Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyrotex
If you start putting Consciousness (self-awareness) outside the Map, then you might as well put it physically outside the brain. This leads nowhere. DeCartes made the same mistake.
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I don't believe Descartes puts consciousness or "I" off the map.
Two things are being used in Korzybaski's system: a map and a territory. The map is part of the territory in the sense that the brain is part of the physical world. And, the territory is part of the map in the sense that everything we consider physical or part of the territory is itself a construct on the map.
Considering this, the following doesn't make sense to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyrotex
The very concept of "I", aware of itself, is not a physical object, not even an invisible physical object. The "I" in our Minds is a logical construct, a semantic construct. And the individual Lego blocks, are the atomic elements of Languaging itself. And Languaging is the concept and process of storing, retrieving, communicating, evaluating, and assigning meaning to Information. The Mind, the "I", is built out of Languaging...
Finally, we can speak of "exists" versus "is real". Let's define "exists" as the fundemental property of anything that has mass, physical size, energy, form or substance. Everything that exists is also real. But there are things which are "real" which do not exist.
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Here "I" has been put on the map and denied any place in the territory while other parts of the map are allowed to exist in the territory. The distinction seems to be that only things with "mass, physical size, energy, form or substance" have a correlating physical existence in the territory. But, these are distinctions we make on the map and are themselves constructs of the map.
As I understand Korzybaski's system, we are not constructing the territory with these concepts on the map—we are constructing the map. To try and *prove* what physically exists (apart from (or outside) the map) in the territory seems to be exactly what Descartes is taking issue with.
In the language of Korzybaski, I believe Descartes means only that there
is a map. That is the only absolute. We cannot even prove that there is a territory. Making distinctions like—the part of the map that correlates with mass or energy also are part of the territory—could be wrong. But, you cannot be mistaken in saying "the map exists". For one part of the map to question another part of the map means a priori there is a map.
~modest
