Korzybski seems to be starting with Descartes 1st principle: I think therefore I am. The I looks out and is confronted with a mystery. That mystery is the unknown that we encounter. This is the territory. The thing that needs to be explored. To use a Taoist metaphor: the territory is the uncarved block, waiting for the map makers to carve out of that block some specific shape out of the potentially infinite possibilities of shapes that could be carved out of that previously uncarved block.
In trying to find our way in this territory we make maps, which guide us and help us to recall where we have been. But the maps we make are not and can never be the 100% equivalent of the territory. They can only hope to have a structure that resembles the territory. The map is always less than the territory. The territory is infinite in its abundance of details. The map is a finite thing which has elements extracted from the territory to be represented on the map. That process of extraction is important. We extract according to some logic. That logic which defines what data we will extract comes as a result of the more foundational map, tool, the metaphor we are using to build and base upon our new next level map.
An example will be illustrative. On the stable pattern that we call the planet Earth there is a stable pattern we call the North American continent. This continent will be the territory we will focus on for this illustration. This continent will be the uncarved block of this demonstration. Now, we can make a map that shows the geographic features of that continent. It would show placements of rivers, streams, mountains, plains, marshes, forests, etc. We could make a political map of the territory. This map would show political boundaries of countries, states, provinces, etc. We could make a population map of the territory, showing density of population settlement throughout the territory. We could make a road map of the territory. This would show all the paved surfaces that cars and other similar vehicles can drive on. We could make a linguistic map that shows the varying languages spoken and read by the population living on the continent. We could show a map of average rain fall in the territory. A map that show migratory patterns of the animals that live within the territory. And so on.
We can make potentially infinite number of different maps each depending on the beginning inquiry or purpose of the map. Recognizing this potentially infinite number of maps that can be made from the potentially infinite amount of data that can be abstracted and considered in any given territory/object, is another given premise of Null-A-logic. Null-A-logic assumes that any one map maker will by definition not be able to abstract all the data from the territory/object. Any one person can only abstract a finite amount of data. The total amount of data is, by definition in Null-A-logic, potentially infinite.
Now what is the relationship of each of these maps to the other? Is one �true� and the others �false�? According to A-logic if one is true the others should be false. Since truth and falsity is measured by all or nothing. A-logic assumes opposition and contradiction must always be present. Yet we know that all those maps are true, assuming they were made accurately by their respective map makers. The truth of one does not take away from the truth of the others. All are valid given their context. Null-A-logic takes into consideration the possibilities of potentially infinite contexts and the possibility that multiple choices are not mutually exclusive or in opposition.
Now, consider this question: Compare a political map drawn up in 1776 with a political map drawn up in 2000, will they be the same? Is one true and the other false? Of course not, both are true given the context of the year under examination. Objects are not static and eternal but dynamic and changing. A map is always a map made at a actually real designated point in time and it is a map considering only a single designated point in time. The object/territory exist in an ever changing environment and so does the map maker. At any one time the map maker must fix the point of time of her inquiry, can only make a static map and therefore must make a static and unchanging map that which is in reality in the context of its actual environment, the territory is dynamic and constantly subject to change. These are all given premise of Null-A-logic.
In Null-A-logic truth or falsehood is contextual and even in any given context is not necessarily a matter of all or nothing. Null-A-logic realizes that human beings are the ones who are the map makers. A real human map maker may conclude that she has made a truthful map but we can come along examine that map and consider factors that were not considered by the first map maker and thus conclude that the map is only partially true even within its own context. It is valid given the facts known to the map maker at the time she was making the map. There could be facts that were unknown to the map maker, or the map maker failed to consider the importance of those facts, in either or both cases the resulting map is neither 100% accurate nor is it 100% inaccurate. It is both, or more descriptively we could assign a percentage to its accuracy and/or inaccuracy, given the contexts of either considering or not considering the overlooked or missing facts.
All of the above and much more is involved in using Null-A-logic. A-logic should be considered a subset of Null-A-logic. A-logic is a valid and a useful tool when the previously unstated premises of A-logic are recognized in accordance with the premises of Null-A-logic. Some of the actually stated premises of Null-A-logic are that things change, that there potentially infinite collections of facts, that maps are made by real living map makers in a real environment, that no map maker can consider all the facts, that truth or falseness is contextual and not measured in exclusively 100% or 0% terms. That attributes need not be in opposition but may be complementary, and so on.
My meta-inquiry is concerned with discovering the logic we use to determine what is believed to be significant enough to be represented on the map we make. Every human endeavor to comprehend anything is the act of making a map. Humans are map makers and map users.
Korzybski�s second fundamental principle is the realization of another basic relationship. The relationship between �words� and �things�. The word �word� is being used as a symbolic placeholder for all human created symbols. Here the term �all� is to be totally 100% inclusive. The word �thing� is being used as a symbolic placeholder for all things other than humanly created symbols. Again the term �all� is to be considered as 100% inclusive. Thus the second principle is this: The word is not the thing. The thing is that which is before human words. The thing is non-verbal. The thing is pre-verbal.
Korzybski�s concept is a variation of Lao Tzu�s first verse of his first chapter in his book The Tao Te Ching. It can be translated from the Chinese as: �The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.� The Tao is the undefined and the ultimate indefinable thing. It is the ultimate thing, the all inclusive territory. The spoken Tao is the human made map, all human words. Lao Tzu�s verse can be re-translated using Korzybski�s metaphors thusly: The thing or territory that can be spoken and made into words and maps is not the true thing or territory.
