(RAW's article the linguists are arguing about)
RMJon23
TOWARD UNDERSTANDING E -PRIME
Robert Anton Wilson
E-PRIME, abolishing all forms of the verb "to be," has its roots in the
field of general semantics, as presented by Alfred Korzybski in his 1933
book, Science and Sanity. Korzybski pointed out the pitfalls associated
with, and produced by, two usages of "to be": identity and predication.
His student D. David Bourland, Jr., observed that even linguistically
sensitive people do not seem able to avoid identity and predication uses
of "to be" if they continue to use the verb at all. Bourland pioneered in
demonstrating that one can indeed write and speak without using any
form of "to be," calling this subset of the English language "E-Prime."
Many have urged the use of E-Prime in writing scientific and technical
papers. Dr. Kellogg exemplifies a prime exponent of this activity. Dr.
Albert Ellis has rewritten five of his books in E-Prime, in collaboration
with Dr. Robert H. Moore, to improve their clarity and to reap the
epistemological benefits of this language revision. Korzybski felt that
all
humans should receive training in general semantics from grade school
on, as "semantic hygiene" against the most prevalent forms of logical
error, emotional distortion, and "demonological thinking." E-Prime
provides a straightforward training technique for acquiring such semantic
hygiene.
To understand E-Prime, consider the human brain as a computer. (Note
that I did not say the brain "is" a computer.) As the Prime Law of
Computers tells us, GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT (GIGO, for
short). The wrong software guarantees wrong answers. Conversely,
finding the right software can "miraculously" solve problems that
previously appeared intractable.
It seems likely that the principal software used in the human brain
consists of words, metaphors, disguised metaphors, and linguistic
structures in general. The Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski Hypothesis, in
anthropology, holds that a change in language can alter our perception of
the cosmos. A revision of language structure, in particular, can alter the
brain as dramatically as a psychedelic. In our metaphor, if we change
the software, the computer operates in a new way.
Consider the following paired sets of propositions, in which Standard
English alternates with English-Prime (E-Prime):
lA. The electron is a wave.
lB. The electron appears as a wave when measured with instrument-l.
2A. The electron is a particle.
2B. The electron appears as a particle when measured with
instrument-2.
3A. John is lethargic and unhappy.
3B. John appears lethargic and unhappy in the office.
4A. John is bright and cheerful.
4B. John appears bright and cheerful on holiday at the beach.
5A. This is the knife the first man used to stab the second man.
5B. The first man appeared to stab the second man with what looked
like a knife to me.
6A. The car involved in the hit-and-run accident was a blue Ford.
6B. In memory, I think I recall the car involved in the hit-and-run
accident as a blue Ford.
7A. This is a fascist idea.
7B. This seems like a fascist idea to me.
8A. Beethoven is better than Mozart.
8B. In my present mixed state of musical education and ignorance,
Beethoven seems better to me than Mozart.
9A. That is a sexist movie.
9B. That seems like a sexist movie to me.
10A. The fetus is a person.
10B. In my system of metaphysics, I classify the fetus as a person.
The "A"-type statements (Standard English) all implicitly or explicitly
assume the medieval view called "Aristotelian essentialism" or "naive
realism." In other words, they assume a world made up of block-like
entities with indwelling "essences" or spooks- "ghosts in the machine."
The "B"-type statements (E-Prime) recast these sentences into a form
isomorphic to modern science by first abolishing the "is" of Aristotelian
essence and then reformulating each observation in terms of signals
received and interpreted by a body (or instrument) moving in
space-time.
Relativity, quantum mechanics, large sections of general physics,
perception psychology, sociology, linguistics, modern math,
anthropology, ethology, and several other sciences make perfect sense
when put into the software of E-Prime. Each of these sciences generates
paradoxes, some bordering on "nonsense" or "gibberish," if you try to
translate them back into the software of Standard English.
Concretely, "The electron is a wave" employs the Aristotelian "is" and
thereby introduces us to the false-to-experience notion that we can know
the indwelling "essence" of the electron. "The electron appears as a
wave when measured by instrument-1" reports what actually occurred in
space-time, namely that the electron when constrained by a certain
instrument behaved in a certain way.
