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Alfred Korzybski

Alfred Korzybski Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Alfred Korzybski Quotes

“For the layman, as well as for the majority of the physicists in their less sober, or metaphysical, moments, 'space' is 'emotionally' newtonian and an 'absolute void', which, of course, being 'absolute nothingness', cannot have objective existence, by definition. For Einstein, 'space-time' is, semantically, 'fulness', not 'emptiness', and, in his language, he does not need any term like 'ether', as his 'plenum', structurally, covers the ground, without his committing himself to a definite two-valued mechanistic ether. The confusion of orders of abstractions, from which we all suffer, is semantic, and is due to disregard of the structure and role of language. If we accept a non-el language of space-time, structurally we deal with fulness, and we should not use the term 'space', as its old semantic implications are 'emptiness', and so are very confusing. The 'sensation' of Einstein's declaration amounts to the fact that the sub-microscopic fulness ('space') is more important than a few kinks or concentrations of that fulness ('matter'), - a fact which science has established, and which is quite obvious.”

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Book:Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering
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“If we do not objectify, and feel instinctively and permanently that words are not the things spoken about, then we could not speak abouth such meaningless subjects as the 'beginning' or the 'end' of time. But, if we are semantically disturbed and objectify, then, of course, since objects have a beginning and an end, so also would 'time' have a 'beggining' and an 'end'. In such pathological fancies the universe must have a 'beginning in time' and so must have been made., and all of our old anthropomorphic and objectified mythologies follow, including the older theories of entropy in physics. But, if 'time' is only a human form of representation and not an object, the universe has no 'beginning in time' and no 'end in time'; in other words, the universe is 'time'-less. The moment we realize, feel permanently, and utilize these realizations and feelings that words are not things, then only do we acquire the semantic freedom to use different forms of representation. We can fit better their structure to the facts at hand, become better adjusted to these facts which are not words, and so evaluate properly m.o (multi-ordinal) realities, which evaluation is important for sanity.”

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Book:Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics
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“There are several important remarks which can be made about this 'absolute emptiness' and 'absolute nothingness'. First of all, we now know, theoretically and empirically, that such a thing does not exist. There may be more or less of something, but never an unlimited 'perfect vacuum'. In the second place, our nervous make-up, being in accord with experience, is such that 'absolute emptiness' requires 'outside walls'. The question at once arises, is the world 'finite' or 'infinite'? If we say 'finite', it has to have outside walls, and then the question arises: What is 'behind the walls'? If we say it is 'infinite', the problem of the psychological 'walls' is not eliminated. and we still have the semantic need for walls, and then ask what is beyond the walls. So we see the such a world suspended in some sort of an 'absolute void' represents a nature against human nature, and so we had to invent something supernatural to account for such assumed nature against human nature. In the third place, and this remark is the most fundamental of all, because a symbol must stand for something to be a symbol at all, 'absolute nothingness' cannot be objective and cannot be symbolized at all. This ends the argument, as all we may say about it is neither true nor false, but non-sense. We can make noises, but say nothing about the external world. It is easy to see that 'absolute nothingness' is a label for a semantic disturbance, for verbal objectification, for a pathological state inside our skin, for a fancy, but not a symbol, for a something which has objective existence outside our skin.”

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Book:Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics
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“Until Einstein (roughly), THE universe of Newton was, for us, THE universe. With Einstein, it became A universe. Something similar happen to man. A new 'man' was produced, just as good, certainly contraditory to the old one. THE man became A man, otherwise a 'conceptual construction', one among the infinity of possible ones.”

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Book:Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics
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