1-7
8-14
15-21
22-28
29-35
36-42
43-49
50-56
57-63
64-70
71-77
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1-7
8-14
15-21
22-28
29-35
36-42
43-49
50-56
57-63
64-70
71-77
78-84
85-91
92-98
99-105
106-112
113-119
120-122
and quantum mechanicsour model of reality was that originated by
Aristotle.
Science and Sanitythe primary text for what is called General
Semantics, Alfred Korzybski alerted humanity to important scientific mistakes
that are embedded in the Aristotelian system:
and there into systems, for instance the aristoteliansystem, our main
concern here. Such systematizations are important, for, as the Talmudsays,
“Teaching without a system makes learning difficult.”
orientations since Socrates (469-399 B.C.). Socrates was the son of a sculptor
and himself did some work with the chisel and his hands. He became an
important founder of a school of ‘philosophy’. In brief, this school had very
high standards for science, seeking the application of the science of the time to
life, so that it became what may be called a ,school of ‘wisdom’.
), who came from an aristocratic family,
became the founder of a different school, called the ‘Academy’, and the ‘father’
of what may be called ‘mathematical philosophy’. Unlike his teacher, he began,
in his ‘Doctrine of Ideas’, to verbally split humans into ‘body’ and ‘mind’, as if
they could be so split in living beings. He built a system of ‘immaterialism’ or
‘idealism’.
), the son of a physician, was the student of Plato, and
particularly interested in biology, other natural sciences, etc. He founded the
most influential of the three schools, which is called by his name. He was
undoubtedly one of the most gifted men mankind has ever known. As usual in
such cases, the study of one branch of knowledge leads to another, so Aristotle
was led to the study of ‘logic’, linguistic structure, etc., about which he
produced scholarly treatises or textbooks, ultimately formulating the most
complete system of his time. Because of the completeness of the system, backed
by powerful influences, it has moulded our orientations and evaluations up to
the present. The man on the street, our education, medicine and even sciences,
are still in the clutches of the system of Aristotle, a system inadequate for
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relatively so simple, when orientations were on the macroscopic level only, and
knowledge of scientific facts was practically nil.
institutionalized, with jails for the ‘animal’ and churches for the ‘soul’. Now
we begin to realize how pernicious and retarding for civilization that split is.
For instance, only since Einstein and Minkowski do we begin to understand
that ‘space’ and ‘time’ cannot be split empirically, otherwise we create for
ourselves delusional worlds. Only since their work has modern sub-
microscopic physics with all its accomplishments become possible.
a split medicine. One branch, general medicine, was interested in the ‘body’
(soma); the other was interested in the ‘soul’ (psyche). The net result was that
general medicine was a glorified form of veterinary science, while psychiatry
remained metaphysical. However, it has been found empirically that a great
many ‘physical’ ailments are of a semantogenic origin. Only a few years ago
general physicians began to understand that they cannot deal with humans
without knowing something about psychiatry, and psychosomatic medicine
began to be formulated. I cannot go into further detail here, except to mention
that this is another constructive step away from the aristotelian system,
which as applied trains us in artificial, verbal splits.
exactly the excellence of the work of Aristotle based on the very few scientific
facts known 2,300 years ago. The aim of his work circa 350 B.C.was to
formulate the essential nature of science (350 B.C.) and the forms and laws of
science. His immediate goal was entirely methodological (350 B.C.), and he
aimed to formulate a general method for ‘all’ scientific work. He was even
expounding the theory of symmetrical relations, the relation of the general to
the particular, etc. In his days these orientations were by necessity two-
valued and ‘objective’; hence follows his whole system, then more or less
satisfactory on macroscopic levels.
‘either/or’ type of orientations. I admit it baffled me for many years, that
practically all humans, the lowest primitives not excluded, who never heard of
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made the obvious ‘discovery’ that our relations to the world outside and inside
our skins often happen to be, on the gross level, two-valued. For instance, we
deal with day ornight, land orwater, etc. On the living level we have life or
death, our heart beats ornot, we breathe orsuffocate, are hot orcold, etc.
Similar relations occur on higher levels. Thus, we have induction or
deduction, materialism oridealism, capitalism orcommunism, democrat or
republican, etc. And so on endlessly on all levels.
the general sharpnessof ‘either/or’, and so objectifies‘kind’, is unduly
limited; it must be revised and made more flexible in terms of ‘degree’. This
requires a physico-mathematical ‘way of thinking’, which a non-aristotelian
system supplies.
are mere nervous constructs inside of our skulls which our nervous systems
have abstracted electro-colloidally from the actual world of electronic
processes on the sub-microscopic level. And so we have to face a complete
methodological departure from two-valued, ‘objective’ orientations to general,
infinite-valued, process orientations, as necessitated by scientific discoveries
for at least the past sixty years.
similar, except for the date of our human development and the advance of
science. The problem is whether we shall deal with science and scientific
methods of 350 B.C.or of 1941 A.D.In general semantics, in building up a non-
aristotelian system, the aims of Aristotle are preserved yet scientific methods
are brought up to date. ”42
—Alfred Korzybski
depends on a new approach to understanding ourselves—an inclusive approach in
examining our human problems and our human difficulties. Today2001we know that
such an approach must be wholistic, integrative, and inclusive.
Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity, 1933-48, ibid
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relevant details that may make our conclusions useless. We may even assume that the
human is an animal, but Knowledge2001reveals that this is also likely to exclude
relevant details, and make our conclusions erroneous.
biologicals on rats and monkeys, run a high risk of excluding relevant details that
make the application of their findings to human patients erroneous.
and exclusionare not valid methods for studying
humanity. Furthermore, understanding Universe, Life, and ourselves will require
that we heed the warnings of Korzybski, Miller and Calvin to avoid “mixing levels of
organization”. And lastly, we must learn to recognize when we are falling into the
trap of either/or thinkingand look for the both-andalternatives.
is ignorance. We know that the most intelligence behavior any human can exhibit is to
learn from their mistakes.
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2001?
then we must begin by examining what we know. Any understanding of ourselves
cannot occur in isolation. We humans cannot understand ourselves apart or separate
from Universe. We are embedded in the Universe and the Universe is embedded in us.
The better we understand Universe, the better we can understand ourselves.
faces. Humanity is but one of the forms of Universe—but one of the faces of Universe.
Universe—some of Universe’s other faces. In this chapter we will examine Universe as
Process, Action, Choice, Restraint, Hierarchy, Purpose, and Inclusion.
Process
reveals that the world of substance has been replaced by that of
process. The only thing in Nature that never changes is the requirement for change.
Change means movement—motion. With constant change we see constant motion.
Timothy Ferris1997explains:
his insight into the concept of inertia. Aristotle had assumed, and the Western
world had come to believe, that the natural tendency of objects is to remain at
rest. This certainly seems to accord with experience—a book or a boulder stays
in one place unless one expends energy in moving it—and even today the word
inertiais commonly taken to mean sluggishness or stasis. Galileo saw that
this common sense assumption was wrong. He pushed wood blocks across a
tabletop, then polished the table and the blocks and pushed the blocks again,
and pondered the significance of the fact that when there was less friction
they traveled farther. He reasoned that if they could be polished perfectly, so
that there wasnofriction, they would keep moving forever. Inertia, he
concluded, is not just a tendency of bodies at rest to remain at rest, but also of
bodies in motion to remain in motion.
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Copernican assertion that the earth moves. (If the earth is spinning, why does
a man who jumps straight up land in his footprints, rather than hundreds of
yards to the west? And if the earth rotates, why aren’t howling easterly winds
constantly raking the surface of the planet?) Jumpers don’t fly westward nor
do easterly gales constantly blow, because the jumpers and the atmosphere
are already moving with the turning earth, and so tend to remain in motion.
Today we have seen enough of the Universe to know that motion, not rest, is
the ordinary state of matter, and that to be immobile is at most a local trait,
measured in terms of a local “inertial rest frame”. The farther out one looks,
the more one finds that everything, relative to most other things, is moving.
The Universe was born restless and has never since been still.”43
any given medium) and cannot be at rest. Particles are indeterminate. We can know
either their position or their speed, but not both. The electron is known to spin and
have variable speed as it circles about the proton in the nucleus of an atom. Atoms of
course are composed of particles so they are internally in constant motion. We further
discover that atoms or molecules that make up a liquid or gas are in constant thermal
motion, and their distribution of velocity is determined by the temperature of the
system. Plants have movement as they seek the light and grow towards the sun.
Animals move about their habitat in search of food, shelter, and a mate. And humans
have full mobility as well. To walking and running, we add driving our cars, and
riding in boats and planes. So, Nature is always in motion. Universe then results from
process and the fundamental basis of process is nothing. As Stanislav Grof1983and
Brian Swimme1985explain:
Newtonian-Cartesian model. Astonishing explorations of the micro-world have
created an image of reality which is far different from the seventeenth-
century model of Newton; and Descartes. The model of solid and indestructible
matter has disintegrated under the impact of experimental and theoretical
evidence. The fundamental building blocks of the Universe—the atoms—were
found to be essentially empty.”44
Timothy Ferris, The Whole Shebang, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997
44Stanislav Grof, EAST & WEST: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science, Journal of Transpersonal
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consist almost entirely of empty space. The center of the atom, the nucleus
would be smaller than a baseball sitting out in center field. The outer parts of
the atom would be tiny gnats buzzing about at an altitude higher than any
pop fly Babe Ruth ever hit. And between the baseball and the gnats?
Nothingness. All empty. You are more emptiness than anything else. Indeed, if
all the space were taken out of you, you would be a million times smaller than
the smallest grain of sand.”45
made up of organs; which are made up of tissues; which are made up of cells; which are
made up of molecules; which are made up of atoms and atoms are mostly empty space.
Then what is it that gives substance to our bodies?
explains:
the analogue of a rotary fan made up of separate radial blades. When such a
fan rotates with a certain velocity, we see a solid disk, simply because our
nervous system does not discriminate between the rotating blades. The
separate rotating blades are visually seen by us as a single solid disk,
although there is no disk present. If the blades rotate fast enough, we could
not throw sand through them, as the sand would be too slow to get through
before being struck by one of the blades.
‘materials’. Atoms represent very minute energetic configurations or dynamic
structures where extremely rapid processes are going on, not unlike the
‘rotating blades’ of our example; and what we register is the ‘disk’, be it a table
or a chair or ourselves.
table, as our finger is too thick and too slow, and that, for some materials, it
takes X-rays to be agile enough to penetrate.”46
45Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, Bear & Company, Inc., Sante Fe, 1985
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