5 Alfred Korzybski Quotes on Reality

Alfred Korzybski quotes on reality

3. If we consider that all we deal with represents constantly changing sub-microscopic, interrelated processes which are not, and cannot be 'identical with themselves', the old dictum that 'everything is identical with itself' becomes in [today's understanding of the universe] a principle invariably false to facts.' (Note: Korzybski used '1933' to specify the current understanding. This editor has subsituted the 'more general' form: [today's understanding...])

5. The map is not the territory ... The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map...

15. If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure, and structure alone.

16. Let us repeat the two crucial negative premises as established firmly by all human experience: (1) Words are not the things we are speaking about; and (2) There is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.

19. In the rough, a symbol is a sign that stands for something... Before a noise, etc., may become a symbol, something must exist for the symbol to symbolize.