[Neurons] 2011 Meta Reflections #13

[L. Michael Hall]

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Meta Reflections 2011 - #13

March 21, 2011

 

THE "ALLNESS" BLOWOUT PATTERN

Alfred Korzybski Series #9

 

In creating his 1933 version of "neuro-linguistic training," Alfred
Korzybski's focus was to create a new non-Aristotelian system of language
and semantics.  He wanted to shake up the unsanity of the world with this
new "Theory of Sanity" based upon a much more sane use of language.  He
objected to the primitive language because it did not have the same
structure as the territory.  And lacking a similar structure, the language
maps things in a way that is deceptive, delusional, and "false to fact."  No
wonder then that such language makes it impossible to navigate life and make
a good adjustment to things.

 

In the old Aristotelian language Korzybski most fervently objected to the
"Is" of Identity.  The verb "to be" (is, was, am, be, being) causes us to
over-generalize with our labels and to identify things that are not the
same.  If you create an equivalence between an experience with your label
using the deceptively simple to be verb, you treat the word and the
experience as if "the same."   This confuses logical levels.  If you say, "I
am a failure," "She is a bitch," "They are stupid," etc. you identify a
person with a label.  Whenever you treat "words" as if they have the same
kind of reality as things outside your nervous system to which the words
refer, you identify things that are not the same.  To that extent, you will
think in unsane ways, emote unsanely, and become unsane.  

 

Korzybski's "theory of sanity" for the field of therapy rests on the ability
to make distinctions.  That is because in actual life, we only deal with
unique individuals (whether persons, things, or events).  In the objective
world, there is no such thing as "sameness in all respects."  There are only
differences.

"Whatever we see, taste, smell, handle, etc. is an absolute individual and
unspeakable)" (Science and Sanity, p. 477)

 

It is differences that allow us to make distinctions and that breaks up
"allness."  Similarly Bateson also focused on the importance of recognizing
"the difference that make the difference."  This is true to such an extent
that Bateson said that it is difference that gets mapped onto the map
structurely.  It is difference which every meta-level and sub-modality
distinction enables.

 

In Science and Sanity, Korzybski made the point that there is no allness.
There is only differences, only uniqueness.  There is only this person,
thing, event at this or that time, at this or that place.  This explains the
value of indexing person, place, action, subject, etc.  It is only
linguistically that we "abstract" from the world and hang labels on people,
things, and events.   In this way, we summarize, conclude, integrate, etc.
and linguistically create "allness."  By this process we create "categories"
(i.e. males, females, sheep, apples, etc.) that helps us to order our
understandings and internal worlds. Such labeling only exists as a
linguistic distinction.  There are no "males," "females," "sheep," "apples,"
etc. outside the skin.  You have never, and never will, see a "male."  This
kind of label is an abstract concept, mental construct that we use to
describe a category.  The label presupposes an "allness" -as if the
abstracted characteristic ("maleness") is the same in all particular
instances.

 

No label and word is a thing.  Words and labels refer to ideas (mental
phenomena) which only exists in the mind of the meaning-maker.  They are
evaluations in the mind of a thinker which leaves particulars out (delete),
generalize, and focus on a particular feature which creates distortions.
Even though this is true, most of us treat such words as if they say "all"
that needs or can be said.   We typically forget that the label leaves
characteristics out and deletes specific information about particulars.   We
also forget that we have created a semantic category by generalizing the
chief traits. 

 

Korzybski came up with a number of devices to combat this abstracting: the
structural differential, "consciousness of abstracting," hyphenating words,
indexing words, etc.  And unknown to him, he even came up with an "Allness"
Blowout Pattern.  (See Science and Sanity, Chapter 29, 469ff.).  The
following pattern is to be done with a group as a way to teach or coach
"Non-allness."

 

THE "ALLNESS" BLOWOUT PATTERN

 

1) Take an object in hand, such as an apple, and hold it up to the group.

Ask everyone to participate in the experience of telling you all about that
object.  This works equally well with a class of children or group of
adults.

As people make statements or descriptions, write all these characteristics
down on a flip chart.  This creates "a visual and extension record of the
ascribed characteristics."  This separates the "object" that your neurology
(via your sense receptors) experiences which is unspeakable (it is not
words) from the words with which you speak to label the object.   This
creates a kinesthetic sense distinction of the map-territory; a word is
never the object to which it refers.  There is unspeakable reality, then
there is speaking-reality, the linguistic expressions of our symbols that we
hang onto objects and events.

 

2) Frustrate your audience with the word "all" and anchor it to a negative
emotional state.

When they "have exhausted their ingenuity in telling 'all' about the apple,"
do not be satisfied.  Communicate your doubt that they have really told
"all" about the item.  As you do, keep using the word "all" continually.

