I think this conversation could start with a good dose of Korzybski and General Semantics.
“Being creepy” does not represent the situation as well as “Person X is uncomfortable with Person Y’s overtures for an increased level of personal contact.”
Thankyou buybuy. Tabooing the term and describing the actual behaviors and circumstances specifically is exactly what is called for here!
You seem to be one of the list elders, so to speak, so I’ve got a tangential question for you.
I see occasional references to Korzybski, and the Map is Not The Territory sequence article. “Tabooing a word” is just the kind of semantic hygiene practice of which he had zillions—in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he originated “tabooing a word”.
But I don’t get the impression that a lot of people here have read his work, or if they did, few have interest. What’s your sense of the level of familiarity with and interest in Korzybski here?
But I don’t get the impression that a lot of people here have read his work, or if they did, few have interest. What’s your sense of the level of familiarity with and interest in Korzybski here?
Yours is the only reference I can recall. From the sound of it I’d like to hear more. Any other key insights of his that you think we could benefit from?
Hard to summarize a lot of stuff, and I don’t know that seeing the summary without the explanation of it is that helpful.
Instead, I’ll apply General Semantics to my response to the conversation, as an imaginary Korzybski (K). It’s been a while since I read the stuff, so my use of his terms will doubtless lack some precision, and be colored by my own attitude as well.
K: We have a discussion here. People are saying things like Joe is creepy, or Joe is a creep.
K: They are using the “is of identity”, and the “is of predication”. We know that this falsifies reality. An apple is not red, but is perceived as red by us in the proper circumstances. In other circumstances, we would not perceive it as red. Even taking a conscious being out of the equation, the apple would be measured as red by some instrument or process under certain conditions, and not red in other circumstances.
K: Now let’s look at the term “creep”. Our total evaluative response to the word “creep” contains a mass of associative (often emotive) and extensional (observable) components. We have many negative and unpleasant emotional associations with the term. If we are going to properly evaluate Joe and his behavior instead of merely letting our reactions to words that we chose to apply to Joe dictate our response to Joe, we should limit our discussion to extensional terms.
K: Unfortunately, it seems to me that even the implied extensional usage of the word is highly variable in this discussion, with creep_you <> creep_me <> creep_him <> creep_her, to a degree that impacts effective communication. The same is likely true even of creep_him_1, creep_him_2, creep_him_3 - people aren’t being consistent in their own usage of the term.
K: So let’s make an explicit extensional definition of the word “creep” to test whether we have been communicating at all.
ME: I would add that the various comments on blame/responsibility that try to get around blame by resorting to causality don’t get us anywhere. Joe’s behavior no more caused Jane’s reaction than Jane’s emotional and perceptual makeup. Change either sufficiently, and Jane does not perceive Joe as creepy. I think this is implicit in K’s method, but I don’t recall him this particular discussion on causality. Although it’s starting to ring a few bells in some musty old neurons.
There’s a lot of other stuff. I consider General Semantics as semantic hygiene, seeing how certain semantic practices encourage bad habits of thought, and having specific counter practices for avoiding the poor habits of thought. Purell for the mind.
In the end, I don’t think the counter practices are necessary to keep your ideas clean and tidy as long as you’ve internalized an aversion to the poor habits of thought, but they help when confusion is afoot.
Couldn’t find the definitive “tabooing a word”, if there is such a thing, but after the taboo, I think EY recommends replacing it with what amounts to an “extensional” description.
But I don’t get the impression that a lot of people here have read his work, or if they did, few have interest. What’s your sense of the level of familiarity with and interest in Korzybski here?
I’ve seen a few references, and the impression I got is that the sequence on words overlaps a lot with Korzybski’s General Semantics.
Thankyou buybuy. Tabooing the term and describing the actual behaviors and circumstances specifically is exactly what is called for here!
You’re welcome.
You seem to be one of the list elders, so to speak, so I’ve got a tangential question for you.
I see occasional references to Korzybski, and the Map is Not The Territory sequence article. “Tabooing a word” is just the kind of semantic hygiene practice of which he had zillions—in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he originated “tabooing a word”.
But I don’t get the impression that a lot of people here have read his work, or if they did, few have interest. What’s your sense of the level of familiarity with and interest in Korzybski here?
Yours is the only reference I can recall. From the sound of it I’d like to hear more. Any other key insights of his that you think we could benefit from?
Hard to summarize a lot of stuff, and I don’t know that seeing the summary without the explanation of it is that helpful.
Instead, I’ll apply General Semantics to my response to the conversation, as an imaginary Korzybski (K). It’s been a while since I read the stuff, so my use of his terms will doubtless lack some precision, and be colored by my own attitude as well.
K: We have a discussion here. People are saying things like Joe is creepy, or Joe is a creep.
K: They are using the “is of identity”, and the “is of predication”. We know that this falsifies reality. An apple is not red, but is perceived as red by us in the proper circumstances. In other circumstances, we would not perceive it as red. Even taking a conscious being out of the equation, the apple would be measured as red by some instrument or process under certain conditions, and not red in other circumstances.
K: Now let’s look at the term “creep”. Our total evaluative response to the word “creep” contains a mass of associative (often emotive) and extensional (observable) components. We have many negative and unpleasant emotional associations with the term. If we are going to properly evaluate Joe and his behavior instead of merely letting our reactions to words that we chose to apply to Joe dictate our response to Joe, we should limit our discussion to extensional terms.
K: Unfortunately, it seems to me that even the implied extensional usage of the word is highly variable in this discussion, with creep_you <> creep_me <> creep_him <> creep_her, to a degree that impacts effective communication. The same is likely true even of creep_him_1, creep_him_2, creep_him_3 - people aren’t being consistent in their own usage of the term.
K: So let’s make an explicit extensional definition of the word “creep” to test whether we have been communicating at all.
ME: I would add that the various comments on blame/responsibility that try to get around blame by resorting to causality don’t get us anywhere. Joe’s behavior no more caused Jane’s reaction than Jane’s emotional and perceptual makeup. Change either sufficiently, and Jane does not perceive Joe as creepy. I think this is implicit in K’s method, but I don’t recall him this particular discussion on causality. Although it’s starting to ring a few bells in some musty old neurons.
There’s a lot of other stuff. I consider General Semantics as semantic hygiene, seeing how certain semantic practices encourage bad habits of thought, and having specific counter practices for avoiding the poor habits of thought. Purell for the mind.
In the end, I don’t think the counter practices are necessary to keep your ideas clean and tidy as long as you’ve internalized an aversion to the poor habits of thought, but they help when confusion is afoot.
(May be worth editing your comment and replacing all instances of “_” with “\_”.)
Time and place indexing—for what times and places do you have evidence of something being true?
Now that I think about it, Eliezer’s year subscripts for his different stages of understanding may be a result of influence from Korzybski.
Couldn’t find the definitive “tabooing a word”, if there is such a thing, but after the taboo, I think EY recommends replacing it with what amounts to an “extensional” description.
I’ve seen a few references, and the impression I got is that the sequence on words overlaps a lot with Korzybski’s General Semantics.
Eliezer got some early influence from the General Semantics-inspired Null-A books by A.E. van Vogt.
(I’m leaving two versions of this comment in different threads because DeeElf also asked about Korzybski and LW.)
Thank you for the link to the other discussion. I had been assuming more familiarity Korzybski than seems to be the case.