CONSCIOUSNESS

OF
ABSTRCTING
 Consciousness of abstracting," a concept developed by Alfred Korzybski in the field
of general semantics, refers to the awareness of the inherent limitations of our ability
to fully grasp reality due to the nature of abstraction and the different levels of
abstraction we employ in our thinking.
 Korzybski used the term "abstracting" to describe the process of creating
representations of reality, and he believed that a lack of "consciousness of
abstracting" could lead to misinterpretations and misunderstandings.
 ‘Abstract’ means something that we feel but may not be able to put into words. Abstract is
when you aren't being concrete and realistic. Korzybski comments:

“ On the neurological level, what the nervous system does is abstracting…. The
standard meaning of ‘abstracting’ implies ‘selecting’, ‘picking out’, ‘separating’,
‘summarizing’, ‘deducting’, ‘removing’, ‘omitting’, ‘disengaging’, ‘ taking away’, ‘ stripping’,
and as adjective not concrete..”
 "Abstract" is a multi-ordinal term. It has many meanings, many levels of meaning. Korzybski
talks about high-order abstractions and low-order abstractions. A low order abstraction
occurs at near the objective level when we first attach a label. The process of abstraction is
well under way by the time we put that label on the object. It is a long way from there to truly
abstract concepts like "truth," "beauty," and "goodness."

 We can train ourselves in "consciousness of abstracting" through practicing "conscious

abstracting." Conscious abstracting involves practicing being attentive to whatever is going on,
in and around us.

 Being more attentive, provides opportunities to change, modify, correct, improve, stop, etc.,
whatever we happen to catch ourselves thinking, feeling, imagining, saying, and "doing."
 3 LEVELS OF ABSTRACTIONS

 Objects are abstractions: They are not the things they represent. Korzybski says that there are three
levels of knowledge:
 1) The submicroscopic—below the face of the watch, which is the domain of science
 2) The gross macroscopic level of daily experience of objects
 3) The verbal level. He wrote: "...the nervous system is an abstracting, integrating mechanism" . The
animal may recognize the object but does not assign it characteristics nor place a label on it. Humans
both attribute characteristics to the object and assign a label—a word.
 We move to the verbal level and then on to abstraction and consciousness of abstraction. This is
crucially important; never forgetting that we have the tools to both better know the non-verbal level
than our sense provide for, and better evaluate on the verbal level what we observe.
 Consciousness of abstracting is perhaps the essence of general semantics. Korzybski explains this idea by
giving his famous statement "The map is not the territory”

 The map of reality is not reality. Even the best maps are imperfect. That’s because they are reductions of
what they represent. If a map were to represent the territory with perfect fidelity, it would no longer be a
reduction and thus would no longer be useful to us.

 Indeed map only depicts a limited number of objects and details of routes, and not necessarily reflects all the
relationships between them. The map is also an offshoot of human imagination, and personal perspective,
i.e., a map - maker decides the features to include, the purpose of the map, and the scale of it.
 A) A map may have a structure similar or dissimilar to the structure of the territory.

 B.) Two similar structures have similar ‘logical’ characteristics. Thus, if in a correct map, Dresden is given as
between Paris and Warsaw, a similar relation is found in the actual territory.
 C.) A map is not the actual territory.

“THE MAP APPEARS TO US MORE REAL THAN THE LAND.” — D.H. LAWRENCE
 IDENTIFICATION
 In General Semantics, the behavior we label identification is normally to be avoided, or at least
recognized. We talk about it as a misevaluation in that when we identify, we confuse or mistake our
impression or reaction to something as the something itself.
 Mistaking the word as the thing, or the map as the territory. With a map in hand, some people will
presume the map is correct and the land around them "should" be like the map. An extreme example
would be someone eating a menu because the pictures of the food look so tasty.
 Have you ever been disappointed when you arrived at a hotel by your Deluxe accommodations?
 Someone who eats an unfamiliar food, then later has a rather upsetting reaction when informed what
the food was, isn't reacting to the food. The person is reacting to the sound of the name of the food.
The verbalized name is associated (identified) with a previous or imagined terrible experience and that
drives the reaction.
 Once we differentiate, differentiation becomes the denial of identity, then we discriminate among the
objective and verbal levels.

 Aware of the abstracting process and limitation make
Presumption of Allness, what is experienced or
us recognize that one can never know or
sensed is exactly what is there to be experienced.
experience all about anything.
Conditioned responses, jump to conclusions, make
Conditional responses, delayed reactions.
sudden judgments.

Bypassing - presuming that meanings are in words,

Meanings are found in individuals and how they use
that listeners presume speakers should use words
words; ask what does the speaker mean?
the same way the listener uses them.

Two-valued, either-or, right-wrong, good-evil thinking. Multi-valued thinking, acknowledging shades of grey.
Talking recognizes limitations of abstracting process,
Talking is prone to absolutisms, certainty, closed-
open-minded, tentative, acknowledges degrees of
mindedness.
uncertainty.
ELEMENTS OF ABSTRACTING
 If this level of awareness is hard to grasp, and it likely is for most people, Korzybski gives us a little
help. "Pinch your finger," he says (ear lobe might work better). Now describe the sensation. "It hurts,"
"pain," or "painful," maybe even "ouch." Has the doctor ever asked you "Where does it hurt?" or "What
do you feel?" This is the objective level of consciousness.

 Whatever we say about it, Korzybski stressed, the first order happening remains at the silent
level. Pascal said of the emotions: "The heart has its reasons that reason cannot comprehend,"
and another poet-philosopher whose name I have lost said that "The eye can see and never forget
what the tongue can never speak."
 Abstraction is the high country of the mind. This conceptual high ground is where human essence
takes form. We build structural relationships, our internal representations of the world, not in low
order sensations and emotions but in high order language.
 We have to have words to have language but we have to know what we are talking about if language is
to make any sense. That capacity comes with higher order concepts with consciousness of
abstraction.
 Our very capacity for consciousness depends on our nervous system’s capacity to abstract and
visualize on an abstract level. Abstraction allows us to not only communicate but to attain an
enormous economy in action.
 CONCLUSION

 Consciousness of abstraction is not automatic: we don't come equipped with this

skill, it doesn't come easily, and it is always a deliberate effort. We have to continually
work with it and attempt to develop a mastery of it. We must work to learn how to
translate higher order abstractions into lower order abstractions.
 As Since "success“ whatever our goals whatever we do, depends on the quality of
our thinking, planning, decision, etc., we could think of consciousness of abstracting
and general semantics practice as "a general behavioral .
 If you want to become a more intelligent, wiser, saner, more gracious, human being,
Practice, being conscious of abstracting.