Talk:Alfred Korzybski

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An anonymous user wrote in the article:

CORRECTION: Alfred Korzybski did NOT invent E-Prime.

E-Prime was the product of Dr. Bourland, a student and follower of Korzybski. The idea actually came from still another source, Dr. Bourland could not locate the original thinker behind it (per an article in one of the books by Bois).

W. Paul Tabaka http://Korzybski.Org—Preceding unsigned comment added by Brion VIBBER (talk • contribs) 01:26, 18 October 2002 (UTC)

Specific reference needed

Throughout this article, there are references to "his work". I think there is a need to state in which of his works specifically these ideas were put forth.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Prometheus912 (talk • contribs) 11:08, 24 November 2004 (UTC)

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Impact

Under the Impact section, the first thing mentioned is that "Korzybski's work influenced Neuro-linguistic programming especially the metamodel), ..." I don't think the NLP "association" should be the first thing listed, and I think the NLP should be in a different sentence from the cognitive interpretation pursued by Albert Ellis, and others. A distinction should be made. Dan 22:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms

I took out the following paragraph, as there is already in this section a lot of material about Chomsky's criticisms, and it seemed to be talking too much about Chomsky's philosophy rather than his criticism of Korzybski:

Chomsky, an anarchist, has also said that the greatest distorters of our perception are concentrations of power, because power centers (e.g. states, corporations) have the means to propagate their point of view and influence our perception of reality, much more than simply not using the verb "to be".

The paragraph also draws a somewhat false dichotomy between (1) "concentrations of power" distorting our perceptions, and (2) not using the verb "to be". There is no evidence that Korzybski would not agree that "concentrations of power" can distort our perceptions, and he never advocated not using the verb "to be". A student of Korzybski's, David Bourland, floated that idea 15 years after Korzybski died. [JDF, April 29, 2006]
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.152.194.150 (talk) 18:21, 29 April 2006
An article on Korzybski cannot be complete without explicit discussion of "Science and Sanity." I hope to correct this lapse soon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolffg (talk • contribs) 22:12, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

(Sourcing)

Where are the Chomsky quotes from? --AlmostC 20:47, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

AlmostC added this to the article: [Warning: none of the Chomsky quotes below are accompanied by citations. The only quotes below I could find were from an interview with David Cohen, the subject of which seemed to be Skinner, not Korzybski.] Now, an anonymous poster added these "quotes" to several articles. So far nobody has responded to requests for citations and arguments against including this material. (Except with the link to wikiquote, which itself lacks any citation for the alleged Korzybski quote.) Barring some response or argument, I plan to replace this entire section with a link to the criticism section of general semantics (which contains additional material). Then we can decide what to include in that section. If we then decide to copy part or all of the criticism section to other articles, we can do this easily. Or if someone actually decides to argue that some critique belongs at the Korzybski article but not at general semantics, they can go ahead and include it here while we argue at the other talk page. Dan 22:18, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I have added a health warning to the general semantics page as well, in the hope that someone will add a citation or delete the reference.--AlmostC 18:00, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

(His pleasures)

I was just wondering if the following statement would be too opinionated to include in the article (perhaps after the biscuits story, which is just one in a series of such examples). Korzybski enjoyed making impromptu and unwilling human test subjects out of his students, in order to prove his academic points by forceful, material means.--Propriate 10 June 2007
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.184.82.195 (talk) 23:17, 10 June 2007
^{The struck-thru sig (an implicit claim to be User:Propriate) is a forged Wiki-sig by the IP.}

"Opinionated" is a little weak for describing the problem with that. It's original research when an editor convinces themself that someone enjoyed something. If you can't specify what you paraphrased (or the simple math you did, that a typical reader could follow if it were stated) you're confusing your careful research or your wild-eyed opinions with accepted knowledge. No matter which of those it was, our readers are not interested in it -- only in accepted knowledge.
--Jerzy•t 00:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Removal in "Anecdote" sec'n

     I removed "Apparently his prank aimed to illustrate how some human suffering originates from the confusion or conflation of linguistic representations of reality and reality itself." where it stood between the anecdote and the citation of a book with a citation of a newspaper that apparently either described or quoted the anecdote. What is "apparent" when the judger of apparency remains unidentified must be presumed neither notable, nor more than OR.
--Jerzy•t 23:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

"Anecdote about Korzybski" section

It's certainly an interesting anecdote, but I'm not sure how it advances the article. An encyclopedia should introduce and explain the significance of the anecdote, not simply state it as if the point is self-evident. Why this anecdote, of all the possible ones to include? -Phoenixrod (talk) 03:47, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Updating Reflink for Ellis

Here is the new link for the Ellis AKML. There is also an addendum to that AKML. I do not know how to edit the References Template (it appears to me to be locked), so if someone cares to make these changes, please do. Benhauck (talk) 19:35, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

http://www.generalsemantics.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/gsb-58-ellis.pdf http://www.generalsemantics.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/gsb-59-ellis-addendum.pdf

General Semantics is not Semantics

As Korzybski said, GS should not be confused with semantics, a different subject.

What does this mean? --Rebestein (talk) 14:06, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Vetting influences and persuasions

The lists of persons under K's influence, in order of growing size (and growing maintenance work) are:

• {{Infobox person}}-level
• section-level
• subsections-level, where we are now
• the summary article-level

They depend on notability, but they also depend on verification: was it really K who influenced them? Or was it the IGS, or was it Hayakawa?

