From the creators of the statement "The Map is not the Territory"
http://www.generalsemantics.org/Articles/SPEAK_E.HTM
Consider this excerpt:
"In essence, E-Prime consists of a more descriptive and extensionally
oriented derivative of English, that automatically tends to bring the user
back to the level of first person experience. For example, if you saw a
man, reeking of whisky, stagger down the street and then collapse, you
might think (in ordinary English) "He is drunk." In E-Prime one would think
instead "He acts drunk," or "He looks drunk," both of which statements
obviously coming closer to an accurate description of the actual
experience, and involving fewer covert assumptions than the English
original. After all, one might have encountered an actor (practicing the
part of a drunken man), a man who had spilled alcohol on himself undergoing
a seizure of some kind, etc., etc. The E-Prime statement still leaves these
possibilities open, whereas the "is" statement does not. Although E-Prime
usually reduces hidden assumptions, it does not exclude them (for example,
you may have seen a woman, or a robot, or an alien, etc. that looked like a
man and acted drunk). E-Prime fosters a worldview in which the user
perceives situations as changeable rather than static, and where verbal
formulations derived from experience indicate possibilities rather than
certainties. Subjectively, I have found my creativity greatly enhanced, as
many problems that "are unsolvable" in ordinary English only "seem
unsolvable" in E-Prime! This shift in attitude can make a great difference.
Thus, removing the "to be" verb from English results in a language of a
more phenomenological character, in that this change automatically causes a
reduction of the number of assumptions in even simple sentences. Statements
made in E-Prime almost always mirror first person experience far more
adequately than the "is" statements they replace. E-Prime also greatly
encourages one to use the active voice ("Smith-1 did it") rather than the
often misleading and information-poor passive voice ("it was done"). Of
course, as Bourland pointed out, one can continue the modification of
E-Prime even further, adding for example the alterations and
non-aristotelian tools that Korzybski recommended (dating, indexing, etc.),
bringing one to E-Prime-k. My own version of E-Prime (E-Prime-p) aims at a
phenomenological ideal, of ever more adequately representing the territory
of my experience while ever more clearly communicating with others."
I pose this excerpt, in some sense, as a follow up to my earlier posts on
Loglan, a language for speaking and thinking with logic.
I also pose this excerpt since I think it is, an some other sense, related
to the evolution of a Collaborative Literacy, as is being developed by Jeff
Conklin and his colleagues.
Robert Rosen took Aristotle to his limits in trying to formulate a means of
modeling complex systems. The generalsemantics.org folks are speaking in
non-aristotelian terms, and, largely, for the same purposes. Frankly, I'm
having some problems getting my brain around the differences in
approach. Perhaps, somewhere 'out there', we might have an opportunity to
discuss this particular line of reasoning. That, because, I think, if we
don't find a way to articulate what we think in terms that others will be
able to unambiguously understand what we are saying, then (brace
yourselves), all this OHS/DKR stuff will be for nought (or words to that
effect).
Cheers
Jack
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