Korzybski & Tri-Modal Logic

Can anyone who has studied the matters comment on any validity to Korzybski's General semantics or to non-Aristotelian logics?

One of Korzybski's principles, Null-I, or "non-identity" seems to contradict Rand. Yet its import seems to be an assertion that identification is contextual:

Null-I is non-Identity; General Semantics teaches that no two phenomena can ever be shown identical (if only because they may differ beyond the limits of measurement) and that it is more sane to think in terms of "sufficient similarity for the purposes of the analysis we are currently performing".

I would appreciate any comments, especially on non-traditional logics. Is there any such logic worth investigating?

Post 1

Monday, July 28, 2008 - 12:13am

Ted,

Please don't jump to the conclusion that I know anything about Korzybski's General semantics or non-Aristotelian logics. I don't.

But I had to comment on the quote. "...no two phenomena can ever be shown identical (if only because they may differ beyond the limits of measurement)..."

I see many problems with that. Identity is a concept, at its base, that a thing is what it is - which means no matter the measurement. We need that identification to bridge from metaphysics to epistemology. I see you on Monday and I know you are Ted. Then I see you on Tuesday and I still recognize that you are Ted even if you have changed clothes and had a hair cut. If I am temporarily fooled by someone that looks like you, it is a properly referred to as case of mistaken identity. No matter how many measurements of the psuedo-Ted are exactly the same, the essential is different - it isn't Ted. Identity is absolute because it deals with the essential.

Second, Identity is given context by the hierarchical nature of knowledge such that the approriate measurements are omitted thus avoiding that bug-a-boo he raises. Once we define "dog" then the differences in measurements of different dogs is no way an affront to the concept of Identity. It is the very presence of context that allows Identity to remain absolute.

Identity allows for building knowledge hierarchically without the errors that arise when Identity is ignored or treated as marginal. Philosophically the concept of identity solves the quandry posed by Heraclitus who proclaimed that there was only change ("We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not.") while ignoring that by using the concept "same rivers" that he was implying that ALL cannot change - that there is identity.

Here is a quote from Rand in IOE, pg. 6:

The (implicit) concept "existent" undergoes three stages of development in man's mind. The first stage is the child's awareness of objects, of things - which represents the (implicit) concept "entity." The second and closely allied stage is the awareness of specific, particular things, which he can recognize and distinguish from the rest of his perceptual field - which represents the (implicit) concept of identity. The third stage consists of grasping relationships among these entities by grasping the similarities and differences of their identities.

Then in the Appendix (expanded 2nd addition), pg. 240: She is answering a question about how "existence" and "identity" have the same units yet they are different concepts. Her questioner asks,

"...[is] what distinguishes the concepts "existence" and "identity"... that the concept "existence" differentiates this object from nothing, while "identity" distinguishes this object from that?"

She agrees but goes on to say that existence is the wider concept and talks about how a child first grasps that something exists and then that it exists as something. She concludes saying,

Therefore, the referants of the concept "identity" are specific concretes or specific existents. And, you see, even though it is the same concept, the whole disaster of philosophy is that philosophers try to separate the two.

Korzybski goes on to say,
it is more sane to think in terms of "sufficient similarity for the purposes of the analysis we are currently performing".
But we need identity to recognize "sufficient similarity." As to context, it is always present: the context of the person's level of knowledge, the context of the knowledge available in the historical period, as well as the context of the purpose.

I also find his argument of differences "beyond the limits of measurement" to be meaningless since everything can in theory be measured differently or more accurately in some future circumstance. That being the case, nothing is the same, hence everything is without indentity. (It is like another back door into the synthetic/analytic dichotomy - just create some artificial statements that are disconnected from reality - and have no measurements - and they can have identity but no existence, everything else can exist, but have no identity).

Post 2

Monday, July 28, 2008 - 5:41am

Does your dogue bite?

