It was a fundamental
error of the old evaluations to postulate 'human nature' as 'evil'.
'Human nature' depends to a large extent on the character of our
creeds or rationalizations, etc., for these ultimately build up
our socio-cultural and other environments.
I believe that our
approaches to the problems of humans have been vitiated by primitive
methods of evaluation which still often dominate our attitudes
and outlooks. With a time-binding consciousness, our criteria
of values, and so behaviour, are based on the study of human potentialities,
not on statistical averages on the level of homo homini lupus
drawn from primitive and/or un-sane semantic (evaluational) reactions
which are on record. Instead of studying elementalistic 'thinking',
'feeling', 'intellect', 'emotion', etc., a misguiding approach
implying the inherited archaic, artificial, divisions or
schizophrenic splits of human characteristics which actually cannot
be split, I investigated functionally and therefore non-elementalistically
the psycho-biological mechanisms of time-binding--how they
work.
By induction we
pass from particulars to the general. However, this method is
not reliable enough. We have to build a deductive system and verify
empirically whether the general applies to the eventual random
particular, which then would become the foundation for predictability.
This, after all, is the main aim of all science. So far what we
'knew' about 'man' were statistical averages gathered inductively,
and so our human world picture was rather sad, distorted, if not
hopeless. The human understanding of time-binding as explained
here establishes the deductive grounds for a full-fledged 'science
of man', where both inductive and deductive methods are utilized.
I believe that this very point of inductive and deductive scientific
methods with regard to humans tangibly marks a sharp difference
between the childhood and the manhood of humanity. In other words,
we try to learn from the study of the individual the main characteristics
of the phylum (the human race). Now with the time-binding
theory, for the first time to my knowledge, having accumulated
data by induction (statistical averages), we can start with what
we have learned about the phylum and analyze the individual
from the point of view of human potentialities as a phylum.
I may be wrong, but perhaps this may become the turning of a page
of human history.
I could not use,
in my further studies, the older 'organism-as-a-whole' approaches,
but had to base my analysis on the much more complex 'organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environment'.
I had to include neuro-linguistic and neuro-semantic (evaluational)
environments as environments, and also had to consider geographic,
physico-chemical, economic, political, ecological, socio-cultural,
etc., conditions as factors which mould human personalities, and
so even group behaviour. This statement is entirely general, and
applies to highly civilized people as well as the most primitive.
Common sense and
ordinary observations convinced me that the average, so-called
'normal person' is so extremely complex as to practically evade
an overall analysis. So I had to concentrate on the study of two
extremes of human psycho-logical reactions: a) reactions at their
best, because of their exceptional predictability, as in mathematics,
the foundations of mathematics, mathematical physics, exact sciences,
etc., which exhibit the deepest kind of strictly human psycho-logical
reactions, and b) reactions at their worst, as exemplified by
psychiatric cases. In these investigations I discovered that physico-mathematical
methods have application to our daily life on all levels, linking
science with problems of sanity, in the sense of adjustment to
'facts' and 'reality'.
I found that human
reactions within these two limits do not differ in some objectified
'kind', but only in psycho-biological 'degrees', and that the
'normal' person hovers somewhere in between the two extremes.
Nobody is as 'insane' as the composite picture a textbook of psychiatry
would give us, and nobody is as sane as that which a textbook
of sanity would give, the author included. The mechanisms of time-binding
are exhibited in most humans except those with severe psycho-biological
illnesses. However, some inaccessible dogmatists in power,
particularly dictators of every kind, have blocked this capacity
considerably. Clearly police states of secrecy, withholding from
the people knowledge of, and from, the world, or twisting that
knowledge to suit their purposes, 'iron curtains', etc., must
be classified as saboteurs among time-binders, and certainly not
a socio-cultural asset to the evolution of humanity.
Linguistic and grammatical
structures also have prevented our understanding of human reactions.
For instance, we used and still use a terminology of 'objective'
and 'subjective', both extremely confusing, as the so-called 'objective'
must be considered a construct made by our nervous system, and
what we call 'subjective' may also be considered 'objective' for
the same reasons.
My analysis showed
that happenings in the world outside our skins, and also such
organismal psycho-logical reactions inside our skins as those
we label 'feelings', 'thinking', 'emotions', 'love', 'hate', 'happiness',
'unhappiness', 'anger', 'fear', 'resentment', 'pain', 'pleasure',
etc., occur only on the non-verbal, or what I call silent
levels. Our speaking occurs on the verbal levels, and we can
speak about, but not on, the silent or un-speakable
levels. This sharp, and inherently natural, yet thoroughly unorthodox
differentiation between verbal and non-verbal levels automatically
eliminates the useless metaphysical verbal bickerings of millenniums
about 'the nature of things', 'human nature', etc. For many metaphysical
verbal futile arguments, such as solipsism, or 'the unknowable',
have been the result of the identifications of verbal levels with
the silent levels of happenings, 'feelings', etc., that the words
are merely supposed to represent, never being the 'reality' behind
them.
