General Semantics, have you heard of it?

[Aulirophile]

Has anyone here ever heard of General Semantics? It's a science invented in the early part of last century that is, sort of, the study of translating the world "out there" with the world "in here." Better known as the verbal and non-verbal worlds. It has a very heavy emphasis on language because that is the primary way we (humans) do such translating. It's inventor, Alfred Korzybski, basically took everything currently thought about human thought and interaction and tossed it. Built the whole thing up using the scientific method.

Some fun stuff about G.S. G.S. is the source of the only scientific explanation that explains the difference between humans and animals. Other animals have commerce, use tools, communicate with sounds (thought not at the level of humans, I concede), etc. In only one area are humans different. We time-bind.

Time-binding is defined as the act of taking someone else's "territory" their personal knowledge, and turning it into your "map." So let's say someone runs an experiment on genetically modifying fruit flies to increase homosexuality. I actually just read this study which is why it came to mind. That took a while. The guy who did the study knows the territory better then I do, he walked over it. "The map is not the territory" is a principle of G.S. But I have a map. I could walk the territory if I wanted or I can take my slightly abstracted idea of years of work and be done.

Now let us look at that. I just took years of someone else's work, read a paper for a less then day tops, and I know almost as much as they do. This is time-binding. When Isaac Newton said "If I see far, it is only because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." He was referring to time-binding, though he didn't know it.

Time-binding results in an exponential increase in knowledge. If we took all the information from when writing was invented to the death of Christ and said it was one unit of Human Knowledge, or H.K. and then measured the increase over time, we'd see the same curve as Moore's Law! An exponential one, that is. In the Age of Enlightment we had around 4 H.K. In 1943 we had 64 and it was doubling every eighteen years.

Does anyone else find this fascinating? I can never understand why G.S. is so overlooked.

[Diwali]

Originally Posted by Aulirophile

Has anyone here ever heard of General Semantics? It's a science invented in the early part of last century that is, sort of, the study of translating the world "out there" with the world "in here." Better known as the verbal and non-verbal worlds. It has a very heavy emphasis on language because that is the primary way we (humans) do such translating. It's inventor, Alfred Korzybski, basically took everything currently thought about human thought and interaction and tossed it. Built the whole thing up using the scientific method.

Some fun stuff about G.S. G.S. is the source of the only scientific explanation that explains the difference between humans and animals. Other animals have commerce, use tools, communicate with sounds (thought not at the level of humans, I concede), etc. In only one area are humans different. We time-bind.

Time-binding is defined as the act of taking someone else's "territory" their personal knowledge, and turning it into your "map." So let's say someone runs an experiment on genetically modifying fruit flies to increase homosexuality. I actually just read this study which is why it came to mind. That took a while. The guy who did the study knows the territory better then I do, he walked over it. "The map is not the territory" is a principle of G.S. But I have a map. I could walk the territory if I wanted or I can take my slightly abstracted idea of years of work and be done.

Now let us look at that. I just took years of someone else's work, read a paper for a less then day tops, and I know almost as much as they do. This is time-binding. When Isaac Newton said "If I see far, it is only because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." He was referring to time-binding, though he didn't know it.

Time-binding results in an exponential increase in knowledge. If we took all the information from when writing was invented to the death of Christ and said it was one unit of Human Knowledge, or H.K. and then measured the increase over time, we'd see the same curve as Moore's Law! An exponential one, that is. In the Age of Enlightment we had around 4 H.K. In 1943 we had 64 and it was doubling every eighteen years.

Does anyone else find this fascinating? I can never understand why G.S. is so overlooked.

Mind...Blown...Can't..Go...On...

I've never ever thought about what you are talking about right now. That's some crazy shit, and it's pretty interesting.

[Jabberwhacky]

I've definitely given thought to the way humans build upon the past, but not nearly as in depth as that seems to be. Hella interesting, as they say.

I think I'd also have to say that, just off the top of my head, humans are also different from animals in that we are the dominant species. Hell, we have farms of animals where we "breed" them just to kill them and eat their flesh. Animals don't do that. The closest you could come would be something like comparing that to those ants that live on a tree and eat its sap, but then defend the tree whenever bad bugs get on it. I don't really know if that's the road you want this discussion to go down, though.

[Zaniel]

The earlier science fiction writers in the 40s-70s loved GS. They used it as the New Age Scientific Gentleman's Philosophy Manual. Some of them understood it, others just used it as a catchphrase for a cool way of thinking that made their space-age men seem smarter than the current day monkey-man.

Read some of the early pulps like E.E. Doc Smith, AE Van Vogt, Jack Williamson and even Asimov, Heinlein, Clifford D Simak and Harry Harrison they all make allusions to it or even use it extensively in their plots.