Similarly, "The electron is a particle" contains medieval Aristotelian
software, but "The electron appears as a particle when measured by
instrument-2" contains modern scientific software. Once again, the
software determines whether we impose a medieval or modern grid
upon our reality-tunnel.
Note that "the electron is a wave" and "the electron is a particle"
contradict each other and begin the insidious process by which we move
gradually from paradox to nonsense to total gibberish. On the other
hand, the modern scientific statements "the electron appears as a wave
when measured one way" and "the electron appears as a particle
measured another way" do not contradict, but rather complement each
other. (Bohr's Principle of Complementarity, which explained this and
revolutionized physics, would have appeared obvious to all, and not just
to a person of his genius, if physicists had written in E-Prime all along.
.
. .)
Looking at our next pair, "John is lethargic and unhappy" vs. "John is
bright and cheerful,' we see again how medieval software creates
metaphysical puzzles and totally imaginary contradictions.
Operationalizing the statements, as physicists since Bohr have learned to
operationalize, we find that the E-Prime translations do not contain any
contradiction, and even give us a clue as to causes of John's changing
moods. (Look back if you forgot the translations.)
"The first man stabbed the second man with a knife" lacks the overt "is"
of identity but contains Aristotelian software nonetheless. The E-Prime
translation not only operationalizes the data, but may fit the facts
better-if the incident occurred in a psychology class, which often
conduct this experiment. (The first man "stabs," or makes stabbing
gestures at, the second man, with a banana, but many students,
conditioned by Aristotelian software, nonetheless "see" a knife. You
don't need to take drugs to hallucinate; improper language can fill
your world with phantoms and spooks of many kinds.)
The reader may employ his or her own ingenuity in analyzing how
"is-ness" creates false-to-facts reality-tunnels in the remaining
examples,
and how E-Prime brings us back to the scientific, the operational, the
existential, the phenomenological--to what humans and their instruments
actually do in space-time as they create observations, perceptions,
thoughts, deductions, and General Theories.
I have found repeatedly that when baffled by a problem in science, in
"philosophy," or in daily life, I gain immediate insight by writing down
what I know about the enigma in strict E-Prime. Often, solutions appear
immediately-just as happens when you throw out the "wrong" software
and put the "right" software into your PC. In other cases, I at least get
an insight into why the problem remains intractable and where and how
future science might go about finding an answer. (This has contributed
greatly to my ever-escalating agnosticism about the political,
ideological,
and religious issues that still generate the most passion on this
primitive
planet.)
When a proposition resists all efforts to recast it in a form consistent
with what we now call E-Prime, many consider it "meaningless."
Korzybski, Wittgenstein, the Logical Positivists, and (in his own way)
Niels Bohr promoted this view. I happen to agree with that verdict
(which condemns 99 percent of theology and 99.999999 percent of
metaphysics to the category of Noise rather than Meaning)--but we must
save that subject for another article. For now, it suffices to note that
those who fervently believe such Aristotelian propositions as "A piece of
bread, blessed by a priest, is a person (who died two thousand years
ago)," "The flag is a living being," or "The fetus is a human being" do
not, in general, appear to make sense by normal twentieth-century
scientific standards.
Robert Anton Wilson has published science fiction, historical novels,
poetry, and futuristic sociology, and he has two plays published.
An earlier version of this article appeared in Trajectories, no. 5, the
newsletter published by Robert Anton Wilson. Reprinted from Etcetera
46, no. 4 (Winter 1989).
Also see Robert Anton Wilson's " Quantum Psychology," New Falcon
Publications, 1990
This text comes from:
D. David Bourland, Jr. & Paul Dennithorne Johnston, "To Be or Not:
An E-Prime Anthology," International Society for General Semantics,
1991, pp. 23-26
The forms of "to be" that E-Prime excludes includes the words: "is,"
"are," "were,"
"was," "am," "be," "been," and their contractions.