Such psycho-logical
manifestations as those mentioned above can be dealt with in a
unified terminology of evaluation, with the result that
an empirical general theory of values, or general semantics, becomes
possible, and, with its roots in the methods of exact sciences,
this can become the foundation of a science of man. For
through the study of exact sciences we can discover factors of
sanity. Different philosophical trends as found in disciplines
such as Nominalism, Realism, Phenomenalism, Significs, Semiotic,
Logical Positivism, etc., also become unified by a methodology,
with internationally applicable techniques, which I call 'non-aristotelian',
as it includes, yet goes beyond and brings up to date,
the aims and formulations of Aristotle.
Whatever we may
say something is, obviously is not the 'something'
on the silent levels. Indeed, as Wittgenstein wrote, 'What can
be shown, cannot be said.' In my experience I found that
it is practically impossible to convey the differentiation of
silent (unspeakable) levels from the verbal without having the
reader or the hearer pinch with one hand the finger of the other
hand. He would then realize organismally that the first-order
psycho-logical direct experiences are not verbal. The simplicity
of this statement is misleading, unless we become aware of its
implications, as in our living reactions most of us identify in
value the two entirely different levels, with often disastrous
consequences. Note the sadness of the beautiful passage of Eddington
on page. He seems to be unhappy that the silent levels can never
be the verbal levels. Is this not an example of unjustified 'maximum
expectation'?
I firmly believe
that the consciousness of the differences between these levels
of abstractions; i.e., the silent and the verbal levels, is
the key and perhaps the first step for the solution of human problems.
This belief is based on my own observations, and studies of the
endless observations of other investigators.
There is a tremendous
difference between 'thinking' in verbal terms, and 'contemplating',
inwardly silent, on non-verbal levels, and then searching for
the proper structure of language to fit the supposedly discovered
structure of the silent processes that modern science tries to
find. If we 'think' verbally, we act as biased observers
and project onto the silent levels the structure of the language
we use, and so remain in our rut of old orientations, making keen,
unbiased, observations and creative work well-nigh impossible.
In contrast, when we 'think' without words, or in pictures (which
involve structure and therefore relations), we may discover new
aspects and relations on silent levels, and so may produce important
theoretical results in the general search for a similarity of
structure between the two levels, silent and verbal. Practically
all important advances are made that way.
So far the only
possible link between the two levels is found in terms of relations,
which apply equally to both non-verbal and verbal levels, such
as 'order' (serial, linear, cyclic, spiral, etc.), 'between-ness','space-time',
'equality' or 'inequality', 'before', 'after', 'more than', 'less
than', etc. Relations, as factors of structure, give the sole
content of all human knowledge.
It has been said
that 'to know anything we have to know everything.' Unfortunately
it is true, but expressed in the above form 'knowledge'
would be impossible. Mathematicians solved this impasse simply
and effectively. They introduced postulational methods, thus limiting
the 'everything', out of which the limited 'anything' follows.
The identification
(confusion) of verbal with silent levels leads automatically to
the asking of indefinitely long arrays of verbal 'why's', as
if the verbal levels could ever possibly cover all the factors
and chains of antecedents of the silent levels, or ever 'be'
the silent levels. This is why in science we limit our 'why' to
the data at hand, thus avoiding the unlimited metaphysical questioning
without data, to which there cannot be an answer. Mathematicians
solved these inherent dilemmas by stating explicitly their undefined
terms in their postulational systems, terms which label nothing
but occurrences on the sit lent levels. Metaphysicians of many
kinds or many creeds since time immemorial tried to solve the
same perplexities by postulating different 'prime movers' or 'final
causes', beyond which the further 'why' is ruled out as leading
to the logically 'verboten' 'infinite regress'. Originally religions
were polytheistic. Later, in the attempt for unification, perhaps
to strengthen the power of the priesthood, and also because of
the increasing ability of humans to make generalizations, monotheisms
were invented, which have led to the most cruel religious wars.
Different rulers, dictators, 'fuehrers', etc., have followed similar
psycho-logical patterns with historically known destructive or
constructive results. The above statements are limited by the
historical contexts.
In our human evolutionary
development the structures of religions and sciences, because
all man-made, do not differ psycho-logically. They all depend
on fundamental assumptions, hypotheses, etc., from which we try
to build some understanding of, and/or rapport with, this world,
ourselves included. Some of these involve archaic and false-to-fact
assumptions, etc., others, such as sciences, involve modern, potentially
verifiable, assumptions and hypotheses. In brief, any religion
may be considered 'primitive science' to satisfy human unconscious
organismal longings; and modern science may be considered 'up-to-date
religion', to satisfy consciously the same human feelings.
