Dennis K. Chong and Jennifer K. Smith Chong^©

In this paper, the male pronoun will apply either gender. The nominal pronoun will apply to the first author. The plural pronoun will apply to both authors.

This paper examines the root origins of Alfred Korzybski's non-Aristotelian system and the consequences it has for us today.

In 1905, Albert Einstein produced his paper, The Special Theory of Relativity.

Ten years later he produced his masterpiece, The General Theory of Relativity.

The propositions within these two documents and the logic that extended from them completely demolished the mathematics of Euclidean geometry and forever changed the science of Newtonian physics. From 1915 to the present₁₉₉₉, neither Euclidean Geometry nor Newtonian physics hold any warrant for the new generation of mathematicians and physicists.

Einstein’s work supplanted the Euclidean and Newtonian systems with the non-Euclidean and non-Newtonian systems. Korzybski designated these as Non-E and Non-N (Koryzybski placed a line over the "E" and the "N" in his designation.).

In 1933, Alfred Korzybski came to realize that from Einstein’s work, the philosophical formats of Aristotle were untenable. His research was the basis for him to write his massive tome, Science and Sanity.

The result of this enquiry turned out to be a non-aristotelian system, the first to be formulated, as far as I know, and the first to express the very scientific tendency of our epoch, which produced the non-euclidean and non-newtonian (Einstein’s and the newer quantum theories) systems.

Alfred Korzybski: Science and Sanity The International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Company page 7.

In it, he mapped out how the Aristotelian system of Cause and Effect was finished¹. He then described the logical basis for his non-Aristotelian system to take its place. He designated it as the Non-A system or Non-A² (Koryzybski designated this with a line over the "A".) and he mapped it out.

His style of writing is not exactly reader friendly.  In fact, there is a personage (whose name I forget) who dexcribed it as "practically unreadable".

I struggled with Science and Sanity initially three times, reading and re-reading it. Then I read it again on two further occasions. Then I stopped reading it, confident in my grasp of what he had to say. This was 15 years ago.

Then I met the redoubtable Michael Hall³. I laid before him my conclusions, derivations and extensions of what Korzybski had said about Aristotle and the system that he created and about Cause and Effect. Michael could not agree with me and he referred me back to Science and Sanity. There, I read:

If we compare the three systems of Aristotle, Euclid and Newton, designated A, E, N, respectively, in figure 1, with the non-aristotelian, non-euclidean and non-newtonian systems, designated Non-A Non-E, Non-N, a very important fact should be noticed; namely that the Non-AEN trilogy is more general than AEN. This fact has far-reaching semantic and practical consequences and perhaps be best explained by the aid of a diagram. We see that the Non-AEN trilogy includes the AEN as a particular case (our underline), from which it follows that readers who are already re-educated to the new Non-AEN s.r., have less difficulty in understanding the older AEN, simply because the older AEN are only particular cases of the new .

Alfred Korzybski: Science and Sanity The International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Company 1980 page 95.

That an entity is a particular of a class does not logically mean that it is compatible with the class. A "Smith" can be a member of a family of Smiths. However, it does not follow that he can get on with everyone of that family. There are religious denominations that are, without question, a part of the Christian Church. However, they are deemed heretical.

In like manner, we agree that in one sense only⁴ that "the Non-AEN trilogy includes AEN as a particular case." However, no scientist today would say that the N or the Newtonian system has any tenable validity to explicate the physics of sub-atomic particles or the cosmology of space/time. There is no mathematician who would assert that E or Euclidean system of concepts can explicate the geometry of the curvature of space/time.

Alfred Korzybski, along with Einsteinian Physicists and Mathematicians realized that in an Einsteinian Universe there had to be and, indeed, there was structure.

We have already seen that structure is to be considered as a configuration of relations, and that relations appear as the essential factors in meanings and so of s.r.⁵

Ibidem page 29

This is so, because the speed of light is not infinite as Newton had said. We cannot do things with infinite speed. If we could and the speed of light was infinite, then everything would be in a flash. Since this is not so, everything relates in some form of order. The order of this or any relationship would be its structure. The variables within the structure would co-relate in a dependent fashion. This would then be expressed in functions⁶. From this came his incredible insight that under such conditions the relationship by Cause and Effect could not hold in an Einsteinian universe. For this he, researched the non-Aristotelian system.

Since then we have come by a substantial body of information that endorses Korzybski’s conclusion. They will be delineated in the next parts of this paper.

For Korzybski, the problem was how to organize the argumentation to discount A and have in place his beloved Non-A -system.

