What do you think?
Rate this book
Dear Fellow Time-Binder: Letters on General Semantics
This is a series of short summaries and brief overviews of many main ideas within general semantics, all couched in the style of personal letters. It is designed to give people an intimate view into many insights offered with general semantics, and just as equally, it represents how principles of general semantics can be applied within everyday life.
- GenresPhilosophy
166 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 2022
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 15, 2024
A Compelling Read Wanting More - Having heard the author speak at a conference, I was interested when I saw this title as I was looking for concise information related to General Semantics ideas and ways they can be applied. As he progresses through his narrative, author Mayer engagingly describes this careful and systematic approach to the world and ways we represent it through language, symbols, and other representations, yet left me wanting more about the Field’s current direction and future.
More specifically, the book consists of 31 chapters in the form of letters recalling Wolf’s “Reader Come Home” and Schumacher’s “Dear Committee” (see my reviews). Namely, there is (1) Time-Binding and Alfred Korzybski, (2) Introducing General Semantics, (3) Using Dates in a Process World, (4) Indexing, (5) The Chain Index, (6) Etc. and Principle of Non-allness, (7) Introducing the Structural Differential, (8) Variations on the SD, (9) The Map is Not the Territory, (10) Fact-Finder, (11) What’s the Non-Aristotelian System? (12) Alfred Korzybski After S&S, (13) Safety Devices, (14) English Minus Absolutes, (15) E-Prime, (16) Either/Or, (17) The Meaning of Words, (18) Operational Philosophy, (19) Non-Additivity and True False Indeterminate and Meaningless, (20) IFD Disease: Idealism, Frustration, and Demoralization, (21) Silence and Delayed Reaction, (22) Logical Fate, (23) How to Ask a Question, (24) The General Principle of Uncertainty, (25) The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, (26) The Observer and the Observed, (27) Causation, (28) Fictions or Abstractions, (29) Media Ecology, (30) Does GS Imply an Ethics? and (31) Final Letter and Summing Up. After the text come an Author Biography and Acknowledgements.
Parts that stood out for me were the way that Mayer wove the stories of key people involved with General Semantics in his letters (GS), including a number of woman and those from different ethnic and racial groups, to help illustrate its major concepts and use. Significant thinkers in the GS tradition receiving mention, in addition to founder Korzybski, are those such as Samual Bois, S. I. Hayakawa, Marjorie Kendig, Irving Lee, Anatole Rappaport, Charlotte Schuchardt Read, and Robert Anton Wilson.
For instance, the author relates Korzybski’s involvement in World War I, his emigration to the US from Poland, and his reactions to WW II in the formation of his approach. He conveys the origins of “time-binding,” or the unique human ability to pass knowledge from one generation to the next, and the dictum “The map is not the territory.” Along these lines, Mayer suggests (in Kindle Location 1246) that “ . . . [a] way to think about GS is as a system, or practice, that focuses the time-binding energies of human beings by improving our evaluations and helping maintain a healthy sanity in what can be a nutty world.” Later on (Location 1729), he offers that “If time-binding represents our ability to pass on ideas across many generations, then GS is the applied aspect of how we structure those ideas and how we can communicate ideas more clearly and evaluate them more sensibly.” As indicated early on (Location 111) “. . . the answer to all of our maps is… another map, a ‘better’ map.” As I read, I could not help but think of Houellebecq’s novel “The Map and the Territory” and Wiener’s “Socrates Express” (see my reviews) with their apparent connections.
In addition, Mayer intersperses comments about how Korzybski and others developed the Institute of GS to promote these ideas. He also offers asides about his own application of related concepts in the Financial/Investment industry which are revealing.
Among the book’s minor drawbacks include its accessibility as well as further description of where the Institute of GS and the Field is headed. In the first case, many books I read are accessible through my public library, but like this one, those related to GS are not similarly available. As for other limitations, Mayer does point to the need for attention to Media Ecology along with the value of GS as a “a discipline worth preserving” (Location 2107). However, GS’s relation to emerging trends such as in utilization of Artificial Intelligence and socio-political polarization are not really addressed. Likely these are matters not as prominent when the book was written, receive further attention elsewhere and/or will as the Field progresses. Titles such as Strate’s “An Introduction to Media Ecology” and Pursell, Walker’s “Outsmarting AI,” and Bolter’s Digital Plenitude” come to mind (see my reviews).