If we are supposed not to separate elementalistically 'emotion'
and 'intellect', we have to take into consideration organismal
longings spread over continents for millenniums, which find their
proper expression according to the date of the specific human
developments, at a date. Religions and sciences are both expressions
of our human search for security, and so predictability, for solace,
guidance, feelings of 'belonging', etc., culminating in self-realization
through a general 'consciousness of abstracting', the main aim
of my work.
The progress of
modern science, including the new science of man as a time-binder,
has been due uniquely to the freedom of scientists to revise their
fundamental assumptions, terminologies, undefined terms,
which involve hidden assumptions, etc., underlying our reflections,
a freedom prohibited in 'primitive sciences' and also in dictatorships,
past and present.
As to the space-time
problem of the 'beginning and the end of the world', I have 'solved'
it for myself effectively by the conviction that we are not yet
evolved enough and so mature enough as humans to be able to understand
such problems at this date. In scientific practice, however,
I would go on, in search for structure, asking 'why' under consciously
limited conditions. Probably in the future this problem
will be shown to be no problem, and the solution will be found
in the disappearance of the problem. By now science has already
solved many dilemmas which at first seemed insoluble, as exemplified,
for instance, in the new quantum mechanics.
Another important
point which clarifies the problem of the 'unknowable', religions,
etc., is that we humans have a capacity for inferential knowledge,
which is not based on sense data, but on inferences from observed
happenings. All modern sciences on the submicroscopic, electro-colloidal,
etc., levels are of this 'as if' character. In fact, inferential
knowledge today leads to testing in unexpected fields, and so
is very creative. Epistemologically the fundamental theories must
develop in converging lines of investigation, and if they do not
converge it is an indication that there are flaws in the theories,
and they are revised. Inferential knowledge today in science is
much more reliable than sense data, which often deceive us. In
religions we also translate the still unknown into inferentially
'known', which become creeds, but based on primitive or pre-scientific
assumptions. The most primitive religion in which the savage believes,
or the more generalized and more organized religions in which
the 'man in the street' believes, represent non-elementalistically
his inferential 'knowledge', which involves his 'feelings',
wishes, desires, needs, fears, and what not, as combined inseparably
in living reactions with his 'intellect'.
I firmly believe
that the still prevailing archaic, split, schizophrenic orientations
about ourselves, which without a modern science of man are practically
impossible to avoid, are an extremely hampering influence to any
understanding of the potentialities of 'human nature'. These outlooks,
inherited from the 'childhood of humanity' and perpetuated linguistically,
keep our human reactions and so our cultures on unnecessarily
low levels, from which we try to extricate ourselves through violence,
murder, rioting, and in larger expressions of mass sufferings,
through revolutions and wars. This is in sharp contrast to the
peaceful progress we have in science, where we are free to analyze
our basic assumptions, and where we use a language of appropriate
structure.
I firmly believe
that an adequate structure of language is fundamental for human
adjustment to the silent levels of happenings, 'feelings', etc.
Thus, the non-elementalistic Einstein-Minkowski space-time,
instead of the split, elementalistic newtonian 'space' and
'time', revolutionized physics. The non-elementalistic psycho-biology
of Adolf Meyer, instead of 'psychology' and 'biology',
marks the sharp difference between humans and animals. Non-elementalistic
psycho-somatic considerations, instead of the older 'psyche'
and 'soma', revolutionized the whole of medicine and rescued
it from being merely glorified veterinary science. Etc., etc.
I give these specific examples to indicate the general practical
value of structural linguistic innovations which express and convey
to others our new structural outlooks.
I am deeply convinced
by theoretical considerations and empirical data that the new
(historically the first to my knowledge) formulation of time-binding
throws enormous light on our understanding of 'human nature',
and will help to formulate new perspectives for the future of
time-binders. This new functional definition of humans as time-binders,
not mere 'space-binders', carries very far-reaching scientific,
psycho-logical, moral and ethical beneficial consequences, which
often remain lasting, today verified in many thousands of instances.
It explains also how we humans, and humans alone, were able to
produce sciences and civilizations, making us by necessity interdependent,
and the builders of our own destinies. All through history man
has been groping to find his place in the hierarchy of life, to
discover, so to say, his role in the 'nature of things'. To this
end he must first discover himself and his 'essential nature',
before he can fully realize himself-then perhaps our civilizations
will pass by peaceful evolutions from their childhood to the manhood
of humanity.
