[ExI] Joyce vs. Korzybski

[Lee Corbin]

Ben writes

> I wouldn't say i fell under his [Korzybski's] 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
> [ecletic? http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/eclectic],
> but i thought his ideas about levels of abstraction were useful.

I agree: they were and are very good.

Yes, the good old structural differential. By all means, compared to
most of then contemporary philosophy---definitely headed down the
wrong track towards positivism---Korzybski was ahead of his time.
Except for behaviorism (another wrong track), he had one of the few
scientific approaches to gain much credibility.

> 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.

That's what he tirelessly called for in the book, i.e., that "Science and
Sanity 1933" would be quickly outmoded and had to be rewritten or
updated often.

> 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).

Clearly one would have to invest a certain amount of time and effort
to be able to appreciate it. But then what?  Consider what John Clark
had to say:

> > he [A reviewer, in essence] certainly didn't use these
> > words but he seemed to be saying those parts of Finnegans
> > Wake that are not gibberish are saying nothing of importance.[!]
> > So why read the damn thing?

Spoken like a true engineer. Clearly one is supposed to read it
for pleasure, for the interest in communicating what-it-feels-like to
have certain states of consciousness, as a challenge to see if you
can pick up on all his sly references (e.g. what are crossword
puzzles for?), and so on.

> 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!".

It is gibberish-to-you. Perhaps tensor calculus is too; and maybe Schoenberg
sounds like gibberish (to you). Schoenberg sounds like gibberish to me.

> How can anyone even contemplate conveying that? It's bound to come out 
> as gibberish.

Evidently not to the true enthusiasts. They're too many in number with credentials
that are too good for us to suppose they're bordering on nuts. 

> He's trying to explain what red feels like. Can't be done, 
> no matter how talented a writer you are.

Maybe explaining what red feels like---assuming that somehow it makes sense
to say that it could feel "the same way" to one person as to another---cannot be
done, just as you say. Still, who's to really know what exactly is achieved by
stream of consciousness writing? I can only speak for myself and say that I have
far more important (to me) things to investigate.

By the way, the liberal use of "to me's" that litter this post are entirely due to
the Korzybski's influence. His exposition did have the merit of pounding into
the reader the difference between objective and subjective and what levels
of abstraction are involved at any moment. And in some sense, Korzybski
is/was right in suggesting that a failure to appreciate different levels of abstraction
is a step towards un-sanity. But materialists these days seem to do very well
without struggling through Science and Sanity.

We are all materialists now---which definitely was not true back then, nor true
in the sixties and seventies.

Lee