>Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 00:16:50 -0800
>To: ssread-l@newciv.org
>From: Earl Hautala <eh@value.net>
>Subject: S&S, Chapter 12 (15kb)

Chapter XII of _Science and Sanity_

On Order

[Prefatory comment]

K had it right. Understanding the ideas behind Science and Sanity 
will require several readings. For the moment, if we begin by 
granting that he composed carefully, so that every word and sentence 
has sufficient importance to warrant a place in the book, I have 
extracted about 10% of what he had to say after several readings. Maybe 
this interpretation will give others a place to start.
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p. 152 Section A: Undefined terms

around p. 154

Korzybski intends "order" as an undefined term. He uses it at this 
point in the sense of "betweeness."

p. 155

Science attempts to discover "structure." Working toward that goal 
means operating with some set (or sets) of undefined terms. Order 
refers to an undefined term in one or more of those sets. 
Mathematicians have started working along these lines.

Earlier discussions revolved around the idea of defining one's 
terms. K suggests that for further development we need to begin by 
stating our undefined terms. He attempts to do so.

p. 156

K selects the Newtonian reference framework as his point of 
departure. The N frame allows an "infinite" velocity for light. In 
the N frame "simultaneity" has universal meaning and applicability. 
It leads to problems. We cannot have order.

In the non-Newtonian framework (~N) light has a finite velocity.
Events happen relative to light velocity, NOT simultaneously.
Events therefore, have an order.

In this frame, nerve impulses have a finite velocity. Neural events 
have an order. Nerve impulses start somewhere and generate chains of 
events which follow in progression. 

p. 157

Section B: Order and the Nervous System

The brain has developed through time. It has an evolutionary history.
Korzybski's terminology has passed out of common use in brain 
anatomy. 

[I still have some confusion about the different contexts 
in which one discusses brain anatomy. Restak in _The Brain: the last 
frontier_ uses the terms "reptilian", "paleomammalian" (limbic 
system), and "neomammalian" to discuss brain evolution.] 

K talks about the thalamus as a relatively older portion of the 
brain compared to the cortex.

Neurons connect in an order beginning with the the input of 
impulses to the oldest parts of the brain first. These can 
communicate with (evolutionarily) more recent brain structures.

Neural impulses only move one direction through neurons. Neurons 
"fire" from one to one another through synapses (or small gaps) in a 
unidirectional manner. The receptor ends of synapses consist of 
dendrites. A neuron has many dendrites (from 500 to 20,000, Crick, 
_The Astonishing Hypothesis_ [1994] p. 96) The transmitting neuron 
sends pulses or spikes of chemically generated electricity down its 
length to the next synapse where the firing neuron releases 
chemicals called neurotransmitters. These move across the synapse to 
the next neuron. If it reaches firing potential, it then generates 
an electrical pulse down its length, to the next neuron, separated 
from the firing neuron by a synapse. As Crick writes it, neural 
transmissions go through changes in medium from 
electrical --> chemical --> electrical at every synapse.

Excitation of the dendrites of a neuron can do at least 3 things. 
They can excite it, inhibit it or modulate its behavior.

p. 158-9

Korzybski presents some basic neural configurations and their 
relationships. Nerves can combat one another in terms of effect.

p. 160

Neurons have the capacity to spread and amplify impulses. They don't 
act as simple connectors, but as active triggers for the release of 
other sources of potential activity. Every functional neuron stands 
ready to fire and when it fires, it rebuilds its ability to fire 
again from metabolic processes. Neurons also affect glands and 
muscles. The complexity of the brain goes beyond ready comprehension 
(even in 1996).

p. 161

K gives us 4 important ideas to close Section A.

1. The human nervous system exhibits more complexity than that of 
   any animal.
2. The cortex of the brain represents a later development than the 
   inner parts of the brain.
3. The interconnection of the parts of the nervous system is cyclic.
4. The velocity of neural impulses is finite.

That makes the actions of the nervous system ordered.

Section C: Structure, relations and multi-dimensional order.

Now K looses on his readers a barrage, a veritable torrent of 
abstract, undefined, multiordinal terms which he attempts to relate 
to one another in the space of a few paragraphs. 

