General semantics, as any other symbolic environment, has its benefits and its difficulties.

The major focus of many self-avowed general semanticists today seems to me to be aimed at applying a relatively few static extractions related to prescriptions for how to behave. Unfortunately, this emphasis seems to be at the expense of an adequate understanding of the reasoning behind the prescriptions for these behaviors. As a result, the “practice” of general semantics falls largely into the category of self-improvement programs…

As a theory, general semantics “is” a forerunner of genetic epistemology. It predates genetic epistemology and could be called “neo-”logical positivism. (Charlotte Read pointed out that while general semantics is similar to logical positivism, it also differs in some respects.) Stuart Mayper identified Popper’s Philosophy of Science as best illustrating the methodological approach espoused by general semantics.

In up-to-date terms, general semantics is the study of and practical application of a particular epistemology - namely a theory of knowledge based upon a particular model of the multi-level structure and functioning of human information processing, including neurological levels through linguistic levels, in its context - people living in a society in a world (organism-in-its-environment-as-a-whole). In this model the primary process is abstracting from one level to another with an awareness of the process (consciousness of abstracting).

Korzybski’s answer to the question, “how do we know what we know” is rather straight forward and simple. We know what we know through the process of abstracting using our brains and nervous systems.

The product of that process, within nervous systems and as extended into linguistic and verbal levels, is knowledge. At a low level of description the only commonality to all levels is “structure”, albeit different “structure” at each level. This definition of knowledge is a completely new “dictionary definition” that is not to be confused with any others that went before, and is not to be confused with such terms as “truth” (which can be defined a la Tarski), beliefs, ideas, etc.. In general, the products of the abstraction processes are maps. Internal non-verbal maps, external verbal maps, abstract theories (also maps), etc..

Traditional uses of the term “knowledge” tends to imply “valid” maps of territories. Korzybski reserved this criteria to mathematics, which he described as similar in structure to its territory…

The traditional concept of “true” is not operative in the general semantics paradigm. Each of us abstracts to our own maps, and we use those maps as predictors of what we expect to find. When our predictions fail enough, we revise the associated map, but we can never expect that a map can reach a point where we expect that it will never need revision again. At verbal levels external to us, we agree on (and argue about) various maps. Some of us are accepted as authorities, to which the others defer, on particular maps. Such maps we evaluate as having structure “similar to” a hypothesized “structure of reality”.

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