Whatever you say it is, it isn't.
More Quotes from Alfred Korzybski:
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 todays understanding of the universe a principle invariably false to facts.Alfred Korzybski
The map is not the territory. The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map
Alfred Korzybski
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.
Alfred Korzybski
It is now no mystery that some quite influential philosophers were mentally ill.
Alfred Korzybski
It is amusing to discover, in the twentieth century, that the quarrels between two lovers, two mathematicians, two nations, two economic systems, usually assumed insoluble in a finite period should exhibit one mechanism, the semantic mechanism of identification -- the discovery of which makes universal agreement possible, in mathematics and in life.
Alfred Korzybski
The affairs of man are conducted by our own, man-made rules and according to man-made theories. Man's achievements rest upon the use of symbols.... we must consider ourselves as a symbolic, semantic class of life, and those who rule the symbols, rule us.
Alfred Korzybski
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