Australian General Semantics Society
"Applications of general-semantics”
(Identification
and Timebinding, Tragedy and Triumph – Part 3
Led by Laurie
Preliminaries … Laurie’s notice:
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I will be in the "driving seat" in our meeting at
Gavan's next Sunday 19/8/07.
Apart from content presented, my overall aim will be to
stimulate conversation which enables us to share with each other our on-going
up to date "ideas, images, intentions, discoveries" (Juanita Brown).
"Shaping our Futures Through Conversations that
Matter" is the main theme of Juanita's book entitled "The World Cafe
Community" (Juanita wrote this book with David Isaacs).
To stimulate impactful conversation, may I suggest
considering the following topics, from a general-semantics as well as other
perspective:
1. I think we agree that words represent
"reality". But in a difficult or complex situation, how do we
recognise the reality beneath the words?
2. To what extent can the time-binding principle enhance our
moral or ethical orientation? To what extent does applied scientific
method embrace a moral or ethical orientation?
In this connection, I recently attended, by invitation, a
meeting of the Universal Peace Foundation. I was pleased to find that,
although their basic belief system rested on Christian values, I could easily
share my more anthropological, evolutionary perspective with them.
3 A question which we could derive from the above, could be:
How can we improve our ability to negotiate different values
or crossed purposes between ourselves and others?
Thank you for considering this proposal. I look
forward to your company on Sunday 19/8/07.
Laurie.
At the Seminar …
1) Catching-up
There was
quite a lot of news from participants, including retirement, health issues,
“psychomatic” symptoms, children at school, a Jungian word-association
experiment, and other career and domestic-life changes. These were shared and discussed.
2) Fact/Inference Issues
Weinberg
P22: Story of the driver with great driving skills but confusing fact with
inference.
“Infantile
semantic reactions”
Anecdotes
from assumptions and reports etc.
3) Semantic Reactions
Weinberg
P52: Relates to use of symbols.
-LUNCH –
Gavan served up a sumptuous lunch of a spicy
inclination, along with baked bread and a range of gastronomic accroutrements.
4) Q1 from the Agenda – Words
representing reality -
Laurie’s
modified Structural Differential
Various
stories real and hypothetical.
Identification:
“Is the word the same as the territory?”
Case study
of the “Meaningful conversation” – How to abstract/infer eg “religiousness”?
What about
a grievance from an argument or insult being carried into future encounters … ?
Gavan’s
suggestion: “GS is a process for getting over emotional problems”
Other
processes, eg Psychodrama.
5) Case Study:
Argument
between friends, not resolved, but a commitment to attend an event together in
the future.
How to
handle that challenge?
Gavan’s
suggestion: “GS is a process for
getting over emotional problems!”
We
considered personal examples of this principle at some length.
.
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