[Aulirophile]

Originally Posted by Zaniel

The earlier science fiction writers in the 40s-70s loved GS. They used it as the New Age Scientific Gentleman's Philosophy Manual. Some of them understood it, others just used it as a catchphrase for a cool way of thinking that made their space-age men seem smarter than the current day monkey-man.

Read some of the early pulps like E.E. Doc Smith, AE Van Vogt, Jack Williamson and even Asimov, Heinlein, Clifford D Simak and Harry Harrison they all make allusions to it or even use it extensively in their plots.

True. I actually first heard about G.S. because of Heinlein but I've been studying the real materials for a while now and am stunned at how few people appear to have heard of it. Hence the poll. It's just... well, look at the first posters reaction. And that is just one aspect of G.S. in a multitude.

Some other famous people who studied and practice G.S. can be found here

www.general-semantics.org is the home site of the International General Semantics Institute for anyone who is curious. Lots of good material there if you're interested in checking it out and a message board.

[Tigulated]

"I think I'd also have to say that, just off the top of my head, humans are also different from animals in that we are the dominant species. Hell, we have farms of animals where we "breed" them just to kill them and eat their flesh. Animals don't do that. The closest you could come would be something like comparing that to those ants that live on a tree and eat its sap, but then defend the tree whenever bad bugs get on it. I don't really know if that's the road you want this discussion to go down, though."

Many species of ants use and breed aphids (choosing their descendants based on color and production). And many organisms, both large and small, form a symbiotic relationship with other animals, effectively adapting to the designs of another creature. Man wasn't the dominant being for a long time of its development, only coming into 'power' in the last ten thousand years.

General Semantics seems to be more about turning an individual's knowledge into another indiviual's application, at least in its description of time-binding. Animals, as far as we can tell (though this may simply be we cannot observe it) don't. They can be taught, and instinct reaches them from the millenia of evolution, but a cheetah is not 'shown' how to be a cheetah. It combines learning from its parent with instinct to achieve this.

I'm not exactly sold on what I've read on the site, but it is intriguing to try to quantify through the scientific method what is generally considered the realm of philosophical thought.

[Aulirophile]

Originally Posted by Tigulated

I'm not exactly sold on what I've read on the site, but it is intriguing to try to quantify through the scientific method what is generally considered the realm of philosophical thought.

Yeah, the site doesn't do anything to justify G.S. as an actual science, since it doesn't go into how Alfred built the whole thing up using solely empirical data and the scientific method. If you want the rundown on that you'll have to read "Science and Sanity." Which is his original and still pretty much definitive work on the subject. It requires a lot of imagination. Tough book.

But yeah, it is a science in the sense A) Every aspect of it has been subjected to the scientific method, B) it's theories have been based on the facts and there are no contradicting facts to the theories. Which is another thing I find incredible about it. A lot of people think this sort of thing can't be science yet..... well, there it is. I'd post some of the interesting passages from S&S which demonstrate this but it's in storage.

[T.Oceanwalker]

An interesting thought with respect to time binding is (assuming the concept holds water) wouldn't the first humans who invented things like mathematics, gears, wheels et al. be in fact intrinsically superior than modern humans intellectually precisely because they had less or zero HK to work with?

[majeo]

Originally Posted by Jabberwhacky

Hell, we have farms of animals where we "breed" them just to kill them and eat their flesh. Animals don't do that. The closest you could come would be something like comparing that to those ants that live on a tree and eat its sap, but then defend the tree whenever bad bugs get on it. I don't really know if that's the road you want this discussion to go down, though.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science...ire-ants_x.htm

[Ronne]

Originally Posted by majeo

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science...ire-ants_x.htm

Vegetarians be owned? =P

[Aulirophile]

Originally Posted by T.Oceanwalker

An interesting thought with respect to time binding is (assuming the concept holds water) wouldn't the first humans who invented things like mathematics, gears, wheels et al. be in fact intrinsically superior than modern humans intellectually precisely because they had less or zero HK to work with?

Actually the idea is that since time-binding is the sole way humans are different from animals, it is time-binding by which human superiority is measured. I mean, we aren't faster, or stronger, have better vision, etc., then animals, time-binding is the cause of our superiority. So through the accumulation of knowledge we make ourselves more superior. The longer we exist, the more knowledge we accumulate because of the tools of time-binding, the more superior we become.

Of course this only applies if we know more "true" things then our ancestors did. "Education is the slow replacement of fantasy with fact." I can't remember who said it, but it's true. I've met a fairly large number of "educated" people who I know for a fact know less then "educated" people did a hundred or so years ago, in America at any rate. Your educational system may vary. These people are inferior and by a strict definition aren't even modern day humans. They're throwbacks.

Which brings up another serious issue. We've had an exponential increase in knowledge but no exponential increase the ability to learn or categorize and index knowledge. G.S. has actually developed some tools for this, but it's a severely underdeveloped field. Time-binding is almost, in a sense, losing it's effectiveness because we can't keep up. Could this explain the, statistically signifigant, increase in new sects (cults)? People are awash in information, the exact opposite of when they used to be awash in ignorance, and run away from it into something absolute and simpler. Or a fair number of other signifigant changes.

