General Semantics

Introduction

General semantics is a concept proposed by Alfred Korzybski at the beginning of the 20th century. It is the study of perception and meaning, summarized by 'the map is not the territory.' Ie, the perception of something is not the same as the thing itself. Many people confuse perception of reality with reality itself.

A central argument of general semantics is that whenever appearances are confused with reality - where one's mental models are not accurate - great trouble can result. This trouble can be on the individual level - from poor coping to insanity - or political - such as global geopolitical debacles. Thus, the tools that make for accurate creation of meaning from perception - is the central theme of general semantics - so we literally 'drive ourselves sane.' In practice, this means using langauge tools and constructions which make it more clear that the map is not the territory.

A critical element of achieving this goal is the process of Time-Binding.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics
• Institute of General Semantics - https://www.generalsemantics.org/