GENERAL SEMANTICS

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Definitions

1. in a subject developed by Korzybski a great deal of stress is given to the niceties of words. In brief a word is not the thing. And an object exactly like another object is different because it occupies a different space and thus "can't be the same object." As Alfred Korzybski studied under psychiatry and amongst the insane (his mentor was William Alanson White at Saint Elizabeth's Insane Asylum in Washington, D.C.) one can regard him mainly as the father of confusion. This work, General Semantics, a corruption of semantics (meaning really "significance" or the "meaning of words") has just enough truth in it to invite interest and just enough curves to injure one's ability to think or communicate. Korzybski did not know the formula of human communication and university professors teaching semantics mainly ended up assuring students (and proving it) that no one can communicate with anyone because nobody really knows what anybody else means. (HCO PL 26 Apr 70R)

2. an educational "discipline" which trains individuals to evaluate for themselves the meanings of words and symbols. It does not, however, teach them to obtain agreement on meanings. Hence, in semantics there can only be confusion because by its basic principles there can be no stable datum in symbols and significance. And thus, since symbols and significance are basic to communication, in semantics there can be no real communication. (FBDL 449)