Korzybski characterized mankind as a time-binding class of life because, he claimed, "knowledge" increased as an exponential rate though the use of language passing messages from generation to generation. (Manhood of Humanity, p.20, Science and Sanity, p. 364)
Korzybski was flat wrong on this point. It is not "knowledge" that is passed from generation to generation but "information". "Knowledge" is the ability to use information, and that must be learned anew by members of each generation.
"Information", however, does not differentiate between "good" and "bad", between "correct" and "wrong", between "true" and "false". In the context of time-binding and exponential growth, "information" includes misinformation, false theories, speculations, fiction, and anything that can be expressed in symbols. The exponential growth includes all the trash, wrong information, and everything else that has been expressed. It's possible to see individuals holding and using theories that have been disconfirmed, but continue to be passed from generation to generation.
Such a definition was given in my Manhood of Humanity to the effect that man differs from the animals in the capacity of each human generation to begin where the former generation left off. This capacity I called the time-binding function. (S&S, 539)
Here's my simple abstract definition.
This higher energy-which is commonly called the mental or spiritual power of man-is time-binding because it makes past achievements live in the present and present activities in time-to-come . It is an energy that initiates; it is an energy that creates; it is an energy that can understand the past and foretell the future-it is both historian and prophet; it is an energy that loads abstract time-the vehicle of events-with an ever-increasing burden of intellectual achievements, of spiritual wealth, destined for the civilization of posterity. And what is the natural law of the increase? What is the natural law of human advancements in all great matters of human concern? The question is of utmost importance both theoretically and practically, for the law-whatever it be-is a natural law-a law of human nature-a law of the time-binding energy of man. What is the law? We have already noted the law of arithmetical progression and the law of geometric progression; we have seen the immense difference between them; and we have seen that the natural law of human progress in each and every cardinal matter is a law like that of a rapidly increasing geometric progression. In other words, the natural law of human progress-the natural law of amelioration in human affairs-the fundamental law of human nature-the basic law of the time-binding energy peculiar to man-is a Logarithmic law-a law of logarithmic increase. (MoH,90)
And so I repeat that the world will have uninterrupted, peaceful progress when and only when the so-called social "sciences"-the life-regulating "sciences" of ethics, law, philosophy, economics, religion, politics, and government-are technologized; when and only when they are made genuinely scientific in spirit and method; for then and only then will they advance, like the natural, mathematical and technological sciences, in conformity to the fundamental exponential law of the time-binding nature of man; then and then only, by the equal pace of progress in all cardinal matters, the equilibrium of social institutions will remain stable and social cataclysms cease. (MoH,92)
The world to-day is full of controversy about wealth, capital, and money, and because humanity, through its peculiar time-binding power, binds this element "time" in an ever larger and larger degree, the controversy becomes more and more acute. Civilization as a process is the process of binding time; progress is made by the fact that each generation adds to the material and spiritual wealth which it inherits. Past achievements-the fruit of bygone time-thus live in the present, are augmented in the present, and transmitted to the future; the process goes on; time, the essential element, is so involved that, though it increases arithmetically, its fruit, civilization, advances geometrically. (MoH,106)
(1) The intellectuals are the men and women who possess the knowledge produced by the labor of by-gone generations but do not possess the material wealth thus produced. In mastering and using this inheritance of knowledge, they are exercising their time-binding energies and making the labor of the dead live in the present and for the future. (MoH, 109)
We know that time-binding capacity-the capacity for accumulating racial experience, enlarging it, and transmitting it for future expansion.... (MoH, 175)
In the human class of life, we find a new factor, non-existent in any other form of life; namely, that we have a capacity to collect all known experiences of different individuals. Such a capacity increases enormously the number of observations a single individual can handle, and so our acquaintance with the world around, and in, us becomes much more refined and exact. This capacity, which I call the time-binding capacity, is only possible because, in distinction from the animals, we have evolved, or perfected, extra-neural means by which, without altering our nervous system, we can refine its operation and expand its scope. Our scientific instruments record what ordinarily we cannot see, hear,. Our neural verbal [centers] allow us to exchange and accumulate experiences, although no one could live through all of them; and they would be soon forgotten if we had no neural and extraneural means to record them. (S&S, 376)
In this case, it has brought us to a new sharp distinction between 'man' and 'animal'. The number of orders of abstractions an 'animal' can produce is limited. The number of orders of abstractions a 'man' can produce is, in principle, unlimited. Here is found the fundamental mechanism of the 'time-binding' power which characterizes man, and which allows him, in principle, to gather the experiences of all past generations. A higher order abstraction, let us say, of the n+1 order, is made as a response to the, stimulus of abstractions of the nth order . Among 'humans' the abstractions of high orders produced by others, as well as those produced by oneself are stimuli to abstracting in still higher orders. Thus, in principle, we start where the former generation left off. (S&S, 394)
Further investigation into the mechanism of the time-binding function revealed that its most important characteristic is found in its peculiar stratification into many orders of abstractions. (S&S, 503)
| This page was updated by Ralph Kenyon on 2006/08/27 at 00:54 and has been accessed 2084 times at 65 hits per month. |
|---|