We should keep our list items where the direct influence is verifiable:

1. they wrote 'Korzybski'
2. they met Korzybski
3. K said he influenced them
4. Other notables said so

Steps to Good article status:

• Add citation needed tags where appropriate. These will take time to then remove. Then use the citation to decide if it was K or GS or H that did the influencing.
• Vet entries that rely only on e.g. ala "They wrote that 'the word is not the thing'".
• Move info to General semantics content (or Hayakawa content, or other).
• Put the most notable in the infobox template.

Neil Postman for example, might belong at GS article not here, but Buckminster Fuller wrote "Korzybski", in one of his books. (He lectured and interviewed at IGS, but he joined IGS after K was "gone west" from the scene.)

It does do well to honor K for essentially creating general semantics, but Korzybski is the creator sui generis of general semantics, not general semantics itself. There's the Institute of GS. There is Hayakawa. (A U.S. Senator, a University President, etc), and many many others. — CpiralCpiral 23:13, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Categorizing Influences

I was wondering if there was a more effective way of categorizing those influenced by Korzybski. For example, Ken S. Keyes, Jr. was not only a writer of self-help books, but was a student of Korzybski. Kenneth was also a futurist, like Jacque Fresco, and together co-authored the book Keyes, Jr., Kenneth; Fresco, Jacque (1969). Looking Forward (PDF).

On page 100 (PDF-counted), the book mentions:

We mix up facts, descriptions, guesses, judgments, and hypotheses. They are experimenting with improved korzybskian language techniques that can give our thoughts added predictability.

Youanden (talk) 12:28, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

The most aesthetic would seem to be mentioning students in the bio, and developers (of Korzybskian materials) in their respective sections titled after the material itself, all in a narrative that might include comma separated lists of people. But notice how we yet lack narrative material, and how most of ours is material on other people. See how the other biographies on the Wiki have developed. Simply, for this stage of development, three categorical steps move from the right brain to the left, covering the broad nature of his impressions.

Feel free to categorize List of Korzybski's cultural influences. The List article guideline has categorization suggestions (and much more). The categories here are temporary until their information merges into a good article. Eventually there will be no category at all. They will all seamlessly woven into a narrative. Your Q becomes in my opinion, how to develop a narrative article that does not describe the other people, from a list article that does, and how to keep information visible on the wiki while shuffling it around. — CpiralCpiral 21:30, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

B-class review

Quickfailed during WP:POLAND B-class review due to: insufficient inline references. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:31, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Name Dropping in Reception Section

I don't know much about Korzybski, so I don't feel comfortable editing the section about "Reception." As a casual reader, it is unclear what each list of names is about. Are the lists supporters of Korzybski? Are they critics? Are they people who just read Korzybski? The relationship between Korzybski and these people is not clear. Additionally, there are very few sources that indicate a relationship between these people. That could really use some clarification. Mvblair (talk) 12:19, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

== Being sarcastic, I would add that they forgot to mention his influence on Budha and Jesus...

Quite frankly, I think that this article is a disgrace for Wikipedia! The only fact that could explain this whole thig is the page is being promoted by some group...

206.108.174.222 (talk)

Same confusion about the undocumented relations of a seemingly randomly selected list of people under reception brought me to this Talk page. It tickles my fingers to entirely remove this complete list section. Someone against it? Otherwise I will remove it next week... *setting alarm* --سلوك Saluk 14:59, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I removed the name dropping section. It should be completely rewritten and separated into pro and contra Korzybski. But in my humble opinion all those people were influenced by Korzybski's theories (i.e. general semantics), not by the person A. K. --سلوك Saluk 10:21, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Nothing critical?

Um, I was expecting SOMETHING on how today his ideas are discredited and considered worthless. What is astounding about him is how he got the reputation, and influenced the people, that he did. But nothing. I guess only K-enthusiasts ever dwell on or care about this page.. Yesenadam (talk) 01:12, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

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Passive Voice

It would be less painfully ironic if this sentence was not phrased in the passive voice, to avoid naming the subject who should be quoted:

It is often said [need quotation to verify] that Korzybski opposed the use of the verb "to be."

Xardox (talk) 12:27, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

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Influence section is ludicrous

The Influence section seems to have been written by a Korzybski devotee. It begins, "Korzybski was well received in numerous disciplines, as evidenced by the positive reactions from leading figures in the sciences and humanities in the 1940s and 1950s."

The paragraph goes on to to exemplify "leading figures in the sciences and humanities" by naming two science fiction writers (Robert Heinlein and A. E. van Vogt), Alan Watts ("self-styled 'philosophical entertainer'," per Wikipedia), idiosyncratic futurist Robert Anton Wilson, and English professor Samuel Hayakawa. It also refers to a claim in one of Korzybski's own books (no independent substantiation given) that his ideas were used to treat battle fatigue during World War II (to what extent, with what success?). None of the persons named was a scientist, much less a "leading figure" in any science, and while Heinlein and Van Vogt have been popular writers, it is pompously silly to describe them as "leading figures in the humanities."

Not only does the Influence section fail to substantiate its claim that Korzybski "was well received in many fields," the evidence offered is so inadequate as to be funny. A non-fan text might say something like this (but better written): Although Korzybski's ideas deeply impressed several well-known people, including science-fiction authors associated with John W. Campbell in the 1950s and a few countercultural thought leaders of the 1960s, they have had little influence on the development of professional philosophy and psychology.

The grandiose claims should either be ditched or adequately evidenced. Right now, the Influence section is simply ludicrous. Lgilman909 (talk) 14:09, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Tend to agree. I see that the Douglas Kelley article makes no mention of Korzybski and in fact doesn't even mention battle fatigue. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:40, 26 November 2023 (UTC)