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

18 / You Are Not
“I,” of course, must admit up front that how “I” use Korzybski’s
Structural Differential in “my” explanations is very
different from the way that Korzybski would have intended.
Moreover, “I” have made additions to the understanding,
which will be clearly noted so that there is no confusion
between what Korzybski proposed and the additions to his
understanding that “I” have proposed. However, perhaps Korzybski
would have considered my work in 2000, which draws
on his work in 1933, as an example of “time-binding,”—his
term for the uniquely human ability to create and use written
and spoken languages to record, preserve, accumulate,
develop, synthesize, and transmit information from older
generations to younger generations. For example, we write
books, create libraries, schools, etc. Our language skills enable
us to bind time: In the present, we learn from the past
to prepare for the future (Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity).
Korzybski believed that this human time-binding behavior
was distinctively different from animal behavior. Sir Isaac
Newton said it this way:
“If I have seen further than other men, it is only because
I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”
Therefore, it is not “my” intention to hang on to Korzybski’s
coattails. But, rather to stand on his shoulders and
take a view quite different from Korzybski (1933)—namely,
understanding that the organization of the “I” “you” call
“yourself” is a by-product of the functioning nervous system,
produced in the body by the electrochemical reactions
of neurotransmitters. This is certainly not new, and it is not
anti-Korzybskian. However, here we will utilize his Structural
Differential, not as a means to enhance survival and
self-preservation as Korzybski’s system directs us, but rather
to demonstrate that the “I” which “you” imagine that “you
are” appears after an experience has already occurred. Hence,