If he has not said it yet, he will: The content of knowledge is 
order, structure and relation. Almost any simple statement of what 
we accept as fact demonstrates his thesis. Take as an example:
        Books consist of pages. (K didn't write it, I did.)
Understanding the implications of such a proposition takes time, but 
I conclude that comprehension of such a statement implies 
relations, structures and variations of order (all at different 
levels of abstraction).

K counts "structure" as the highest abstraction because it involves 
parts in relation to one another. "Knowing" something consists of 
understanding it in terms of structure. 

p. 162

K continues to write about the impossibility of "infinities." He 
denies again impulses of "infinite velocity" as applied to either 
light or nervous systems. Finite impulses imply order and therefore 
relation and finally structure. He uses finite impulse velocity to 
generate "mind" as a term requiring a relationship with "body" (or 
as I would put it - matter). We cannot treat "mind" as an isolated 
or isolable thing.

p. 163

K goes from sub-atomic structure to function in a couple of 
paragraphs to maintain that we can consider anything empirically 
evident as equivalent if we specify the level of abstraction. In the 
example above, 
              Books consist of pages

we can consider books, pages, cellulose, atoms, and electrons 
as potentially useful ways of talking about things like books. We 
can talk about nervous system function at many levels of abstraction 
as well. So nervous system "activation" as a function relates to 
neurons, dendrites, chemical to electrical activity and almost 
anything else we can perceive, acting in some sequence or order.

p. 164

We can talk about nervous system functions in terms of order. Since 
the nervous system has a multiplicity of connected neurons which 
conduct in only one direction, we can have cyclic transmissions. 
Where we can talk about a reversal of order in abstracting, we 
cannot do so with respect to the impulses in the nervous system. We 
can train or retrain the "activation" (and a host of other terms) of 
neurons. This leads to the possibility of training the human nervous 
system in the direction of "sanity." 

p. 165

Consider the brain's "higher centers" to involve the cortex or 
cortical layers and the "lower centers" to relate to the thalamus 
and subcortical layers.

K began his writing with individual differences, making them 
fundamental (as opposed to the A system). He started "closer to 
nature" at the unspeakable level of individual difference. 
Similarities get treated later as the result of "higher 
abstractions." We must eventually get to similarities to develop 
ways to recognize things. We blur the differences to generate 
abstractions. Abstractions allow us to develop "intelligence."

p. 166-7

K finds the battle over "evolution" as fact or theory a verbal war, 
not related to living creatures. Living entities exist as 
individuals and our arguments about them only measure our ingenuity 
at finding similarities and coining words.

p. 168-9

When considered empirically, living things survive because of their 
ability to adjust to their environment. More complex creatures can 
make more refined adjustments. We start with responses like 
sensation in simple animals and build toward "mind" through the 
increasingly complex forms of living things. We infer a relationship 
between the evolutionary development of the brain and the appearance 
of "mind."

When we get to humans, entering nervous currents have a natural 
direction, from the brain stem to thalamus to cortex -> the natural 
order. Since simple sensations don't always promote survival, more 
complex creatures have developed mental pictures and ideas. Where a 
sensation represents an abstraction of a stimulus, an idea 
represents an nth order abstraction of stimuli.

p. 170

In humans, the order of these abstractions can suffer reversal. Some 
people attend to "ideas", vestigial memories unrelated to immediate 
external sensations. They see, hear, and feel without adequate and 
immediate external stimuli. The reversal of the order of 
abstracting, reforming leftover ideas instead of attending to the 
immediate stimuli from the environment leads to survival problems.
Mental illness, based on some reversal of the natural order of 
abstracting, produces evaluations which result in non-survival.

The fighting of inappropriate ideas or "phantoms" can produce 
physical symptoms as well. Paying attention to the "order" in which 
we form our ideas helps reduce these types of problems. We can 
retrain our _s.r_ as a matter of habit.

p. 171 Order and problems of extension and intension
(This represents the longest section of the chapter.)