To explain the above principle Korzybski offers the following. [Note: All of the following is from his book Science and Sanity. I will use square brackets to represent my insertions. The bold text are emphasis that Korzybski designated in his book.]:
1. �The objective level [the thing] is not words, can not be reached by words alone, and has nothing to do with �good� or �bad� [i.e. values]; neither can it be understood as �non-expressible by words� or �not to be described by words�, because the terms �expressible� or �described� already presuppose words and symbols. Something, therefore, which we call �a chair� or �a toothache� may be expressed or described by words; yet, the situation is not altered, because the given description or expression will not be the objective level [aka: the thing] which we call �a chair� or �a toothache�.
2. �Say whatever you choose about the object [the thing], and whatever you might say is not it. Or, in other words: Whatever you might say the object [the thing] �is�, well it is not. This negative statement is final, because it is negative.�
3. �I want to make clear only that words are not the things spoken about, and that there is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.�
4. �We must realize that structure, and structure alone is the only link between languages and the empirical world.�
5. �If we reflect upon our languages, we find that at best they must be considered only as maps. A word is not the object it represents; and languages exhibit also this peculiar self-reflexiveness, that we can analyze languages by linguistic means.�
6. �As words are not the objects which they represent, structure and structure alone, becomes the only link which connects verbal processes with the empirical data. To achieve adjustment and sanity and the conditions which follow from them, we must study structural characteristics of this world first, and, then only, build languages of similar structure, instead of habitually ascribing to the world the primitive structure of our languages.�
7.�If there is no such thing as an absolutely isolate object, then, at least, we have two objects, and we shall always discover some relation between them, depending on our interest, ingenuity, and what not. Obviously, for a man to speak about anything at all, always presupposes two objects, at least; namely the object spoken about and the speaker, and so a relation between the two is always present. Even in delusions, illusions and hallucinations, the situation is not changed; because our immediate feelings are also un-speakable and not words.�
I have been using and offering an additional Null-A principle, which is the following: that with any given two stable intellectual patterns/things a relationship can be found by considering one as an abstract 100% factor at one end of a continuum and the other thing the another abstract 100% factor at the opposite end of the continuum. Using this continuum as a analytic tool of comparison to any other object/stable pattern be it organic, biological, social or intellectual. The object/stable pattern under consideration will be found to fall somewhere between the two abstract poles of that subsequently made continuum tool. Example: 100% Truth at one end and 100% falsehood at the other. Now, use this a measuring device of the product of analysis. The products of analysis will be found to be either more or less true or false. Another example: 100% abstract Blackness at one end and 100% abstract Whiteness at the opposite end. All inorganic and biological stable patterns when their shade or color is under consideration will be able to be placed somewhere at some point on that continuum. A way to designate continuums, and some other examples of continuums are the following: True--False, Black--White, Good--Bad, Matter--Mind, Science--Religion, Science--Art, Parts--Wholes, Dynamic--Static, Yin--Yang, Romantic Quality--Classic Quality, Objective�Subjective, etc. Under A-logic these two pairs of abstract things were considered to be, by the definitions and application of the rules of, A-logic in opposition, exclusive, absolutely different factors and/or forces. Under Null-A-logic any such pairs of the continuum are to be considered by definition potentially similar, complementary, interrelated and interactive factors and/or forces.
Null-A logic as I see it is also a Taoist system. The two end points of any continuum are such that one defines the other, one creates the other. Here is Lao Tzu explaining the nature of the Tao and how it creates our sense of reality.
Everyone recognizes beauty
only because of ugliness
Everyone recognizes virtue
only because of sin
Life and death are born together
Difficult and easy
Long and short
High and low-
all these exist together
Sound and silence blend as one
Before and after arrive as one
Aristotle would say that we can take any of the pairs, say beauty, consider that A, which therefore means that non-A exists, which is ugliness. Or we could take the opposite approach and say A is ugliness and that makes non-A beauty. It becomes our metaphysical bias to project onto the world which is the �real� thing and which is the shadow, the non-A. And so on with each of the pairs in Lao Tzu verse. And the same with all of the conceptual pairs at each end of the Null-A continuum. The one concept creates the other. It is because of the one that we can recognize the existence of the other. The two exist together. They blend as one. They arrive as one.
Become totally empty
Quiet the restlessness of the mind
Only then will you witness everything
unfolding from emptiness
See all things flourish and dance
in endless variation
And once again merge back into perfect emptiness-
their true repose
their true nature
Emerging, flourishing, dissolving back again
this is the eternal process of return
To know this process brings enlightenment
To miss this process brings disaster
Lao Tzu is saying that in the mind we create these ideas out of the stuff of the infinite when our mind comes in contact with the universe. Pirsig would calls this meeting of mind and the external infinite universe a Quality event. From this Quality event all things unfold, flourish, emerge, and merge. It is an endless dance that the two partners together create. To fail to realize that the two partners dancing together make the performance is to bring about conceptual problems and potential disaster.
Though formless and intangible
It gives rise to form
Though vague and elusive
It gives rise to shapes
Though dark and obscure
It is the spirit, the essence,
�But is it real? You ask-
I say its evidence is all of creation!
From the first moment to the present
The Name has been sounding
It is the gate
Through which the universe enters
The witness
By which the universe sees
Lao Tzu is saying that ideas, the Tao, is potential waiting to manifest before the interaction of the human mind and the Infinite Universe. Before the Quality event all is formless, intangible, vague, elusive, dark, and obscure, But once the event takes place, mind and the universe converse and meet then from this ideas take on a form, take on a shape, have an essence. Is this real? Absolutely, replies Lao Tzu. The interaction of mind and the universe, the Quality event, the process of the Tao, is the gate through which all things come to our awareness and hence exist for us and enabling us to see and notice them.
