Structural differential, model of Korzybski.

The plan at the top represents the level of the event, the disc, the level of object, and the rectangle, the level of the word .

Lines connecting between them the characteristics

- plan: event

- disc: object

- rectangle: word

or of the two first levels: characteristics which were taken in account in the development that our nervous system made from the elements which were proposed to it.

Lines which do not end nowhere: characteristics left aside.

=> * Taking in account certain characteristics and leaving others aside consists in making an ABSTRACTION.

* The structural differential teaches how to distinguish the levels of abstraction.

On the drawing :

• the level of the events: escapes to any direct hold.
• the level of objects : we take hold on it but in itself it remains inexpressible.
• the verbal level : we use words to designate objects.

* the object is not the event

* the object is indicated verbally by such a word.

=>

a) A MAP IS NOT the TERRITORY:

The words we use to show the objects and to qualify them thereafter, to classify them, judge them, are not on the same level as these objects themselves.

b) A MAP DOES NOT REPRESENT THE WHOLE TERRITORY:

Each level is an abstraction starting from the previous one; there will always be characteristics which will be left aside.

• When we have well assimilated the concept that the word is not the object, we get used to see in it only one symbol representing this object.
• While if we identify the word with the object, we tend to react to the word as to a signal before asking ourselves, or without asking ourselves what is in fact the object which the word stands for.
• Reactions to the words rather than to the objects or the events are used in political and commercial propaganda.
• The reaction to the word as to a signal and not as to a symbol mainly comes from the power of evocation of the word. This one is mainly related to psychic factors: it rises from the emotions which were linked to the words during our intellectual and psychic development.
• The words of the mother language are learnt at the time of situations which provide them a psychological context.

=> a word leads in us to a reaction to a context which does not exist anymore, but that we project on the new context offered by the present situation : space-time confusion.

=> Consider what occurs HERE AND NOW.

• A too broad use of the verb "to be" leads to false identifications, and to a confusion between the various levels of abstraction.

4 uses:

1) " is " of existence : I am: to be = to exist, to be

2) to be = auxiliary : it is done.

3) " is " of identity : " man is an animal ", " George is a workman ":

to be = to identify in an erroneous way different levels of abstraction, by connecting 2 names which are put on the same level; little difference between the non-verbal levels and the verbal level: language A. => "to be" in language non-A = to be able to be indicated, called, to be classified like.

4) " is " of attribution : the rose is red: to be = connects a name and one or more adjectives, implies that the characteristics indicated by the adjectives exist in the thing or the person represented by the name: language A.

=> "to be" in language non-A: such person (thing) seems to me, we judge such thing in such way.

Uses 3 and 4: excessive concentration on one or a small number of characteristics, gives them an exaggerated importance; one then takes the part for the whole or one sees the whole through a partial object.

• The diagram of the structural differential shows the natural order of abstraction which should be followed to think and to express oneself correctly:

1. the word : verbal level

• The first level of abstraction of the event to the object is the only one accessible to animals which think by images: they do not have access at the higher levels of abstraction  cannot build culture, nor civilization.

=> difference in structure between the development which the animals can make and that men can make, hence the name of the model of Korzybski: structural differential.

• The model of structural differential :

- presents the structure of general semantics,

- while differentiating its substructures: different levels or orders of abstraction which constitute it,

- while assigning to them relative values according to the importance which they have for us.

• Acquisition of the conscience of abstracting :

To be conscious to make an abstraction means we do not forget that one takes in account only one part of the characteristics, those which we perceive more easily than others, which strike us particularly, which are selected according to our former experiments or knowledge, of our tastes, of our sensitivity, our preferences, of our interests, etc..., and that one leaves some others aside, which are often characteristics suitable for the individuality of the object and which, in certain cases, can have to play a role which we had not suspected first of all.

In the structural differential :

- parabolic plan: world of events,

- disc: world of event-significations or world of objects.

2 non-verbal , " silent ", " objective " levels ".

- verbal levels: higher levels of abstraction seeking to account, more or less adequately, of the non-verbal levels; they use static representations to give an account of a dynamic reality;

• On the level of the object, perception is an inexpressible experiment.
• To speak always means to interpret the world. But the living contact with this one remains beyond verbal field.
• We need to train to seek a greater richness of contact with what is perceived, lived, to give sensitivity time to fully devellop before seeking to express anything.
• We see more images evoked by the words that lived data themselves, we really do not know to watch , nor really to listen.

=> exercise: to look at an object while trying to see it well, without saying anything about it.

• increases the possibilities of creative inspiration, inspiration then interpreted and expressed by language or other artistic form.
• involves a practice of silence => enriches the inner experiment.
• helps to establish a distance between the object and the words which are used to designate it => avoids to pass too quickly from the non-verbal levels to the verbal levels and to stick on the object a more or less satisfying label.

attitude of investigation, expectancy preceding our reaction, our answer.