It is a source of
deep satisfaction to me that similar notions about the circularity
and self-reflexiveness of human knowledge are taking root in our
orientations as expressed by other writers. In 1942 in Monograph
III published by the Institute of General Semantics, in my foreword
with M. Kendig, we wrote:
'It should be noticed
that in human life self-reflexiveness has even "material" implications,
which introduce serious difficulties. Professor Cassius J. Keyser
expresses this very aptly: "It is obvious, once the fact is pointed
out, that the character of human history, the character of human
conduct, and the character of all our human institutions depend
both upon what man is and in equal or greater measure upon
what we humans think man is." This is profoundly true.
'Professor Arthur
S. Eddington describes the same problem in these words: "And yet,
in regard to the nature of things, this knowledge is only an empty
shell--a form of symbols. It is knowledge of structural form,
and not knowledge of content. All through the physical world runs
that unknown content, which must surely be the stuff of our consciousness.
Here is a hint of aspects deep within the world of physics, and
yet unattainable by the methods of physics. And, moreover, we
have found that where science has progressed the farthest, the
mind has but regained from nature that which the mind has put
into nature.
' "We have found
a strange foot-print on the shores of the unknown. We have devised
profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin.
At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that
made the foot-print. And Lo! it is our own."
'Dr. Alexis Carrel
formulated the same difficulty differently, but just as aptly:
"To progress again man must remake himself. And he cannot remake
himself without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor."
'
Those self-reflexive
and circular mechanisms are the uniquely human types of reaction
which made our human achievements possible. With the new formulations,
the consciousness of this special capacity with its profound implications
has become generally teachable on all levels, that of uneducated
people and children included, and this consciousness may now mark
a new period in our evolution.
History, anthropology,
and general semantics establish firmly that the enormous majority
of humanity so far lived and live on the animal biological level
of mere subsistence, without the opportunity to realize their
potentialities. For time-binders are not merely biological organisms,
but psycho-biological, and this introduces incredible complexities,
which so far we did not know how to handle. The old notions about
'man' have hitherto led to a generally sick and bewildered society.
We cannot be psycho-logical isolationists and try to be constructive
time-binders, or we are bound to be bogged down in an asocial
morass of conflicts.
The theory of time-binding
and extensional methods of general semantics have been tested
in many scientific, educational and managerial fields. Even on
the battlefields of World War II they were applied by American
physicians, officers and men in thousands of cases of 'battle
fatigue', with telling results. Today the new methods are taught
in many schools and universities, and there are study groups on
all continents.
To conclude, I may
quote from my new preface to the third edition of Science and
Sanity: 'We need not blind ourselves with the old dogma
that "human nature cannot be changed", for we find that it can
be changed [if we know how]. We must begin to realize our
potentialities as humans, then we may approach the future with
some hope. We may feel with Galileo, as he stamped his foot on
the ground after recanting the Copernican theory before the Holy
Inquisition, "Eppur si muove !" The evolution of our human
development may be retarded, but it cannot be stopped.'
Alfred
Korzybski
Lakeville, Connecticut, U. S. A.
April 1949
Bibliographical
Note
The time-binding
theory was first propounded in my Manhood of Humanity: The
Science and Art of Human Engineering, E. P. Dutton, New York,
1921, second edition, with additions, to be published in 1950
by International Non-aristotelian Library Publishing Company,
Institute of General Semantics, Distributors. It was further elaborated
in my 'Fate and Freedom', Mathematics Teacher, May 1923,
reprinted in The Language of Wisdom and Folly by Irving
J. Lee, Harper, New York, 1949, 'The Brotherhood of Doctrines',
The Builder, April 1924, in my papers read before the International
Mathematical Congress in Toronto in 1924, before the Washington
Society for Nervous and Mental Diseases in 1925, and before the
Washington Psychopathic Society in 1926, when I was studying at
St. Elizabeth's Psychiatric Hospital in Washington, D.C. It culminated,
after extensive studies of the mechanisms of time-binding, in
Science and Sanity: an Introduction to Non-aristotelian Systems
and General Semantics, The International Non-aristotelian
Library Publishing Company, first published in 1933, second edition
1941, third edition 1948, distributed by the Institute of General
Semantics. In this book, with a physico-mathematical approach,
I introduced for the first time the new appropriate scientific
methodology for the time-binding theory, which I called 'extensional
method', with principles of essential simplicity.
A.
K.
* This
was originally written in 1948 in response to an invitation from
Mr. Krishna Mangesh Talgeri, M.A. of 26, Atul Grove, New Delhi,
India, to contribute to a symposium entitled, The Faith I Live
By. It is to be published soon, and includes such international
contributors as Gandhi, Nehru, Montessori, John H. Holmes, Radhakrishnan
and others. I admit that without Mr. Talgeri's invitation, and
the most valuable assistance of Miss Charlotte Schuchardt which
I wish to gratefully acknowledge, I would never have undertaken
the difficult task of formulating such a condensed summary of
life studies and experiences which any 'credo' would require.