"The term 'all' should be stressed and repeated to the point of the children
being thoroughly annoyed with the term.  The more they learn to dislike this
term, the better.  We are already training a most important semantic
reaction." (Ibid. 472)

 

The strategy is to attach massive emotional pain to the word "all" which
will eventually set up a propulsion system that automatically will move them
away from the universal quantifier word with the speed of a flying electron.

 

3) Keep expanding the frame until the participants understand that you can
never tell "all."

As you are never satisfied with the answers, always expect and indicate how
that there are still more characteristics left out:

"When the subject seems exhausted, and the list of characteristics of the
apple 'complete' (we repeatedly make certain that the children assume they
have told us 'all' about it), we cut the apple into pieces and show the
children experimentally, using eventually a microscope or magnifying glass,
that they did not tell us 'all' about the apple" (472).  "Demonstrate
practically that an object taken from different points of view has different
aspects for different observers." (473)

 

How many perceptual positions can you think of for expanding the frame?
Engage the object with as many of your nervous functions (auditory, visual,
diversified motor nerve centres, etc.).  

Keep shifting perception through the various perceptual positions.  Keep
suggesting new and different frames-of-references for dealing with the
object.  Expand the frame to the sub-microscopic level suggesting "all" the
information they can supply.

Expand the frame to that of the microscopic level where what "exists" and is
real are the whirling and dancing of electrons and sub-atomic particles.
Index it to this moment, then the next, then the next asking if "all" has
been said.

 

4) Explain the "abstracting" process.  

"When the children have become thoroughly convinced of the non-allness and
the impossibility) of 'allness,' we are ready to explain to them what the
word abstracting means, using again the terms 'all' and 'not all.'  We show
them a small rotating fan and explain to them about the separate blades
which when rotating we see as a disk."

What is seen when you turn on a fan?  A disk!  But when you stop the fan,
there is no disk.  There are three or four separate blades.  Where did the
disk go?  Where did it come from?  The "disk" is an abstraction of your
eyes.  The neurology of your eyes can not "see fast enough" to see the
reality, so it abstracts from what was there (deleting, generalizing,
distorting) and creates a representation in the mind (the disk), that
actually is not there.

 

5) Show and demonstrate the Structural Differential.  [See Article #2 for a
diagram] 

To explain the different levels of abstraction, begin with the ongoing event
(at microscopic levels) (there are no true objects, only ongoing events)
that is ever changing, never the same, and having an indefinite number of
characteristics. Then move on to the object which the nervous system has
abstracted at the sensory level.  This representation has many
"characteristics left out."  Explain that at the neurological level of
abstracting, this is where we "experience" the world-as we experienced the
fan blades as a disk.  

 

Then move on to the label which is the first order of linguistic
abstraction.  At this level, as an experiencing human, we are saying words
about the object presented to our VAK senses.  More abstracting has caused
more deleting, generalizing, distorting.  Then show how one can say more
words about the first words and create more labels and attribute them to the
previous labels inasmuch as you can always say something about whatever you
just said (Ibid, 386ff).   

 

Pattern Explanation 

This process elicits several semantic responses by this exercise. It elicits
"the semantic processes of 'curiosity,' 'achievement,' 'ambitions,' etc.
that he considered vital to a strong healthy mind.   It also creates a
kinesthetic awareness at the reflex level about "the characteristics left
out."  In this way, a person inherently comes to know and expect that no
label or abstraction "tells" all.  His reasoning:

"In life, numerous serious 'hurts' occur precisely because we do not
appreciate some natural shortcomings and expect too much.  Expecting too
much leads to very harmful semantic shocks, disappointments, suspicions,
fears, hopelessness, helplessness, pessimism, etc."

 

We do this when we want to marry "a wife" (or "husband") and so go out to do
that.  Later we discover that there were "characteristics left out" from our
awareness of the particular Sue or Bill that we married.  We married our
definition or idea ("wife" "husband").  We wedded ourselves to our label and
only later discovered the pain that the "allness" of the label can cause.

 

This "Allness" Blowout Pattern induces an awareness of deletions in both
sense-perception and language, both consciously and unconsciously.  It
induces a curiosity state about what has been left out and what unuseful
generalizations may be operating.  It helps us to appreciate to a much
greater degree that the symbols we use are never the referent thing
symbolized. The map is not the territory and cannot be the territory.

 

This pattern prepares people to look at their thinking and language as maps-
maps that may, or may not, be useful in navigating experiences through the
world.  It works to underscore an appreciation of the different logical
levels at work in life (reality/ our neurological experience of that
reality/ our linguistic descriptions of our neurological experience, etc.).

 

Now you can go forth and torture the little minds who are so convinced that
they know it "all," that they have spoken or thought the last word about
something, or that they have nothing else to learn.  Deframe their unsanity
and induce a new appreciation for the marvelously wild and wonderful nature
of reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 




 

 

 

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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