“...The period of humanity’s manhood will, I doubt not, be a scientific period—a period that will witness the gradual extension of scientific method to all the interests of mankind—a period in which man will discover the essential nature of man and establish, at length, the science and art of directing human energies and human capacities to the advancement of human weal in accordance with the laws of human nature.”

— Manhood of Humanity, pp. 44-45Bucky Fuller Utopia & Oblivion

H.G. WellsHumanity is in a race between education and catastrophe

“Our rulers: politicians, ‘diplomats', bankers, priests of every description, economists, lawyers, etc., and the majority of teachers remain at present largely or entirely ignorant of modern science, scientific methods,...of 1933, and they also lack an essential historical and anthropological background, without which a sane orientation is impossible. This ignorance is often willful as they mostly refuse, with various excuses, to read modern works dealing with such problems. As a result a conflict is created and maintained between the advance of science affecting conditions of actual life and the orientations of our rulers, which often remain antiquated by centuries, or one or two thousand years. The present world conditions are in chaos; psycho-logically there exists a state of helplessness—hopelessness, often resulting in the feelings of insecurity, bitterness, etc ., and we have lately witnessed psychopathological mass outbursts, similar to those of the dark ages. Few of us at present realize that, as long as such ignorance of our rulers prevails, no solution of our human problems is possible.”

— Alfred Korzybski, “Preface to the First Edition”, Science and Sanity (1933)

“Science is the active and creative engagement of our minds with nature in an attempt to understand. ...”— Gregory N. Derry

If we and our own activities, including science, are part of nature, then we can also engage our minds scientifically in an attempt to understand science.

Exactly what AK was interested in studying science

Advances in physico-mathematical sciences, basic and applied (exemplary time-binding)

held a key,

key to understanding the basic mechanism of time-binding

Understand that t-b mech more clearly could be applied

to develop teachable evaluational tools—heuristics—allowing us to better time-bind in other areas of life besides the traditional one of ‘science’

“The whole of science is nothing more than the refinement of every day thinking.”

— Albert Einstein, “Physics and Reality” (1936), in Ideas and Opinions

Einstein’s Schematic Model of Scientific Methodin a letter to Maurice Solovine (May 7, 1952)

in modern scientific methods we can find

“...in modern scientific methods we can find factors of sanity, to be tested empirically.”

—Alfred Korzybski, “Introduction to the Second Edition, 1941”, Science and Sanity

Two General and Converging Approaches:

2. Study the SOTA (State of the Art) in a variety of fields of natural, biological, and behavioral/social-science research, which might contribute to an understanding of how we know what we say we know.

1. Study science, mathematics, engineering as forms of human behavior; produced by human nervous systems.

Troubleshooting, Heuristic Value for the

sciences and in particular for daily life

“...anything that provides a plausible aid or direction in the solution of a problem but is in the final analysis...potentially fallible.” *

Heuristic

“rule of thumb”“intuition”“technique”

“hint”“rule of craft”

“guiding thread” “working basis”

“guiding principles”etc.**

* Billy Vaughn Koen - Discussion of the Method, p. 28, ** Ibid, p. 32

Method

“[T]he engineering method, is the use of heuristics to cause the best change in a poorly understood situation within the available resources.” — Billy Vaughn Koen

“All is heuristic.”

*Billy Vaughn Koen - Discussion of the Method (2003), pp. 7, 111

“To be human is to be an engineer.”

“[General Semantics] is based on a new world outlook...We have made a methodological summary of what we know practically in every field, without going into details of it. I had to extract the method and ‘all’ I teach you is scientific method...It takes infernal work to do so, and without time-binding...I could not have produced general semantics, which is method, method, and nothing but.”

— Alfred Korzybski, Winter Intensive Seminar (1948-1949)

GS

Generalized, Science & Math-Based, Epistemological Heuristics

for Science and Everyday Life

in fewer words, Applied Epistemology

or Epistemics

~~

Two major heur i s t ics that Korzybski used as he began his survey of science (optimal time-binding) to improve and clarify scientific methods for broader use:

Observer – Observed Relation

Logical Fate

To study and improve methods (heurist ics), you need some methods (heuristics) to start with.