• It is used to wait :

- to get the meaning of what is perceived before formulating it verbally.

- to be more informed on what it covers before accepting a verbal formulation: "let us see what it's all about."

• It is necessary :

- for a correct evaluation,

- for an effective and adapted action,

- for our psycho-somatic health.

• It avoids to react to the words as signals, makes us able to see them like symbols.

=> it helps to dissociate the object and the word which symbolizes it from associations and evocations related to the word.

=> it prevents from unaccurate semantic reactions.

SEMANTIC REACTION : reaction to the significance of a term provoked by its use. It affects the organism at the level of the electro-colloidal cells of living tissues => repercussions on the whole psycho-somatic organization which can involve certain diseases.

The intensity or the nature of power of evocation of the words varies from one person to another. It is:

• dependent on the experience of each person,
• influenced by silent postulates.

=> a word seldom has the same meaning for two different people.

=> the language seldom allows to wake up in others the non-verbal impressions corresponding to what we ourselves experiment on our own non-verbal levels.

Exercise: How to give an account of a gustatory experiment, an aesthetic emotion.

" facts ": what we live, observe, is a common product of an imperceptible reality and nervous structures of the observer.

• The solid " fact " is a myth; we cannot provide a description which does not carry our personal mark.
• In many experiments of laboratory, one takes account of the " personal coefficient of the experimenter. "
• In everyday life a same fact can be perceived and described in a different way from one person to another one.

=> From a non-A point of view, one takes in account the distances which exist:

Need for a method which helps to observe the objects correctly, because on this correct observation will depend what we will be able to discover of their structure and their behavior.

To adopt an EXTENTIONAL ORIENTATION:

instead of starting from the common property or small group properties common with the help of which we hold to classify and define the objects, we will remember that each object is single in its kind and will show characteristics which will differentiate it from all the others.

* The step which encourages us to note initially similarities often leads to confusions: abusive generalizations and over generalizations: " young people ", " women ", " politicians ", etc..., considered in general.

* The relation which is established between the object and us leads ourselves to allot to this one certain characteristics.

If our orientation is not extensional :

- certain characteristics correspond to the structure of " what occurs " on the level of the object,

- certain characteristics do not correspond to it, are wrongfully allotted to him on the basis of preliminary definitions,

- the relation could enable us to see certain aspects of the structure which would have led us to note other characteristics that our defective orientation made us miss.

- the features which appear similar in different objects,

- the features which appear different in objects classified as similar.

2) To wonder, in presence of a new experiment which reminds us former experiences, in front of a new object which seems to belong to a group of known objects, if there are important differences.

3) To index the objects belonging to a same group: the employer 1 different from the employer 2, different from the employer 3.

4) To mind not to confuse the part with the unit and not to judge the whole according to the part :

example: one will not extrapolate the behavior of a person in particular circumstances to put a final judgment on this person.

• to always leave the door openned to different experiments, new informations.
• not to expect systematically such a behaviour from such a person or such an event in such a situation.
• a slackened attitude, a calm and impartial vigilance help to approach any new situation in a correct way and to adapt to it while protecting the nervous system.

5) To note that certain characteristics exist in addition to those which we retain => use of "etc..."

" etc... " is a recall of the process of abstraction.

6) To use the index indicating the date and the place :

7) To remember that a same verbal designation can cover, during one rather long period of time, an object which changes however during this period => to avoid any superficial identification between this " static " designation and the object gifted with dynamic properties temporally oriented.

8) To use of an unlimited number of values likely to be allotted to an unlimited number of facts, instead of wanting to allot to the latter only one small number of values: when we can assign to each fact the value of its own and which exactly corresponds to him , and not a value chosen in a restricted, insufficient sampling, our orientation is structurally similar to the empirically perceived world.

9) Approaching the experiment and trying to give an account of what one perceives, one must mind, like the man of science, to think and speak in terms of degrees, of nuances, rather than in terms of contrasts (truth-false, good-bad, etc...)

the purpose of 2 notations is to announce the non-elementalist attitude:

a) To put between quotation marks designations such as " space ", " time ", " body ", etc...:

• they are not isolated realities,
• they are not elements that one can separate from the unit formed by the set of the relations,
• the designation which isolates them artificially covers only one fiction

• if elementalists terms are employed, never draw a conclusion from them, because it would contain the structure of the metaphysics which surrounds the term.
• use them if necessary, but draw the conclusions from the fact-process, so that they have some value.

b) To use the hyphens to indicate that the factors sometimes artificially separated are in fact in close relation between them to represent new structural implications. Example: space-time, psycho-somatic.

To chapter X