Information Research Weblog

Frank Miller has drawn my attention to a Web site with some interesting content relevant for the discussion on IR-DISCUSS about information-meaning-knowledge. It is a short paper on 'General Semantics' - a school of thought developed by Alfred Korzybski and can be found at http://www.general-semantics.org/Institute/GD_AKGS.shtml.

In a nutshell: "For a ‘general semanticist’, communication is not merely words in proper order properly inflected (as for the grammarian) or assertions in proper relation to each other (as for the logician) or assertions in proper relation to referents (as for the semanticist), but all these, together with the reactions of the nervous systems of the human beings involved in the communication."

General Semantics has been described as a fad, and a cult and, taken into gestalt psychology it seems to have some of those characteristics. However, the essence of Korzybski's ideas was developed by S.I. Hayakawa in his 'Language in action' (later, 'Language in thought and action'), which, again, Frank recommended to me.

Anatol Rapoport noted of the relationships between the two: "It [Hayakawa's book] clarified the basic ideas in Korzybski's magnum opus, Science and Sanity, retaining their full strength but trimming away the author's narcissistic posturing and obscure verbiage. I read Science and Sanity in Alaska in 1943 and at the time dismissed it as pompous nonsense. But soon afterward I stumbled on Hayakawa's miniature masterpiece and changed my mind." (Source: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6760/still.htm - the author of this site appears to wish to remain anonymous, so how much trust can be placed in his writing is open to question.)

It seems that Hayakawa was able to distil from Korzybski the useful essence of his ideas, while the 'fashion-makers' went for the more outlandish applications.

Tom