[ExI] Joyce vs. Korzybski

[ben]

Lee wrote:

 > 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".

The very same (although i don't remember the Habdank Skarbek bit. Maybe 
my book didn't mention that. I like it though. If i change my name, i 
might choose Habdank Skarbek. It has a sort of ring to it).

I wouldn't say i fell under his influence, having always been a <word 
that escapes me for the moment, but means someone who picks and chooses 
ideas that seem useful, regardless of their source>, but i thought his 
ideas about levels of abstraction were useful. I'd never heard the 
phrase 'time-binding' before i read that book, and it really does sum up 
probably the most significant difference between humans and other animals.


 > 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.

You're probably right. I've still got it (the first book i ever ordered 
from overseas), although it's pages haven't seen daylight for decades, 
and i keep reminding myself that i want to read it again (After 
Hofstadter's GEB). I'd like to see somebody re-write it, though.

 > 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!

You have a cruel sense of humour :)

I couldn't read those examples of Joyce's stuff, my eyes literally 
glazed over, and my brain seems to skitter off the words, like a duck on 
a frozen pond. It's gibberish to me (but then, so are lots of things).

However, Damien said "When he wrote in an attempt to convey the flow of 
thoughts and half-thoughts running under the level of sharp conscious 
awareness...", and when i read that, i thought "Aha! that's why it seems 
like gibberish. Because it is!".

How can anyone even contemplate conveying that? It's bound to come out 
as gibberish. He's trying to explain what red feels like. Can't be done, 
no matter how talented a writer you are.


ben zed