Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Institute of General Semantics International Conference - An Initial Report

I returned home on Monday from NYC. I congratulate Lance Strate on a fantastic conference program at Fordham University at Lincoln Center. Since I came back, a lot has been going on which unfortunately has kept me from writing about the conference until now. I'll start off here with a few relevant links.

The Fordham student newspaper had a nice write-up on the web on Mary Catherine Bateson who gave the 57th Annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture. Here's the link: Anthropologist Asks 'Age Old' Question: Does Older Mean Wiser? The short answer—No, but it can if you lead a life of learning and don't stop. A larger question she was dealing with—how do we promote and develop a time-binding culture? Short answer—Start here and now and with yourself. I found it an interesting talk at the end a long and fruitful day.

On Sunday, Mike Schilling on his blog Basket Case, had a post providing the beginning-of-chapter non-aristotelian quotes that A.E. Van Vogt used in his science fiction fantasy novel The World of Null A 'Null A' was Van Vogt's term for what Korzybski referred to as 'non-aristotelian' which was not anti-aristotelian for Korzybski, despite the implications of Van Vogt's usage. Interesting quotes Thanks, Mike.

Finally, I looked at the Sunday New York Times Magazine after I got home (yes, we get the NY Times in Los Angeles), where William Safire made a nice reference to Korzybski in his column bending the curve

Quite a korzybskian weekend for me!

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