Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski was a Polish-American independent scholar who developed a field called general semantics, which he viewed as both distinct from, and more encompassing than, the field of semantics. He argued that human knowledge of the world is limited both by the human nervous system and the languages humans have developed, and thus no one can have direct access to reality, given that the most we can know is that which is filtered through the brain's responses to reality. His best known dictum is "The map is not the territory".
Richard Buckminster Fuller was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more than 30 books and coining or popularizing such terms as "Spaceship Earth", "Dymaxion", "ephemeralization", "synergetics", and "tensegrity".
E-Prime denotes a restricted form of English in which authors avoid all forms of the verb to be.
General semantics is concerned with how events translate to perceptions, how they are further modified by the names and labels we apply to them, and how we might gain a measure of control over our own cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. Proponents characterize general semantics as an antidote to certain kinds of delusional thought patterns in which incomplete and possibly warped mental constructs are projected onto the world and treated as reality itself. After partial launches under the names human engineering and humanology, Polish-American originator Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950) fully launched the program as general semantics in 1933 with the publication of Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. His writings include Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) and Mind and Nature (1979).
The Dymaxion car was designed by American inventor Buckminster Fuller during the Great Depression and featured prominently at Chicago's 1933/1934 World's Fair. Fuller built three experimental prototypes with naval architect Starling Burgess – using donated money as well as a family inheritance – to explore not an automobile per se, but the 'ground-taxiing phase' of a vehicle that might one day be designed to fly, land and drive – an "Omni-Medium Transport". Fuller associated the word Dymaxion with much of his work, a portmanteau of the words dynamic, maximum, and tension, to summarize his goal to do more with less.
The map–territory relation is the relationship between an object and a representation of that object, as in the relation between a geographical territory and a map of it. Mistaking the map for the territory is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone confuses the semantics of a term with what it represents. Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski remarked that "the map is not the territory" and that "the word is not the thing", encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself. Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with territories, that is, confuse conceptual models of reality with reality itself. These ideas are crucial to general semantics, a system Korzybski originated.
Robert Paul Pula was a director emeritus of the Institute of General Semantics, author of A General-Semantics Glossary, and a composer. Pula served as the lead lecturer for the Institute of General Semantics for many years. He also edited the General Semantics Bulletin from 1977 to 1985, and served as the Director of the institute from 1983 to 1986. In 1993 he wrote the "Preface to the Fifth Edition" of Alfred Korzybski's Science and Sanity. He was a polymathic poet, painter, pianistic composer, Polka historian, Polish culturalist, cartoonist, writer, editor, and teacher.
The National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) is a museum, annual awards ceremony and learning and research center that was founded in 1962 as an Ohio non-profit corporation in Dayton, Ohio, United States, known as the "Birthplace of Aviation" with its connection to the Wright brothers. In 2017 the annual induction was held in Fort Worth, Texas, as the organization began rotating the ceremony among various cities.
Cassius Jackson Keyser was an American mathematician of pronounced philosophical inclinations.
Lance A. Strate is an American writer and professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University. He was the 2015 Margaret E. and Paul F. Harron Endowed Chair in Communication at Villanova University, and in 2016 lectured at the School of Journalism and Communication at Henan University, in Kaifeng China.
Levels of Knowing and Existence: Studies in General Semantics is a textbook written by Professor Harry L. Weinberg that provides a broad overview of general semantics in language accessible to the layman.
Marjorie Kendig Gates (1892–1981), best known as M. Kendig, was an American administrator, director of the Institute of General Semantics from 1950 until 1965, and co-worker of Alfred Korzybski, who developed the theory of general semantics. She completed Korzybski's collected writings after his death in 1950.
Dr. Sanford I. Berman was a philanthropist, real estate investor, professional hypnotist, and board member of the Institute of General Semantics. As of the year 2000, Berman had given more than a million dollars to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD); San Diego State University (SDSU); and University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Berman endowed the Sanford I. Berman Institute for Effective Communication and General Semantics at SDSU in 1997, the Sanford I. Berman Chair in Language and Human Communication at UCSD in 1998, the Dr. Sanford I. Berman Professorship of Public Discourse and General Semantics at UNLV in 1999.
The 75th Massachusetts General Court, consisting of the Massachusetts Senate and the Massachusetts House of Representatives, met in 1854 during the governorship of Emory Washburn. Charles Edward Cook served as president of the Senate and Otis P. Lord served as speaker of the House.
The 90th Massachusetts General Court, consisting of the Massachusetts Senate and the Massachusetts House of Representatives, met in 1869 during the governorship of Republican William Claflin. George O. Brastow and Robert Carter Pitman served as presidents of the Senate and Harvey Jewell served as speaker of the House.
The 92nd Massachusetts General Court, consisting of the Massachusetts Senate and the Massachusetts House of Representatives, met in 1871 during the governorship of Republican William Claflin. Horace H. Coolidge served as president of the Senate and Harvey Jewell served as speaker of the House.