See? Time-binding and G.S. provides a wealth of information and tools for almost every field I can think of. I knew a psychiatrist once, very well thought of, who used G.S. principles in his therapy. He didn't know what G.S. was. His professor, who taught him the principals, did, but had never mentioned G.S. by name. Took me a while to track that down and figure it out. It's like people take from it but then forget about it.

Just some things to think about.

[Zuuljin]

Originally Posted by Aulirophile

Actually the idea is that since time-binding is the sole way humans are different from animals, it is time-binding by which human superiority is measured. I mean, we aren't faster, or stronger, have better vision, etc., then animals, time-binding is the cause of our superiority. So through the accumulation of knowledge we make ourselves more superior. The longer we exist, the more knowledge we accumulate because of the tools of time-binding, the more superior we become.

Of course this only applies if we know more "true" things then our ancestors did. "Education is the slow replacement of fantasy with fact." I can't remember who said it, but it's true. I've met a fairly large number of "educated" people who I know for a fact know less then "educated" people did a hundred or so years ago, in America at any rate. Your educational system may vary. These people are inferior and by a strict definition aren't even modern day humans. They're throwbacks.

Which brings up another serious issue. We've had an exponential increase in knowledge but no exponential increase the ability to learn or categorize and index knowledge. G.S. has actually developed some tools for this, but it's a severely underdeveloped field. Time-binding is almost, in a sense, losing it's effectiveness because we can't keep up. Could this explain the, statistically signifigant, increase in new sects (cults)? People are awash in information, the exact opposite of when they used to be awash in ignorance, and run away from it into something absolute and simpler. Or a fair number of other signifigant changes.


Just some things to think about.

I wouldn’t say some people are throwbacks, or are not considered modern day humans, because I don’t think time-binding is really a measurement of knowledge, its just a way of obtaining that knowledge. If somehow someone lost the ability to learn and adapt from others, then perhaps they would be moving backwards, but as long as we keep the same time-binding trait, we are progressing.

Perhaps those educated people know less about certain subjects then older educated people, but in general I would say there is so much more knowledge to know these days it would be impossible to actually compare. Einstein knows more about physics then I, but I'm sure I know more about the nature of MMORPG's then him.

I have actually thought about this before. My GF is a teacher, and tells me about her students, and I often found myself wondering how much better/more informed society would be if we did not have to keep re-teaching the same things over and over every year. Time-binding without all the binding work involved. What if your child could be born with your current knowledge? Imagine how much faster we could progress and how much time we could save instead of learning the same crap everyone has learned for the last 20 years. Of course you would have to have "true" knowledge, or the stupid would just get stupider, but still interesting to think about.

I agree that knowledge these days seem to be increasing faster then we can learn it. And I think that may have a negative impact, as things will become too specialized. Not only do students learn what everyone else 20 years ago learned, but they are learning even more! Nearly every field continues progressing, and the problem gets worse and worse as time passes. It makes you wonder how much the human brain can take in terms of knowledge. At what point does the brain just say "Enough! No more history can fit in my head!"

Perhaps that old saying of "history repeats itself" is when as a society we collectively have reached the point of maximum comprehension of the current subject, and as we learn more, we lose sight of where we came from, so we repeat the past mistakes. This however lets us start with a new knowledge base to work off of, hopefully remembering the mistake we kept making.

Anyway, great topic to think about. I think it can really help our understanding of our selves tremendously, and maybe even unlock the mystery of how our brain processes knowledge.

[Bralkan]

here is a bit more info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics

[Zaniel]

Originally Posted by Zuuljin

Perhaps those educated people know less about certain subjects then older educated people, but in general I would say there is so much more knowledge to know these days it would be impossible to actually compare.

But you miss some of the point about time binding. A lot of it is to do with the distillation of knowledge. For example, in study of nuclear physics you don't spend weeks and months or even years laboring over the whole development cycle of how modern thought developed on the structure of atoms. It becomes:

"Early physicists thought some hilarious shit and we'll cover that before lunch time. After lunch we'll be covering basic atomic structures including electrons. protons and neutrons".

So in a single class you've covered decades of research by thousands of scientists. You've learnt pretty much everything you need to know to then move on to tackle stuff those older scientists never dreamed of.

In 200 years time your physics classes will be:
"20th & 21st century scientists thought some hilarious shit about the structure of matter, we'll cover that before lunchtime. After lunch we'll be covering basic unified gravitic space time theory, including dimensional holography, level 4 M-theory and transpatial simultaniety".

[Ahnkosis]

Originally Posted by majeo

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science...ire-ants_x.htm

I reckon`.