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Abstract Interpersonal Dynamics

At its core I define abstract interpersonal dynamics to mean Language. As Korzybski said, "The map is not the territory; the word is not the thing." This implies that language abstracts reality, and that any conversation between people also abstracts the reality they perceive. However, within that context, additional degrees of abstraction exist.

In his paper SPEAKING IN E-PRIME: An Experimental Method for Integrating General Semantics into Daily Life, E. W. Kellogg III says the following:

Although some books proved very helpful to me (in particular Ken Keyes How to Develop Your Thinking Ability, with those delightful and singularly apropos cartoons by Ted Key), it seemed clear that having an intellectual understanding of non-aristotelian thought does not necessarily allow one to practice it. I began a self-training program in which I focused on practically applying a single aspect of general semantics on any given day. For example, I might focus on the multiordinality of terms, and make a serious effort to increase my awareness of the orders of abstraction inherent in what I read, said, and heard during my daily activities. On another day I might try to eliminate the either-or, all-or-never orientation by thinking more in terms of possibilities and probabilities. As I gained experience, I found some small, but significant, changes in my "mental machinery" resulting from my self training efforts, including an increasing number of spontaneous instances of non-aristotelian thinking. Even so, these efforts proved mostly ineffectual, as I continued to habitually think and evaluate in the old aristotelian way. Clearly, I needed a simple, but comprehensive system of discipline that would force me to incorporate the various principles of general semantics into daily life.

When I had almost given up on finding such a discipline, I discovered D. D. Bourland's article, "A Linguistic Note: Writing in E-Prime," in a back issue of the General Semantics Bulletin. In essence, the term E-Prime (abbreviated E') refers to an English language derivative that eliminates any use of the verb "to be" (basically am, is, was, are, and were). In this article Bourland argued for the use of E-Prime as a writing discipline that allows one to minimize many "false to facts" linguistic patterns inherent in ordinary English usage. Without going deeply into the advantages of E-Prime at this point, its use automatically eliminates the false to facts "is of identity" (i.e. John is a man) and the "is of predication" (i.e. The leaf is green), two main stumbling blocks to non-aristotelian thinking. I decided to make E-Prime an integral part of my self-training efforts. If I couldn't consistently act in accordance with general semantics principles I could at least write in accordance with them."

So, according to Kellogg, E' erodes the illusion that a word equates to identity. If one looks at Kellogg's paper carefully, one realizes that the entire paper contains an abstract form of communication: Written in E', it demonstrates its own effectiveness first-hand. This form abstraction points to a physical, yet abstract object in order to discuss a form of abstraction that differs from the usual forms.

This leads to recognition of the underlying abstractions involved in communication during any discussion or debate. This recognition acknowledges that the words used in a discussion do not describe absolutes or diametric opposites (black/white, this/that, etc). Instead, they abstractly describe the interactions between one's self, a group consensus, and an environment or group of environments... Communication becomes rather complex, but never boring... E' assists one to mentally shift into this mode.

Kellogg describes this shift in the following 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 whiskey, 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.

In a world with mutable parameters, more possibilities open, and the mind begins perhaps to see things not previously perceived, because the absolutes (which I refer to as "Bookmarks") prevented such perception. Acknowledging the abstract nature of communication eliminates the clutter of absolutes and opens perception to new possibilities.