Work In Progress (12/30/2010)

Damned hard to do much weblog posting lately.

My excuse?

Finishing up the biography of Korzybski that I've been working on for the last seven years.

Two days ago I wrote the last sentence of the final chapter.

Today I finished writing Acknowledgements and am starting on Language Notes and Polish Pronunciation Guide. I still have an Introductory Note for the Endnotes Section in the back of the book.

Then we print out the whole manuscript, do the final edit and proofreading before doing the index.

We have a designer and a basic cover design that needs to get done.

And then...gulp...the book will be just about ready to come out.

Korzybski: A Biography due to be published in the Spring of 2011.

Korzybski & GS in India 2010

Here's a report on the third national workshop-cum-seminar on “Alfred Korzybski and His Impact on Language, Communication and Cultural Studies” organized by Balvant Parekh Centre for General Semantics and Other Human Sciences, Baroda, India and the English and Foreign Languages University, Shillong, India. The workshop took place in Shillong from 25th-27th October, 2010.

Korzybski Conference in India

Quote of the Day- "Humanity"

“Humanity is a peculiar class of life which, in some degree, determines its own destinies; therefore in practical life words and ideas become facts—facts moreover, which bring about important practical consequences.”
———Alfred Korzybski*

* Manhood of Humanity, Second Edition. 1950 (1921), p. 47. 

From the Stray Thought Bin - "...And More Maps"

Some people seem to use the saying "The map is not the territory," as a way to wash out all claims and viewpoints into some kind of tepid equivalency: "It's all just opinions...B.S. ...your narrative...your map...my map...maps all we have...yadda yadda yadda." Post-Modernist Couldn't-Care-Less-ism.

Sure, up to a point, we can't get beyond viewpoints and opinions.  Everything that is said is said by someone—opinions and viewpoints...Maps.

But...

We do presume some 'territory'. (At least I do.) There are 'things' we bump into whether we want to or not.

Some viewpoints provide a better look at a presumed territory. Some opinions seem more useful. We shouldn't be shy. Some maps  give us greater predictability, seem more useful, thus better than others for given purposes in dealing with the 'territories' of life. Including the fact that other  people may operate by dramatically different maps.

We can and should strive for more fruitful viewpoints, more informed opinions, better maps. Which presumes that some maps may be better than others for some purposes. Indeed, yes.

And yes, our maps will still not be the territories they represent—ever. As far as I know.

From the Stray Thought Bin - "...And Maps"

"The map is not the territory."

"What kind of idiot would say that a map was the territory?"

What kind of idiot would act as if it was? 

From the Stray Thought Bin- "Maps and Maps"

To someone convinced that their map 'is' THE territory, saying that "the map is not the territory" doesn't have to present them with a problem; it just doesn't apply to their map.

From the Stray Thought Bin-New Media

The existence of a new communication medium does not obliterate the need to remain conscious of abstracting. Au contraire—whatever new possibilities Twitter brings, your Tweet is not the territory either.

From the Stray Thought Bin - Dirty Windows

In the old lingo, one’s ‘mind’ mediates one’s knowledge of anything. 

And it seems all too easy for people to treat their ‘minds’ like ‘windows’ which they look through but never see. 

It may not be so easy to get people to see the ‘window’ and to see, among other things, the obscuring, distorting ‘dirt’—some of it language-related—that they've gotten used to ignoring. 

First, you have to look at your own ‘dirty window'— hard work even for the most intelligent. 

From the Stray Thought Bin - Walking the Talking

One has to consciously work to develop a habit of talking differently, 

not just talking about talking differently.