Cassius J. Keyser

“Logical Fate”

“Logical Fate”

...it is in the world of ideas and only there that human beings as human may find principles or bases for

rational theories and rational conduct of life, whether individual life or community life; choices differ but some choice of principle we must make if we are to be really human—if, that is, we are to be rational— and when we have made it, we are at once bound by a destiny of consequences beyond the power of passion or will to control or modify; another choice of principles is but the election of another destiny.

The world of ideas is, you see, the empire of Fate.

Mathematical Philosophy: A Study of Fate and Freedom (1922), p. 5

Korzybski’s 1922 Diagram of “Logical Destiny”

‘Logical’ Fate*

* Psycho-logical Fate

“...all that man can know is a joint phenomena of the observer and the observed.”

‘Pre-Scientific’

o b s e r v e r e v e r y t h i n g , observed doesn’t matter

p r o j e c t i o n o f ‘ t h o u g h t s ’ a n d ‘feelings’ onto world

animism, spirits, gods, s a c r i fi c e , m a g i c , analogy

‘Classical’

E m p h a s i s o n t h e observed, the observer doesn’t matter much

neutra l ‘ob ject ive ’ study of nature

e a r l y ( G r e e k ) : o b s e r v a t i o n , l o g i c , classification

l a t e r ( “ S c i e n t i fi c R e v o l u t i o n ” ) : experiment, mathematics, exact laws of nature, prediction and control

‘Modern’

observer-observed

“...all that man can know is a joint phenomena of the observer and the observed.”

revision of earlier methods in light of this

‘ E v e r y t h i n g i s i d e n t i c a l w i t h everything else’

‘Everything is identical with itself ’; ‘A is A’.

Non-Identity; ‘Whatever you say something ‘is’, it is not’

Eddington’s Two Tables

macroscopic, substantial, common every day table,represents the world of ‘things’

sub-microscopic, insubstantial scientific table “nearly all empty space...pervaded...by fields of force...assigned to the category of “influences”, not of things.” ”

“Are they not really two aspects or two interpretations of one and the same world?"

“Yes, no doubt they are ultimately to be identified after some fashion. But the process by which the external world of physics is transformed into a world of familiar acquaintance in human consciousness is outside the scope of physics. ...It is true that the whole scientific inquiry starts from the familiar world; but the part of the journey over which the physicist has charge is in foreign territory.”

— A. S. Eddington

Korzybski Margin Notes:

“Ignorance of the workings of the human nervous system”

PS1

BS1

OS1

PS1 - Personal System, Individual’s Personal ‘Philosophy’

BS1 - Organized Belief Systems, Doctrines, “CEWT” (Culturally Expected Ways of Thinking)

OS1 - Orientation System (General, Overarching)

from ‘Idols’ to HeuristicsBacon Koen

‘Absolutistic’ ‘Relativistic’

‘Unconscious’Heuristics

‘Conscious’ Heuristics

‘Aristotelian’ ‘Non-Aristotelian’‘substances’ (‘absolute entities) with ‘properties’; belief that subject-predicate form of representation adequate for science and life

disregard of nervous system, primary reliance on sense data

“A is A.” Law of Identity, absolute sameness exists in this world, focus on similarities, classification based on similarity

process world of dynamic relations—”Not things changing, but change ‘thinging’”; necessity for functional, relational language exemplified by mathematics

t w o - v a l u e d , e i t h e r - o r orientation; leading to rigid, elementalism (verbally separating what does not exist as separated in non-verbal world)

multi-valued, probabilistic degree orientation; non-elementalism

disregard of structure of language structure of language has automatic influence on our orientation; implicatory structure

Et Cetera...

experience of things and their qualities a function of human nervous systems; reliance on inferential knowledge derived from up-to-date science

non-identity: whatever you say something ‘is’, it is not; no two things absolutely the same in all respects; differences in similarities & similarities in differences

A Theory of Sanity

in modern scientific methods we can find

“...in modern scientific methods we can find factors of sanity, to be tested empirically.”

—Alfred Korzybski, “Introduction to the Second Edition, 1941”, Science and Sanity

GS-‘On One Foot’

“If I can only convey to you as the net result of the whole seminar, if you can only learn how to ‘think’ in terms of ‘facts’ instead of definitions, we will have achieved what we want to achieve. It’s one of the most difficult things to do. It will take you a long ‘time’ to do it.”

— Alfred Korzybski, 1948-49 “Flood” Seminar

Extensional v. Intensional Orientationa distinction formulated by Korzybski, based on a contrast between different kinds of definitions