#korzybski

[aezterx]

[memoriesofthingspast]

[warpwoof]

Alfred Korzybski

He pointed out that “either/or” is one of the basic flaws in all Western thinking, like “either intellect or emotion” instead of “both… and…” Because every action is both intellectual and emotional. For example, your cat wakes up and he feels hungry—that’s an emotion, an instinct, but then his front brain goes to work to show him where food has been, there food will be. This is still the basic guiding principle of Hollywood: what has made money will make money. But as soon as that happens, the cat’s front brain is going into operation, taking him to where the food will be—same way with people. So, trying to chop the human body into intellect and emotion… I mean it doesn’t at all correspond to what we know of the human organism and the universe.

So there’s a basic flaw. Another is the definite article, as though it was a permanent: The God, the way, instead of a God, a way. And another is the is of identity, as though this were a permanent status. “He is my servant.” Now, the Egyptian’s glyph: “He as my servant.” At this moment, he is acting as my servant. “The ‘is’ of identity,” Korzybski calls it.

William Burroughs

[onequoteperday]

There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.

Alfred Korzybski

[noosphe-re]

The objective level is not words and cannot be reached by words alone. We must point our finger and be silent, or we shall never reach this level.

Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics 

[triste-le-roy]

Allness is an illness.

Alfred Korzybski, early 20th century

[amecylia23937]

""Is," "is." "is" — the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment." Robert Anton Wilson, The Historical Illuminatus as spoken by Sigismundo Celine AMECYLIA AID

[noosphe-re]

A word is a symbol. Before a sign may become a symbol something must exist for this sign to symbolize, else the sign has no meaning; it is not a symbol, not a word, but a noise.

Alfred Korzybski