All in all, “Dear Fellow-Time Binder” is a compelling read and a helpful introduction to General Semantics for those seeking some familiarization with the Field.
More specifically, the book consists of 31 chapters in the form of letters recalling Wolf’s “Reader Come Home” and Schumacher’s “Dear Committee” (see my reviews). Namely, there is (1) Time-Binding and Alfred Korzybski, (2) Introducing General Semantics, (3) Using Dates in a Process World, (4) Indexing, (5) The Chain Index, (6) Etc. and Principle of Non-allness, (7) Introducing the Structural Differential, (8) Variations on the SD, (9) The Map is Not the Territory, (10) Fact-Finder, (11) What’s the Non-Aristotelian System? (12) Alfred Korzybski After S&S, (13) Safety Devices, (14) English Minus Absolutes, (15) E-Prime, (16) Either/Or, (17) The Meaning of Words, (18) Operational Philosophy, (19) Non-Additivity and True False Indeterminate and Meaningless, (20) IFD Disease: Idealism, Frustration, and Demoralization, (21) Silence and Delayed Reaction, (22) Logical Fate, (23) How to Ask a Question, (24) The General Principle of Uncertainty, (25) The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, (26) The Observer and the Observed, (27) Causation, (28) Fictions or Abstractions, (29) Media Ecology, (30) Does GS Imply an Ethics? and (31) Final Letter and Summing Up. After the text come an Author Biography and Acknowledgements.
Parts that stood out for me were the way that Mayer wove the stories of key people involved with General Semantics in his letters (GS), including a number of woman and those from different ethnic and racial groups, to help illustrate its major concepts and use. Significant thinkers in the GS tradition receiving mention, in addition to founder Korzybski, are those such as Samual Bois, S. I. Hayakawa, Marjorie Kendig, Irving Lee, Anatole Rappaport, Charlotte Schuchardt Read, and Robert Anton Wilson.
For instance, the author relates Korzybski’s involvement in World War I, his emigration to the US from Poland, and his reactions to WW II in the formation of his approach. He conveys the origins of “time-binding,” or the unique human ability to pass knowledge from one generation to the next, and the dictum “The map is not the territory.” Along these lines, Mayer suggests (in Kindle Location 1246) that “ . . . [a] way to think about GS is as a system, or practice, that focuses the time-binding energies of human beings by improving our evaluations and helping maintain a healthy sanity in what can be a nutty world.” Later on (Location 1729), he offers that “If time-binding represents our ability to pass on ideas across many generations, then GS is the applied aspect of how we structure those ideas and how we can communicate ideas more clearly and evaluate them more sensibly.” As indicated early on (Location 111) “. . . the answer to all of our maps is… another map, a ‘better’ map.” As I read, I could not help but think of Houellebecq’s novel “The Map and the Territory” and Wiener’s “Socrates Express” (see my reviews) with their apparent connections.
In addition, Mayer intersperses comments about how Korzybski and others developed the Institute of GS to promote these ideas. He also offers asides about his own application of related concepts in the Financial/Investment industry which are revealing.
Among the book’s minor drawbacks include its accessibility as well as further description of where the Institute of GS and the Field is headed. In the first case, many books I read are accessible through my public library, but like this one, those related to GS are not similarly available. As for other limitations, Mayer does point to the need for attention to Media Ecology along with the value of GS as a “a discipline worth preserving” (Location 2107). However, GS’s relation to emerging trends such as in utilization of Artificial Intelligence and socio-political polarization are not really addressed. Likely these are matters not as prominent when the book was written, receive further attention elsewhere and/or will as the Field progresses. Titles such as Strate’s “An Introduction to Media Ecology” and Pursell, Walker’s “Outsmarting AI,” and Bolter’s Digital Plenitude” come to mind (see my reviews).
All in all, “Dear Fellow-Time Binder” is a compelling read and a helpful introduction to General Semantics for those seeking some familiarization with the Field.
October 16, 2022
Mayer’s latest book on GS continues to be instructive and mentally stimulating (to me!). Loved it.
December 13, 2024
great read
Great work! Makes general semantics digestible which is not exactly easy. It’s well worth it and is a good way to begin your journey
Great work! Makes general semantics digestible which is not exactly easy. It’s well worth it and is a good way to begin your journey
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews