[Neurons] 2011 Meta Reflections #9

[L. Michael Hall]

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Meta Reflections 2011 - #9

Feb. 21, 2011

 

                        

A SEMANTIC CLASS OF LIFE

Alfred Korzybski Series #5

 

 

Read Science and Sanity and you will hear Korzybski repeatedly asserting
that we humans are a semantic class of life.  So what does that mean?  What
is the significance of that for Neuro-Semantics?

 

Being a semantic class of life means that it is our nature and job to create
meaning and live our lives by the meanings that we create.   Further, we are
a semantic creatures due to the very way our nervous system and brain
operates as it "abstracts" (e.g., generalizes and summarizes) from the world
outside our neurology.   In other words, we are beings who live by symbols
(by words, images, sounds, sensations, ideas, etc.).

 

Actually, we can live so much by symbols that we can fail to distinguish
between our symbols and the reality to which we refer, between our maps
about reality and the territory of reality itself.  When that happens, we
confuse our map with the territory.  We then identify two things which exist
on different logical levels and this reduces our sense of sanity.

 

As a semantic class of life, you create and live your life by your symbols.
That's why you respond to your world in terms of your maps.   NLP founders
described this when they said "it is not the world that we deal with, but
our maps of the world."  This creates several challenges.  First, if you
confuse your thoughts with the territory, you may stop looking with fresh
eyes and ears and over-value your mental maps and devote yourself to them as
if they were absolute and final.  They are not and they cannot be absolute
and final!

 

So the challenge is to not over-identify with your beliefs, understandings,
decisions, intentions with reality.  The challenge is to stay present,
current, open, and flexibility.  The opposite is being sure, definite,
rigid, to know-it-all, to stop questioning and exploring.  The opposite is
to become a "true believer" and so believe in your maps that "you cannot be
wrong," "cannot be mistaken."  Do that and you will become a fanatic
believer in your maps.

 

Isn't this the challenge we all face-to see the world in a fresh way each
day?  To "lose our mind and come to our senses" (Fritz Perls).  To purely
observe and witness what we see, hear, and feel without judgment.  This is
not an easy thing to do.  What is easy to do is to see the world through the
lens of our paradigms and to assume that what we see is what is there.

 

Actually this describes the structure of hallucination and hypnosis, which
is fine if you know that you are doing that!  If you don't, if you are not
conscious of your mapping or abstracting, then you are in danger.  Danger of
what?   Danger of making a "poor adjustment" to the world since you are
conscious of the world as filtered through your map, not the world as it is.
This, says Korzybski, first makes you "unsane" and if continued, then
eventually "insane."  This continuum from sane to unsane to insane-is
Korzybski's language for a search for a good adjustment to the territory and
the neuro-linguistic basis of sanity.

 

Everyday Semantic Reactions and Hallucinations

Imagine a teenage boy, Johnny, who likes to sleep in.  If he doesn't get up
in the morning when called and does that regularly, he might get labeled
"lazy" (unspecified verb).  Let's say his dad gives him that label and
thereafter only see Johnny's "laziness" (a nominalization) when Johnny
doesn't get up.  In this case, the behavior becomes identified with the
dad's symbol that evaluates the behavior.  Then dad's linguistic map begins
to determine his experience in relating to Johnny.

 

Or, if a little girl takes some money from her mom's purse and mom gives her
the label of "thief."  Will not mom then begin to think of little Suzie in
terms of that label?  To her Suzie is a thief.  And this will disturb mom
and create within her semantic disturbances.  As this mapping occurs, it
will affect mom's nervous reactions creating within her such experiences as
distress, anger, frustration, guilt, etc.   She creates these "semantic
reactions" to little Suzie's actions as filtered through these linguistic
mappings.

 

What's the problem here?  Is it what Johnny or Suzie is doing?  Is it their
behaviors?  Or is the problem the mental models that linguistically maps
these evaluations about the actions?

 

Sadly, this is true of most of our reactions.  Most of the time our
responses are semantic reactions.  We are reacting in a holistic mind-body
way to a linguistic meaning that we created in our mind.  By mentally
identifying certain words and understandings with some action, we generate
our semantic reaction.  And if not caught and corrected, this will
eventually lead to more several pathological semantic reactions.   Because
we are a semantic class of life, our "nature" is inevitably comprised of our
semantics (meanings, beliefs), and so our semantic reactions.

 

Neuro-Linguistic Awareness

A lady in her fifties came for therapy.  "I can't stand it!" 

            "What specially can you not stand?" 

"That John won't do the work of working on our marriage.  He's such a
coward, such a wimp, such a 'nice' person that has to maintain his 'nice'
image but won't engage me."

"Hmmmm.  Sounds like you're having a semantic reaction to this obviously
unacceptable behavior."

 

"Semantic reaction?  What are you talking about?  I'm just reacting to
John's irresponsibility!" 

"Yes, John is certainly doing something that you don't want and don't like.
So to help me understand, describe the external behavior that John is giving
you without making any evaluative statements about it."

 

"He left me.  He says he doesn't want to be married to me anymore because I
won't accept him."

"Well done.  That's fairly descriptive about what happen in the outside
world.   Now tell me about your subjective world, the world inside your skin
where you give meaning to things and emotionally register those meanings.
What significance do you give to this behavior?"

 

"He's betraying our marriage vows.  He's rejecting me and making me live a
lonely life without companionship or joy." 

"Ah, yes I can hear that those are your semantics-your meanings.  And what
powerful meanings you're giving to his behavior!  You have created the
belief that he has 'made' you experience these internal states.  So no
wonder you find it so distressful!  And yet these are your semantic
reactions.  If you were giving it different meanings, you'd have different
reactions, wouldn't you?  Do you want to be married to someone who won't
engage you?"  

"No.  Of course not."  

"Then his behavior gives you information about him.  It tells you about his
beliefs and limitations.  When you think of it like that how do you feel?"

 

Summary

Ah semantic reactions!   We all have them and we have them every day.  We do
not just react to things, we semantically react.  We "get out buttons
pushed" so that we become reactive, emotional, upset, frustrated,
stressed-out, etc.  And why?  Because of the meanings that we give to
things.  

 

What's the solution?  In Neuro-Semantics we describe the solution with
several statements and these will be explained more fully in the coming
posts: 

The meanings you give is the life that you live.

            The meanings you give is the "instinct" that you live.

The meanings you give determine the very quality of your mind, your
emotions, your relationships, and ultimately your life.

Because you are the meaning-maker, the ability to create, sustain, change,
and transform meanings is your power to control the quality of your life.

 

 

 

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L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Neuro-Semantics Executive Director  ----   <http://www.neurosemantics.com/>
www.neurosemantics.com

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA                             ----
<http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org

1 970-523-7877                                               ----
<http://www.meta-coaching.org/> www.meta-coaching.org

 

     

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