It was chilly in Melbourne, Australia as the 2nd Meeting of the AGS, Melbourne Chapter commenced last Thursday. It was brought to my attention that AGS President Robert James took a liking to my coining of the name "Melbourne Chapter" for our group which expanded to include my friend Shai, a PhD student in neurological disease - specifically Creutzfeldt–Jakob Disease at the University of Melbourne.
In attendance was also Mr. Laurie Cox and Mr. Earl Irvings, the 2nd "certified" member of AGS, Melbourne Chapter. Although a multitude of subjects were covered in volume, I shall attempt a brief summary.
Laurie led the discussion, describing GS as an "epistemology" - Shai provided his own definition, calling it a "theory of 'our' knowledge." We also tried to pin down a working definition of "fact", using GS texts such as Irving J. Lee's Language Habits in Human Affairs and the insiders' look at the legal system by Chester Porter, QC in his Gentle Art of Persuasion.
Laurie professed with great vigor that "talking is not enough, GS must be practiced and applied" to gain any usefulness from the techniques and theories. That said, GS as a discipline attempts to stop "identification" by confusing "reality" and "perception" as it passes our non-verbal observation. We must be conscious that whenever we see/hear/sense, we are not sensing the entire event on each level; we, as humans are simply unable. GS, as Laurie says, can be seen as a "basis for any form of knowledge."
Laurie then presented a short essay to familarize Earl, Shai and I with his understandings of GS, starting with the Map-Territory relation as Korzybski termed it. Seeing as we cannot establish "absolute" facts, we must be reminded that "facts" always carry a degree of probability and uncertainty. Visually, he drew his own interpretation of the Structural Differential, saying that words "leave out a lot of what one has taken from an event" and that inferences may be overgeneralizations or false knowledge. He also says that we should silently remember to include the "etc." when making descriptions, to acknowledge that we do not catch "all" characteristics when conveying information to others. We then talked about the consciousness of abstraction, being aware that our words are not things, that our perceptions (or constructions) are not reality
and that thing(1) is not thing(2) and new experiences are colored by past, unconscious biases.
Laurie insisted that GS may solve problems in such a way that we may properly evaluate situations and events to prevent unsanity or "neurosis" - that defining things/events closely on a "descriptive level" - as close to the actual event as possible - could more likely yield a solution. For example, in a relationship, a boyfriend and girlfriend may fight due to having one map of the situation different to the other. GS encourages to describe these mental "maps" as accurately as possible to synthesize the two or to "agree to disagree." Robert also advocated the use of a GS diary to jot down instances where GS was being applied consciously and to make observations from a new, GS perspective.
We closed the meeting with a discussion for a possible National AGS Conference/Seminar in Melbourne early in 2010. We set a framework for topics, the opening one day of three to the general public, possible speakers and getting the Institute of General Semantics and other international affiliates to contribute their ideas. I also resolved with Earl to hold monthly meetings when time permits and to open an AGS forum for all members to use. A highly intriguing night for all!
