Timothy Wilken
Alfred Korzybski was born on July 3, 1879, in Warsaw, Poland.
In 1921, Korzybski, a mathematician and scientist published what this scientist considers one of the most important books ever written. That book called Manhood of Humanity is now available online.
Manhood of Humanity was Korzybski’s initial disclosure of his Theory of Time-binding. Korzybski classified Life with precise and accurate operational definitions of plants, animals, and humans. He defined the plants as energy-binders, the animals as space-binders, and we humans as time-binders. Korzybski explained that:
The plants adapt to their environment through their awareness and control of energy. The animals adapt to their environment through their awareness and control of space. And we humans adapt to our environment through our awareness and control of time.
Energy-binding–the power of plants
The power of energy-binding is transformation, growth, and organization.
Energy-binders have the ability to transform solar energy to organic chemical energy. The plant is a solar collector. It spreads its leaves and harvests the ultraviolet rays directly from the sun.
Energy-binders have the power of growth.The plant draws water and minerals from the soil organizes this energy and nutrients into growth through cell division. The growth of the energy-binder and its self-propagation through progeny are the resultant of cell division – if the cells remain together we have growth; if they split off into a separate entity we have progeny. Energy-bindings have the power of organization. Organization possible through the ability to time the release and binding of energy. Timing based on knowledge – energy knowledge.
Space-binding – the power of animals
The power of space-binding is mobility – the ability to move about in space. This is not the simple motion of plants. This is mobility – running, jumping, leaping, swinging, swimming, creeping, stalking, crawling, diving, and flying.
The space-binder moves towards a specific and attainable goal – water, food, a mate, shelter – and in any direction. The mobility of the space-binder is not just motion, it is controlled motion. The space-binder moves in search of food. For grazing animals the quest is continuous; for predators, occasional but more strenuous. And all animals are under constant threat from natural enemies. The animal, therefore, requires sense awareness – awareness of the space in which he lives. The space-binder uses his awareness to find food and to warn him of the approach of enemies. A deer may be motivated by thirst to go to a waterhole, but if it senses a lion, it will refrain. It must continuously evaluate conflicting stimuli and choose between alternatives, alternatives of pleasure or pain, alternatives of good space or bad space. Space-binders are aware of space, they are aware and they think, they think and they decide – constantly making controlled choices as to where and when to move.
Thinking for the space-binder is wholistic. The animals base their decisions on the whole situation. When the rabbit hears a sound in the thicket, he must react instantly, “fight or flight” and the decision must be made now, based on the whole situation. There is no time for analysis. Only wholistic thinking has the rapidity and flexibility to allow survival in the adversary world of space-binders. The power to allow animals move instantly towards good space – space that enables one to survive, and away from bad space – space that produces injury or death.
But the animals are not only space-binders, they also have some of the power of energy-binders. While they cannot transform solar energy directly into organic chemical energy, they can transform the tissues from the plants and animals they eat into organic chemical energy, they can also grow, and they can also organize energy. To the fox who sees the rabbit, success at seizing this opportunity for a meal depends not just on his ability to know when and where to move, but also on his ability to control the energy which he will need to power his movement. He must have adequate energy stored so that he can release it at the proper moment to catch the rabbit. And the rabbit can only escape if it uses its knowledge of both space and energy effectively.
Time-binding-the power of humans
We humans are Time-binders. We possess the power to understand and through that understanding to control and dominate planet Earth.
The power of Time-binding is to understand – to observe and remember change over time. Understanding comes from the awareness of time – an awareness that allows humans to experience time as sequential or linear.
Tomorrow follows today as today followed yesterday. Time always moves from the past to the present, from the present to the future. Change is bound in time. And time-binders understand change in space because they are aware of time.
Time-binding is a new way of thinking – analytical thinking. The Time-binder can make decisions based on understanding changes in his environment over time. Time-binding analysis is sequential analysis – linear analysis – focused on the parts rather than the whole.
Analytical thinking recognizes cause and effect. Time-binders are the masters of cause and effect. When humans understand cause and effect, they make scientific discovery. They make knowledge. When humans make choices based on knowledge, they make inventions. They make technology. Time-binders are the creators of knowledge and technology. When knowledge is incorporated into matter-energy, it becomes a tool. Humans are above all else toolmakers. Most of our knowledge is embedded in our tools. Human knowledge grows continuously and without limit. As we incorporate our evermore powerful knowledge into tools. We produce evermore powerful tools.
Time-binding is also that unique human ability to pass that ‘knowing’ from one generation to the next generation. Both animal and human offspring begin their lives in nearly total ignorance. The differences that exist between them are small, but what advantage in knowing that does exist belongs clearly to the animal. While the animal seems to begin life with a greater store of inherited knowing, it possesses little ability to learn from its parents. The animal is condemned to rediscover over and over, every generation must discover anew the knowings of its parents. The wise old owl may know a great deal, but he has no way to pass what he knows to his offspring and they have no way to receive it. We humans are very different in that respect. We can and do pass our knowing from one generation to the next. Alfred Korzybski explains:
“Human beings possess a most remarkable capacity which is entirely peculiar to them – I mean the capacity to summarise, digest and appropriate the labors and experiences of the past; I mean the capacity to use the fruits of past labors and experiences as intellectual or spiritual capital for developments in the present; I mean the capacity to employ as instruments of increasing power the accumulated achievements of the all-previous lives of the past generations spent in trial and error, trial and success; I mean the capacity of human beings to conduct their lives in the ever increasing light of inherited wisdom; I mean the capacity in virtue of which man is at once the inheritor of the bygone ages and the trustee of posterity. And because humanity is just this magnificent natural agency by which the past lives in the present and the present for the future, I define HUMANITY, in the universal tongue of mathematics and mechanics, to be the TIME-BINDING CLASS OF LIFE.”
We humans bind time and are bound together in time. The record of our time-binding is everywhere. It is in all that activity that we so innocently call progress. It is the very motor of obsolescence. It is imbedded in just about every thing associated with humans and yet most humans are unaware of the very power that makes them human. We humans catalogue and store our various knowings in libraries, universities, colleges, data banks, and information services. We store our knowing in many formats – books, tapes, films, movies, newspapers, magazines, video, microfilm, photos, computer files, etc., etc., etc. We are time-binders and the mark of human power is everywhere.
But, humans are more than just time-binders with the power to understand. We also have the the power of space-binding – mobility and the ability to think wholistically, and the power of energy-binding – conversion of plant and animal tissue to organic chemical energy, growth and organization of energy.
Now you can now read the original text of Manhood of Humanity online. A short biography of Korzyski is available here.
Happy Korzybski Day
Timothy