I have to summarize the broad sweep of K's comments. Events happen. 
Change occurs (more or less) uniformly and we make up schemes to 
predict those changes. Mathematics represents one of those schemes. 
Psychiatry represents another. To prove useful or accurate, our 
schemes have to correlate with the structure of events (or 
process-events). Additivity and linearity don't always mirror 
events. We seek to pattern the structure of language after the 
structure of the world. Doing that involves following the "natural 
order", beginning with extensional evaluations.

p. 173

Mathematicians have come closer to achieving an extensional 
attitude, promoting survival and mirroring nervous structure. 
 
p 174

Psychiatrists classify individuals in terms of introversion and 
extroversion as a matter of semantic mechanisms. The extrovert 
projects a hostile external universe. The introvert finds his 
problems inside his skin.

p. 175

The well-balanced individual shows a mixture of extroversion and 
introversion. Our educational methods need to promote semantic 
hygiene to prevent building unbalanced individuals. Understanding 
the "natural order" by which we come to have ideas can help  
everyone to avoid fighting phantoms.

p. 176 

The extensional method, attending to incoming sense data before 
attempting to form "ideas" about the environment has 
served us well in terms of survival. The method follows the 
structure of the nervous system. The projection of memory traces 
or ideas into "senses" has characteristics of delusion, illusion, 
and hallucination.

p. 177 

Humans depend on the activitiy of the brain as-a-whole. Animals that 
have developed cortices need them for survival. Those animals that 
do not have cortices behave adequately for their survival. Humans 
(and other corticated animals) don't survive long without a cortex. 

p. 178-9

A functional human brain generates abstractions that lesser brains 
or less functional brains cannot. As a multiordinal term, 
abstracting takes on different meanings in different contexts. We 
can symbolize an abstract term as X and the various contexts of 
usage with a subscripted number. This enables us to reformulate 
extension and intension in terms of order. Order implies extension. 
[I assume K means that you have to sense something to begin the 
process of establishing any sort of order including abstracting.]

p. 180

We can assign each individual a unique name to avoid confusion.
>From unique individuals we can (and do) abstract. The direction 
(beginning with individuals and abstracting to something like 
numbers) follows survival order (or natural order).

Mathematicians come close to doing that. Philosophers don't.

p. 181

K proposes an experiment to determine the relationship of perception 
and imagination or (as he put it) "senses" and "mind." He concludes 
that we can suddenly "see" letters and words just outside our range, 
if we have other sensory input about them. K suggests that "seeing" 
consists of sensory elements processed by higher functions of the 
nervous system. When we talk about seeing we talk about neural 
system function as-a-whole. The splitting of "sense" and "mind" only 
happens verbally. K refers us to his "spiral theory" of nervous 
system function on p. 233 of _Manhood of Humanity_. 

p. 182

K makes an inelegant transition to psychiatry and sublimation. He 
proceeds to make clouded comments about "human nature." He concludes 
that mathematicians don't necessarily qualify as the sanest of the 
sane. Presumably these ideas get sorted out later.

Section E. Concluding remarks on order.

The problems of order and extension when worked out and applied to 
the semantic training of students would lead to a saner generation.
After decrying philosophers, K suggests reading C.I. Lewis, a 
philosopher writing about symbolic logic. 

p. 183

Ordered sequences seem important to animals. K infers that some 
birds cannot continue to build a nest once something gets out of the 
"normal" sequence. He relates that to the human inability pick up 
the recitation of a poem from a line in the middle. 

p. 184

Aphasics have problems with ordered series and relations. We live in 
space-time and efforts to divide spatial events from temporal 
sequence lead us astray. 

The present non-aristotelian system leads to the formulation of 
organisms which develop and function in a natural 4-dimensional 
order. Disturbance or alteration of that (natural) order leads 
toward non-survival. 

The problems of "adjustment", "non-adjustment", "actual" and 
"fictional" have to do with our s.r (another multiordinal term) 
and structural knowledge of the situation. These relate to the ways 
in which we generate ideas and use words or "semantic factors."
Ultimately we have to generate a unified scheme which denies 
elementalism. 

p. 185

Word magic, reification, misplaced concreteness and a host of other 
semantic mistakes have in common a reversal of the natural order of 
abstracting. We confuse orders of abstraction and apply 
inappropriate values to multiordinal words unwittingly. 

I leave it to the readers to decipher the writings of White given on 
pp. 185-7.

K concludes that psychiatrists have not yet gone far enough. In the 
aristotelian system (infantile) any identification can lead to 
improper evaluation and a reversal of the natural order of 
abstracting and problems with sanity. The non-aristotelian system 
eliminates identification and the source of our problems. 
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