Sunday Seminar - May 2005
“Talking to Ourselves and
Others”
Using symbols for mapping and
communication.
Presenter: Laurie Cox
1. Catching-Up
a. “The bad back”
problem from last month: “Much better, thanks – but still need to take care!”
b. Visit to Mary
Porter (Member of Social Developers’ Network (SDN) and MLA for the ACT):
Laurie, Betty and
Robert visited Mary on 28 April 2005 at her office in Canberra. Robert was pleased to meet her for the first
time, and learn more of SDN from a new perspective.
Following the SDN
meeting at Guthega, attended by AGS members Laurie and Betty, Laurie was
enthusiastic about nurturing ongoing contact with SDN, perhaps at a “weekend
seminar” type event in the TableLands (eg Moss Vale). However, some AGS members expressed reservations about the
prospects for getting members to arrange content, time, transport, accommodation
etc. for such an enterprise.
Some SDN members will
be in Canberra in August for a Board Meeting, and Mary suggested that AGS might
like to meet them on the Friday night for dinner, and during the day on
Saturday. Laurie, Betty and Robert were
amenable to this suggestion, and promised to take it to the AGS meeting in May.
We need to prepare a
brief introduction of gs and AGS for presentation to SDN members, and to
arrange the details of an August meeting, initially through Mary.
2. Some
Extracts from Julian Jaynes:
From his book that we
considered last month: “The origin of
Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”
Laurie brought us some
particularly tasty morsels of Jaynes’s expression on what “ … this
insubstantial country of the mind contains …”, thus:
a. “.. a secret theatre
of speechless monologues … “
We considered Isobell
Caro’s “Linguistic Theory of Evaluation”, where she considered
“self-reflexiveness with regard to what’s been said and what’s not been said.”
b. .. a mansion of
moods, musings and mysteries … “
There was some discussion as to whether the
notion of the mind as “a mansion” tended to belittle or expand it.
Laurie spoke of
striving for a deeper understanding of the non-verbal, and our need to
internalise the discipline (of g-s).
Dion suggested that we
explore the suspension of disbelief by trying a little experiment, thus: Sit quietly with eyes closed, fingers on
eyelids. Imagine a tennis ball being
hit back and forth, left and right in front of you. You will be able to feel your (closed) eyes following it!
Laurie suggested that
perhaps this is an example of Korzybski’s extensionalisation – making an
“intensional concept” available to other people - ?
c. “ .. an infinite
resort of disappointments, discoveries … “
Members of the group
had various responses to this one – some felt that Jaynes must have been in a
rather depressed state while writing this!
We considered the question: “Do we have a good balance of
disappointments and discoveries?
Laurie told us of a
(minor) motor vehicle accident, and emphasised the value of the g-s discipline
notion that we don’t have to live at the “either-or extremes” of emotional -
rational response: We can move along the spectrum.
We considered that an
effective use of language can be metaphorical.
Consider for example Gilbert and Sullivan’ operas such as “Trial by
Jury” and “HMS Pinafore” – able to quite savagely satirise the “establishment”
in a manner that amused and delighted the very subjects of its attack!
Dion mentioned the
example of when “talkies” became available in cinemas, the global audience for
some genres was greatly reduced because each production was language-specific!
Some further Jaynesian
gems (for the mind):
d. “.. where each of
us reigns reclusively alone …”
e. “.. a world of
unseen visions and heard silences … “
f. “… touchless
rememberances, unseen reveries …”
3. Case Study –
“The Gallipoli Fiasco”
We recounted the
“Gallipoli story” in some detail, and considered some g-s concepts that would assist
in such a saga if utilised effectively:
a. Identification (in
language, leads to faulty decision-making – a most important principle)
b. Projection (easier
to understand than identification).
c. Inference-Fact
confusion (Don’t we all do it?)
d. Intensional-Extensional
confusion.
e. Lack of
self-reflexiveness (a Caro concept?)
f. Not pausing to
re-evaluate our previous evaluations.
g. Over- and
Under-defined terms.
h. Map-Territory
disjunction.
Remember Australian
General Monash (from an engineering background)? He implemented a policy that moved away from “win ground at all
cost” towards a more flexible and effective mix of strategies.
And Korzybski, who
said “If those who know don’t act, then those who don’t, will.”
4.
“Objectification” – An Under-Reported GS Formulation?
“We have a verbal
term, and project meaning onto it as though it were the object itself.”
Laurie suggested that
this concept is rarely discussed in g-s circles.
Consider a word like
“resort” (as mentioned above). What
does it conjure up – “success”, “leisure” etc?
But it is a formulation, not the thing itself. Objectification can entail an erroneous equation of a high-order
“formulation” into a low-order “thing”.
At the (“successful”)
withdrawal from Gallipoli, the Commanding Officer told his men “Don’t think of
yourselves as a failure!”
5. “Laurie’s
Promotional Document”
Laurie told more of
our visit to Mary Porter in Canberra, and the presentation that he made to
her. We considered the poster-type
materials, and their suitability for such introductory meetings.
We discussed some of
the group dynamics exhibited in our seminars, the helpful and not-so-helpful
behaviour patterns, and the value of self-reflexive introspection. Remember Caro: “We need to learn to react to
our own reactions.”
6. Business
Session
Treasurer’s activities
etc.
ooo000ooo
(Updated 15/05/2005)