[ExI] Joyce vs. Korzybski

[Lee Corbin]

Ben writes

> > Van Vogt was my favorite SF author, though I didn't think much
> > of the Null-A stuff. Perhaps I should re-read them to get ready
> > for this new book.
> 
> I was lucky enough to have read Korzybski

My god!  Count Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski!  Don't tell
me you too fell under his influence. I was quite the fan of Korzybski
about forty years ago.  I finally had to concur, though, with the
old saying about his stuff "what was new was not good, and what
was good was not new".

Still, he did (1) coin the phrase "the map is not the territory"  (2)
have a fundamentally accurate ontology/epistemolgy, and (3) for
the time --- 1933, as he endlessly reminds us --- not a bad
take on semantic issues. 
  
> before reading the Null-A 
> books. Without that, i don't know if i'd have grokked them.
> 
> I'd recommend reading (or re-reading) 'Science and Sanity' first,

Good heavens!  Can anyone today read that book??  It's a monster.
I certainly don't recommend anyone trying. What I would love to
do is put him in one jail cell and Joyce in another, and have them
only communicate by the written word.  Now *that* would be a
gas!

Lee