelian point of view, language is considered as the mirror of reality. Hence there is no distance between what we live and what we say about it.

- In a non-A point of view : language is a verbal map : it cannot pretend to account for the facts totally, still less with a complete accuracy :

• Language symbolically represents what we live, hence a new attitude towards language.
• Mathematical language : few risks of distorsion during communication, few risks of misunderstanding.
• Current language : the significant, symbolic content of each word differs according to different persons or different situations.

Hence an attitude of vigilance, of suspicion towards the use of this language.

=> To put in question ones own habits of symbolization.

A map requires a cartographer and a ground.

Relations or set of relations between them:

Relations between the observer and observed object in the history of the Western thought: three periods:

1) Greek or metaphysical or pre-scientific period : Aristlote - Euclide : the observed object is not important, the observer is all.

2) Classical or semi-scientific period : Descartes - Newton: the observer hardly counts, the observed object is really significant.

3) Mathematical or scientific period : Korzybski - Einstein : all what a man can know is a phenomenon due jointly to the observer and so that he observes.

The observer: (the cartographer, ourselves)

• The traditional prospect isolates psychism, the body and the surrounding.
• The non-A prospect considers that man constitutes a psycho-somatic whole in his surrounding which penetrates him and to which he reacts.

=> - not possible to consider separately the body and psychism, spirit and matter.

- not possible to consider separetely a man from his physical, social and cultural environment.

NON-ELEMENTALIST attitude: effort not to isolate the ones from the others factors or elements which are structurally connected the ones to the others.

=> the observer approaches what he observes with the totality of his psychosomatic organization. The characteristics of this organization are due to the influences received from the environment.

• The human nervous structure tests feelings which it organizes into perceptions = > these perceptions are tributary of :

=> what man notices is locates at the meeting point ;

• Human lived data require the presence of a human being. Independently of us, " our world", " our reality " do not exist.

Example: the tree, while falling, causes waves; so that a noise, to be perceived,requires the presence of a human or animal nervous structure. There is no noise if there is no receiver to perceive it, only waves.

• There are as many " worlds " as different nervous structures : the world of the toad is different from the world of the fly, which is different from the world of the bird, etc.

=> the ground appears in a way conditioned by our possibilities of perceptions; those ones depend on our organic structures.

=> our nervous system, starting from the components of the ground, makes an abstraction, by organizing these components, hence the perception of colors, of sounds, of shapes.

• Perceptive illusions : when the nervous system is not able to apprehend processes. E.g.: the ventilator which turns looks like a solid disc.
• Among the various stimuli which are offered to us, we make a choice, and this choice depends partly on our former experiments. Unconsciously, we find in the ground, up to a certain point, which, by former experiments, we are brought to seek in it.
• " the flower is red ": one allots to an object a quality as if it were intrinsic for him, quality which only one human nervous structure can establish between this flower and this structure è false identification.

=> in non-A language : " the flower appears as red to me. "

• A language : " George Durand is an egoist. "
• Non-A language : " In such circumstances and with regard to such person, G.D. behaved in a way which, according to my own standards, appears as egoistic to me. "
• A language : judgment of value.
• Non-A language : takes in account the person who speaks, his preferences, his opinions , his standards, takes in account the fact that he sees a situation under one particular day.

Silent premices : data provided by the culture within which we live, the education we received, which have not being clarified verbally at the time when they slip into the appreciations carried. Remain half-conscious, even unconscious.

" do not forget that he is a Jew ": ready-made image with rests on prejudices, irrational antipathies; conventional image of the " Jew ". =>

• to replace the verb " to be " by " to appear as ".
• to express oneself in terms of behavior rather than of quality.

- its various elements,

- the order they follow ,

- the relations which can bind them,

- the structure they compose .

• In his observations the scientist leans in particular on behaviors the structure of which he will attempt to detect.
• He will wonder then which must be the structure of the involved elements to allow such a structure of their behaviors.
• He will make then inferences which will enable him to build assumptions.
• On the basis of these assumptions , he will build up prevision on their the behaviors.
• He will then have to go back to the observation of the latter to examine whether these previsions are carried out and if, consequently, his assumptions are in conformity with the structure of the facts.

=> Behaviors => their structure => structure of the elements in presence compared to the structure of their behavior => inferences => assumptions => previsions concerning the behaviors => observation of these behaviours for checking.

• Any real acquisition of knowledge rests on a study of the relations, a research of the structures.
• Examination of ourselves and of the world in perpetual change: ceaseless dynamic process, constant modifications.
• Sometimes certain changes are too small compared to our possibilities of perception or are carried out too slowly => we are unaware of these changes => errors in our evaluations, our ways of reacting.

• the object (pencil) linguistically needs space, otherwise it would not be a pencil but a mathematical point, a fiction.
• it also needs verbally time, otherwise there would be no pencil but a flash.

Chapter VII