Blarne,

I was in arrears in reading the list and thus, answered one of the inquiries
about words with the reference to Count Alfred Korzybski prior to reading your
note...  You can gather that I'm much impressed with the works of Korzybski
but would caution you that after speaking about General Semantics ( on which
Korzybski later commented that perhaps he should have used the terminology of
"General Anthropology" instead so as to avoid the confusion with other
superficial studies of words and their "meanings") to other adherents have
been asked, "How did you learn so much about General Semantics without
studying under Korzybski at the Institute in Connecticut?"  My rather ordinary
reply was, "I read his book."  My point being that I've found many folks who
get entirely different messages from Korzybski as is witnessed by their
writings, etc.  Personally, I thought his work dealt with very simple
processes at an "unspeakable" organic level and thus, required a lot of
different expositions from different perspectives to "get his point across."

I first became acquainted with it while in my university days in the forties.
Korzybski was still living then and was quite a colorful character, noted for
telling his audiences, in exasperation, how can you listen to everything I've
been saying and miss the point entirely?  I've found that still to be the case
but, naturally, I'm a little prejudiced.

Still, I found his philosophical descriptions of how the nervous system "must
work" to have been highly predictive of what was later confirmed and found by
empirical evidence while exploring the nervous system with electrodes,
studying injured people, etc., at Tufts, Tulane, Montreal, etc., in the
medical schools.

Cordially,

Bob

--
Bob Grimes

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