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Language in Thought and Action by S. I. Hayakawa is an introduction to General Semantics and deals with the limitations of language-oriented mental models, e.g.
by Zanni 7y ago
Language in Thought and Action by S. I. Hayakawa is an introduction to General Semantics and deals with the limitations of language-oriented mental models, e.g. "the map is not the territory," a reminder that a model is just a model and not reality (or what Joel Spolsky would call "a leaky abstraction"). [0]
The World of Null-A by A. E. Van Vogt is a science-fiction novel with a world that has largely adopted General Semantics. [1]
[0]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/567189.Language_in_Thought_and_Action https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/567189.Language_in_Thoug...
[1]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/951290.The_World_of_Null_A https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/951290.The_World_of_Null...
- traderjane 7y agoI think the truth is somewhere in the middle. The model is a map to the world, but at some point, you start thinking about the implications of your model and you work out an unusual idea, and then it turns out the model implicates new phenomena. What guided your ability to find the hidden gold nugget? Lucky guess? Or at some point, if you get the construction of a map so right, the map will help you compute interesting truths yet discovered.