You Are Not Book.indb - Stephen H. Wolinsky Ph. D.

12 / You Are Not
So, as “his understanding” is adopted, all else is removed
until NOTHING remains. Why is this important? Because
THAT NOTHINGNESS is the UNDERLYING SUBSTANCE
that everything is made of, or to use the words of noted
physicist, John Wheeler, “NOTHINGNESS is the building
block of the universe.”
It is at this juncture that “I” wish to caution the reader
about where this book leads. “You” will never discover who
“you” are. “Who Am I” and “Who You Are” is not a technique
to find out WHO YOU ARE, it is merely a technique that
dissolves the concept of “I” in its entirety because “there is
no I that you are,” so “You” will never discover who “you”
are—”you” will discover only that YOU ARE NOT. It is with
this “understanding” that all else is removed.
So, to approach such a task, it seems imperative to first
focus on the human body as a vehicle in space-time, and
then to consider the nervous system independently, “as if” it
is separate from THE SUBSTANCE so that, for the doubters,
YOU ARE NOT can be viewed from a neuroscience level. In
this way and at this level only, the body can be seen as the
“source” of all “you” think or imagine yourself to be.
This will require the reader to “hang in there” for the next
section. “I” will attempt to provide the easiest and simplest
explanation of the organization of the “I” “you” call “yourself”
that “I” have seen. To do this, the work of the Father
of General Semantics 1 , Alfred Korzybski, will be explored
to demonstrate the organization of experience through the
senses, brain, nervous system, and language.
In the mid-1980s, “I” was introduced to Science and Sanity,
Alfred Korzybski’s 896-page classic. For ten years “I” read,
absorbed, and tried to “get” the meaning of Korzybski’s revo-
1 General Semantics has been defined as “the study of relationships between
nervous systems and symbol systems as expressed in behavior.”
(Pula, General Semantics Seminar, Tape 106-B)