I retain a high regard for Michael Hall. For this, I decided to re-read Science and Sanity and recheck the whole issue. This, I concluded, was a preferable to debating it with him as I did not think that such a discourse between us would be productive and helpful.

When Albert Einstein presented his two papers, Special Relativity and General Relativity, he turned the entire edifice of Newtonian physics upside down. With it he offered an entirely different way of understanding the geometry of space/time. With it the entire structure of Euclidean geometry collapsed. His ideas opened the door to the new field of Geometrodynamics⁸ - the science of Cosmology and Particle Physics that we know today. His papers also catapulted the world of mathematics into Tensor Calculus.

Albert Einstein’s propositions opened the door for Alfred Korzybski into the semantics of Relativity and Relatedness. His grasp of what existence means is found in his assertion:

To ‘be’ means to be related. To be related involves multidimensional order and results in structure.

Ibidem page161

It is clear that his term, "multi-dimensional order" is about the web of life in which all things are related and that this relationship is not random and chaotic. It has structure and order.

Common experience and scientific investigations (more refined experience) show us that the world around us is made up of absolute individuals, each different and unique, although interconnected (our underline).

Ibidem page 254

The essence of structure and order is about the functional relationships between variables. If this was the nature of the reality outside of our skins then, we believe that it was here that Korzybski understood and realized the untenability of Cause and Effect. This, then, was the raison d’être of Science and Sanity.

However, the semantic anchors⁹ of Cause and Effect are exceedingly powerful; and they continue to insist that we understand the whole of our reality by its terms and constraints. And Alfred Korzybski warned of this possibility:

We do not realise what tremendous power the structure of an habitual language has. It is not an exaggeration to say that it enslaves us through the mechanism of s.r. and that the structure which a language exhibits, is automatically projected upon the world around us. This semantic power is indeed so unbelievable that I do not know anyone, even among well-trained scientists, who, after having admitted some argument as correct, does not the next minute deny or disregard (usually unconsciously) practically every word he had admitted, being carried away again by the structural implications of the old language and his s.r.

Ibidem pages 90 - 91.

It is for this that when there are any suggestions contrary to Aristotle and to Cause and Effect, people respond in the most violent of ways¹⁰. In another day and age, people were put to death for contradicting Aristotle.. That this is our experience is a matter of extreme sadness to us.

We propose to examine more fully, Korzybski’s position about Causality and the consequences it has for each us.

Alfred Korzybski: Science and Sanity The International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Company 1980

Dennis K. Chong and Jennifer K. Smith Chong: Don’t Ask WHY?! C-Jade Publications Inc. 1991

Dennis K. Chong and Jennifer K. Smith Chong: Power and Elegance in Communication C-Jade Publications Inc. 1991

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Footnotes

We use this word to mean that the Aristotelian system is logically untenable and therefore it is finished or effete.

2.   Non-A-system or Non-A

This system as was formulated by Korzybski in 1933. Even then it was a distinct alternative to the Aristotelian or A-system. However, what we now know is that Korzybski’s delineations about the scope of it was not complete. It is only now in 1999 that we have this body of critical information.

3.    Michael Hall is a doctoral psychologist and a Trainer in Neuro-Linguistic Programming. He is a fine thinker and a prolific author. You can download his bibliography from www.neurosemantics.com.

4.    ... in one sense only . . .In part II of this paper, we shall index exactly what this sense is when AEN is a particular of Non-AEN.

5.    s.r. stands for semantic reaction in Korzybskian thinking. However, out of the field of Neuro-Semantic Programming there is a non-italicized s.r. This term stands for semantic response. The basis for the difference is that s.r. entails some implicate internal processing. s.r. is more akin to something like a knee jerk reflex.

6.    Functions are about relationships between variables whose values co-depend on each other. Thus, in the relationship, c = 2 pi r, the value of c is co-dependent on the value of r. If the value of r increases then that of c increases. There is no intimation in the slightest that r makes the c to any order of magnitude.

7.    non-Aristotelian is no named because it was Aristotle who first laid out the philosophical formats of Causality or thinking by Cause and Effect. This artificial construct of Aristotle is the pre-eminent way by which everyone on this planet uses to think and feel.

8.    Geometrodynamics is the study of the dynamics of the geometry of space and the dynamics of the metronome of time.

9.    Anchors: We now know that there are two kinds. Firstly there are analogical anchors. Conceptually these were first identified by the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Secondly there are semantic anchors. They were identified by the field of Neuro-Semantic Programming. Korzybskian s.r. can be either.

10.    ... in the most violent ways: In another day and age, people were put to death for contradicting Aristotle.

©1999 Dennis K. Chong & Jennifer K. Smith Chong. All rights reserved.