Steve, I'm quite aware of all the immediate Randian objections to Korzybski. I could easily have written your post myself. In fact, it is only his statement that "it is more sane to think in terms of sufficient similarity for the purposes of the analysis we are currently performing" which made me wonder whether there might be any value at all in his work. For if one looks at particular situations, certainty is not always absolute, as it is in the case of axioms. Rather, particular "beliefs" are sufficient if the certainty we have is adequate, not absolute. For example, one is justified in accepting Newton's equations as "adequate within the context of one's present knowledge" until evidence might arise that his equations were not exact.

Since I know nothing more about Korzybski than what I read on wikipedia (I had been reading about Heinlein when I followed the link to K. via "general Semantics" - a matter I had always found intriguing but obviously quite dubious for an Objectivist when reading Heinlein) I am just barely able to imagine giving Kozybski enough of the benefit of the doubt to think that he might have some concepts worth trying to understand. I cannot imagine that he has a coherent system, given his obvious flaws. But I don't need those flaws pointed out to me - believe me, they are glaring enough. Even Nietzsche and Ortega y Gasset, both of whom espouse a lot of nonsense, are worth reading for the interesting ideas they do have. They have to be approached with some charity in order to be benefitted from in the limited ways that they offer value. For this reason, I was hoping that someone who has read Korzybski (or studied multivalent logic) could tell me whether approaching those issues with generosity might be fruitful or not.

A good analogy would be that I have seen a dog I would like to pet, but which obviously might be vicious. I am asking whether you (or anyone) knows if it bites. I'd really like to hear from the owner, not a passer-by who can reiterate what is already quite obvious to me, that the dog probably does bite. The last thing I need is to hear that he's not your dog...

Post 3

Monday, July 28, 2008 - 8:50am

Ouch, someone's dog just bit me!

Ted, I respect your intelligence too much to reply with anything I would have suspected to be condescending. I know that I often have a blind spots of my own and I probably just projected (and I don't get prickly - well, try not to - when someone points one out for me). I had no idea what you found that was of merit in that quote. I only knew what I didn't like about it.

I was quite please with my post - not for anything you might or might not get from it - but that I had worked out, on my own, and wrote what you read in the first three paragraphs, before I went into IOE, verified that my understandings were right, and grabbed the quotes. I was feeling the glow of realizing that I'd correctly integrated some concepts that I hadn't worked with, in that way, in a long time, and the degree to which they were now mine.

And the concept about the need of identity to build the hierarchy of knowledge was my extrapolation. In my mind I saw it as maintaining a continuity of integrity, like a chain of evidence, or a provenance with a work of art. Just some fuzzy thoughts I didn't include.

Anyway, you were warned at the start of my post: I know nothing of man or his work.

Post 4

Monday, July 28, 2008 - 10:53am

Hi Ted,

Never heard of null-I til you mentioned it here. It seems rather banal, just a chip off the ol' fuzzy logic. I haven't studied fuzzy logic, so I don't know how useful it is. Seems like a spin-off, somewhat, of statistical reasoning, which is incredibly useful.

There're plenty of non-traditional logics that are very much worth investigating, many of which compatible with basic Aristotelian logic. For example, I would highly commend the wide world of modal logic. And if you consider predicate logic "non-traditional", you should have a look at that, too.

To the matter at hand, I think it's a mistake for null-I to be called "non-identity" because, sure, no two things are identical, but *being identical* and *having the same identity* mean different things. Monday Ted and Thursday Ted are non-identical but they share the same identity. So I'd suggest a more accurate term for null-I is "non-identicalness."

Jordan

(Edited by Jordan on 7/28, 4:11pm)

Post 5

Monday, July 28, 2008 - 11:22am

Steve, I didn't find anything at all wrong with your post. In fact, had I come out and said that Korzybski was great, and left it at that, you would have written a more than adequate orthodox rebuttal. My immediate impression was regret that I had put you through all that work. Like I said, I don't need a rebuttal, which I could do my self. I'm just curious if anyone knows the subjects well enough to advise if there be anything at all of value worth investigating.

Post 6

Monday, July 28, 2008 - 11:51am