[Neurons] 2008 Meta Reflection #25

[meta]

From: L. Michael Hall

2008 Meta Reflections #25

June 2, 2008





WHAT IS A NEURO-SEMANTIC

ENVIRONMENT?






In some earlier Meta Reflections I wrote about time-binding. This refers to one of the great contributions Alfred Korzybski introduced in General Semantics-a foundational source of NLP and Neuro-Semantics. Another concept from him which we use and keep alive in Neuro-Semantics, and that is the concept of neuro-semantic environments.

We know that environments are important. Research has long demonstrated that we feel better in beautiful places and worse in ugly places. In places of beauty enable us to more easily access states of awe, inspiration, peaceful serenity, excitement, love, and compassion. And places of ugliness that look bad, smell bad, sound noisy evoke in us states of irritation, annoyance, frustration, defensiveness, destructiveness, and so on.

Research has demonstrated that people are not able to lift as much in rooms painted light pink as in rooms that are bright and bold colors. This has led to the use of pastel colors in prisons and holding places with people who could potentially become violent. And most of us know all too well the difference between cold days of clouds and rain and inclement weather versus days of blue skies, puffy bright white clouds and sunshine.

The criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in Broken Windows explored the effect of environment and recommended using environment to facilitate social change. When a broken window first appears in a neighborhood, it subtly begins affecting the psychology of the people who live in that neighborhood. If the window is immediately fixed and the building is cleaned up, people have a sense that people care, that people are watching, that they are involved and responsible.

But if the window isn't fixed, it is then more likely that another broken window will soon appear, than another, then graffiti, and so on. The psychological messages is, "No one cares." "No one is watching." "No one is exercising responsibility." And so the neighborhood goes downhill. 

In this case, the environment, as a psychological atmosphere is essentially communicating the message, "Crime is easier here. There's no consequence for destroying things."

Major Ruddy Giuliani learned about this Broken Window theory as he was preparing to become major of New York City. Then upon being inducted into office, he invested the city's money in cleaning up the graffiti and making arrests for small crimes like jumping subway stalls. And the influence of this is accredited, in good part, for taking New York City from number one Murder City down to 106 in the nation (The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell).

That's the power of an environment upon people. So, if that is environment, what is a neuro-semantic environment? This refers to a psychological context. It is the context of meaning (semantic) which our time-binding powers and energies create within our nervous systems and neurology (neuro). And once set, it is the space or field within which we live and from which we operate.

Our neuro-semantic environment is made up of the meaning frames (beliefs, understandings, representational connections, identifications, and the other 100 meta-levels) that we carry with us in our bodies so that we carry a psychological environment everywhere we go. This psychological environment, as a neuro-semantic environment, is the "space," "atmosphere," and the "field" that we experience as our reality-as our sense and feel of reality. And of course, that's why we find it so hard to run away from ourselves. We can run away from an external environment. But even when we change physical environment and move somewhere else, we tend to find ourselves in the same kind of states, thinking, emoting, responding. We take our neuro-semantic environment with us everywhere we go.

So what makes up neuro-semantic environments? Our words, ideas, premises, assumptions, images, metaphors, and all of the other ways that we create meanings. First we create these on our insides in our mind and nervous system, but then we eventually externalize them and create them all around us on our outsides. It's our self-talk and our other-talk. And none of this is neutral or harmless, but powerful neuro-semantically as it creates our inner and outer environments. 

If then you carry your psychological and semantic atmosphere and weather wherever you go, what "weather" do you take with you? What "weather" do you bring to others? Is it dark and cloudy, cold and wet, hot and dry, blue skies and sunshine, or what? Is it loving and kind? Or is it mean and cruel? Is it affirmative of humans or does it diminish people and drag them down?

Korzybski used the word "evaluation" and "evaluational" in his descriptions of neuro-semantic environments. Obviously, when we give meaning to anything, we are making evaluations about what something is, how it works, its value, importance, and significance. For example, he wrote,

"I included neuro-linguistic and neuro-semantic (evaluational) environments as environments" (p. xlv)

Now Korzybski treated these neuro-linguistic and neuro-semantic environments are conditions or factors which mold human personalities and that hold our time-binding learnings in place. In other words, these neuro-semantic environments is part and parcel of our culture.

I like this phrase, neuro-semantic environments, because it highlights the systemic nature of human environments. And it means several things. It means that our environments are not neutral. Put a human in an environment and that human will fill it with all kinds of artifacts that anchor his or her meanings, beliefs, identities, etc. What's inside is projected outside. And what's outside is introjected inside. There's a communication loop. We form our environments and our environments form us-our feelings, beliefs, experiences.

And our inside neuro-semantic environments as meta-state structures are within layers of embedded neuro-semantic environments. Given this, we can now say, Your Matrix is the sum of all of your neuro-semantic environments. Using this as a way to think about ourselves, what are your neuro-semantic environments? What meanings do you live in as your universe of meaning? Is it pessimistic or optimistic? Is it sad and dreadful or joyful and hopeful? Is it supportive and nurturing or limiting and critical?

Many questions and in the next Meta Reflection I will use these exploration questions to examine your physical health, well-being, peace of mind, resilience and more in relationship to the neuro-semantic environment that your cells are living in. Because your cells, by their very nature, live in your neuro-semantic environment- communicating with it and adjust to it!

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Ltd., Executive Director
ISNS - International Society of Neuro-Semantics
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