Customer Reviews

Manhood of Humanity

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In 1921, Alfred Korzybski, a mathematician and scientist, classified Life with precise and accurate operational definitions of plants, animals, and humans. He defined the plants as energy-binders, the animals as space-binders, and we humans as time-binders. Korzybski explained that:

The plants adapt to their environment through their awareness and control of energy. The animals adapt to their environment through their awareness and control of space. And we humans adapt to our environment through our awareness and control of time.

Plants are energy-binders. The power of energy-binding is transformation, growth, and organization.

Energy-binders have the ability to transform solar energy to organic chemical energy. The plant is a solar collector. It spreads its leaves and harvests the ultraviolet rays directly from the sun.

Energy-binders have the power of growth.The plant draws water and minerals from the soil organizes this energy and nutrients into growth through cell division. The growth of the energy-binder and its self-propagation through progeny are the resultant of cell division - if the cells remain together we have growth; if they split off into a separate entity we have progeny. Energy-bindings have the power of organization. Organization possible through the ability to time the release and binding of energy. Timing based on knowledge - energy knowledge.

Animals are space-binders. The power of space-binding is mobility - the ability to move about in space. This is not the simple motion of plants. This is mobility - running, jumping, leaping, swinging, swimming, creeping, stalking, crawling, diving, and flying.

The space-binder moves towards a specific and attainable goal - water, food, a mate, shelter - and in any direction. The mobility of the space-binder is not just motion, it is controlled motion. The space-binder moves in search of food. For grazing animals the quest is continuous; for predators, occasional but more strenuous. And all animals are under constant threat from natural enemies. The animal, therefore, requires sense awareness - awareness of the space in which he lives.

We humans are Time-binders. We possess the power to understand and through that understanding to control and dominate planet Earth.

The power of Time-binding is to understand - to observe and remember change over time. Understanding comes from the awareness of time - an awareness that allows humans to experience time as sequential or linear.

Tomorrow follows today as today followed yesterday. Time always moves from the past to the present, from the present to the future. Change is bound in time. And time-binders understand change in space because they are aware of time.

When humans understand change they can understand cause and effect, they make scientific discovery. They make knowledge. When humans make choices based on knowledge, they make inventions. They make technology. Time-binders are the creators of knowledge and technology. When knowledge is incorporated into matter-energy, it becomes a tool. Humans are above all else toolmakers.

Time-binding is embedded in just about every thing associated with humans and yet most humans are unaware of the very power that makes them human. We humans catalogue and store our various knowings in libraries, universities, colleges, data banks, and information services. We are time-binders and the mark of human power is everywhere.

This was Korzybski's gift to humanity. An understanding of Life, and a definition of the form called human.

In "Manhood Of Humanity" a vision of our future begins, fired in the trenches of World War I. Here in print Korzybski begins the task of solving the problems of the world, each page radiating optimistic humanity.
The problem comes down to whether human 'nature' can change, involving an accepted definition that 'man is an animal'. Indeed our political-social institutions, etc., operate with an animalistic, ruthless tooth-and-claw "survival of the fittest" as the 'strongest'. Despite that Charles Darwin(1859) in his "survival of the fittest" meant a survival of the best adapted, not 'strongest'. Therefore Korzybski decided that a functional re-definition became necessary, in order to better differentiate the evolutionary development. Where plants have an equivalence to Chemical-binders: capacity to convert energy(for example, photosynthesis) into growth, etc. Next that animals have an equivalence to Space-binders: capacity to move to find food. While humans have an equivalence to Time-binders: capacity to improve on the accumulated abstractions of others then transmitting it for future generations. From which has developed Philosophy, Sciences, Engineering, our libraries, etc.
This led as a result to new explanations involving predictions upon old problems, ultimately having surprising consequences. For example, why do revolutions along with wars happen? Well because Science, Engineering, etc., as a time-binding process progresses geometrically, whilst our moral, social 'opinions'('prejudices'), etc., progresses arithmetically, non-empirically. For example, on many occasions people in discussion groups have protested against technological progress, yet it is not the technology that becomes the problem but their uses due to mis-evaluations. Further that our values for power(charisma as in leadership or-both exchange as in wealth), status(esteem), life-style, etc., remains based on a duplicity which involves the subjugation of the living by prostituting the time-binding knowledge created by the dead.
Instead Korzybski advocates co-operation in place of 'competition'; whilst self-improvement in place of 'greed', 'territorialism', 'capitalism', etc.
Thus Korzybski argues that humans are not by 'nature''fixed innate', but changeable through nurture; however to discover how this becomes possible, further why we 'copy animals in our nervous reactions'(the consequences)- required further research, culminating in "Science And Sanity".

The visual execution of this reproduction is inexcusable (product link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003YMMCNO/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_img). The only "High Quality" of this copy is the cover.

The only reason I have not returned the book was because I disposed of the packaging before I go to opening the book.

However the material itself is superb and would deserve a properly printed new edition (at an affordable price --- are you listening, Institute of General Semantics?).

This book explains why we (humans) see so many things being done by our religious and political leaders that do not make sense. We are not the ones that are ignorant, just gullible.

There is also a $10 version of this book on Amazon, and you can find .pdf versions to download online for free.

Of course humanity has yet to reach "manhood". We're still too busy pushing people off "the swing set" and the "merry go round". We're not even old enough to share without complaining. We're certainly not old enough to be playing with dangerous tools and machines.

This book takes 200 pages to say a few simple but very important things.
Read those 200 pages anyway. I am not going to summarize the K.
Although page 124 is particularly important.

The map that this book is, is not the territory it surveys. But it is closer than many.

The implications in this little book are of such far reaching importance that I have read it at least 4 times. A scientific description of man's place in nature is given by distinguishing his nature from that of plants and animals. Man is not an animal, not a mix of animal and supernatural, but is distinguishable as the "time-binding class of life". Man is given this scientifically justifiable definition for what he DOES. We humans live with the scientific and monetary wealth of many generations of the work of the deceased, and we can pick up where they left off in science, inventions, quality of life, etc. THUS WE SEE THAT HUMANS ARE ACTIVE IN CHEMISTRY (plants), SPACE (animals), AND TIME (humans). We evolve in this manner according to a progression that makes the progress, if any, made by ANIMALS so minute as to rightly be deemed insignificant. How or why the first time-binding human came to be is not explained, but it need not be speculated upon for the purposes of living in accordance with man's NATURE. As such, the goal of economics, jurisprudence, ethics, etc. are given proper vision as to what SHOULD BE CREATED with the time-binding capacity UNIQUE TO HUMANS.

This work has influenced just about everyone who was anybody during the previous century.The first published work by Korzybski, emanates with enthusiasm towards humanity, hobeit somber some of the observations contained in it. It is rather simple; yet makes the reader think anew about long forgotten questions he/she might have had at one time or other. And there are some good answers in it; some of them can be seen as timeless.