If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure, and structure alone.
Interpretation
Words and maps represent concepts, but they are not the actual realities they depict; understanding this connection is crucial.
This quote by Alfred Korzybski emphasizes the distinction between words (or language) and the actual objects or experiences they refer to. The essence of our understanding lies in the underlying structure that connects our linguistic expressions to the real world, highlighting that our perceptions and descriptions are merely interpretations rather than the complete reality itself.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of communication in relationships, this quote can illustrate the limitations of language.
As words are not the things we speak about, and structure is the only link between them, structure becomes the only content of knowledge. If we gamble on verbal structures that have no observable empirical structures, such gambling can never give us any structural information about the world. Therefore such verbal structures are structurally obsolete, and if we believe in them, they induce delusions or other semantic disturbances.
To use words to sense reality is like going with a lamp to search for darkness.
I want to make clear only that words are not the things spoken about, and that there is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.
Let us repeat the two crucial negative premises as established firmly by all human experience: (1) Words are not the things we are speaking about; and (2) There is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.
It struck me as I listened to those two men that a truer nomination (name) for our species than Homo sapiens might be Homo narrans, the storytelling person. What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats–and they in turn can listen to ours.
Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
The more I think about myself, the more I'm persuaded that, as a person, I really don't exist. That is one of the reasons why I can't believe in any orthodox religion: I cannot believe in my own soul. No, I am a chemical compound, conditioned by environment and education. My "character" is simply a repertoire of acquired tricks, my conversation a repertoire of adaptations and echoes, my "feelings" are dictated by purely physical, external stimuli.
Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
Smack in the centre of contradiction is the place to be.
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