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

22 / You Are Not
obviously, using this microscope to look at things on the
microscopic level, “you” would see no “boundaries.” On this
level, two apples on a table, for example, would not be seen
as separate objects. The apples and the table would appear
as one mass of the same stuff—protons, electrons, etc.—just
particles in emptiness. Now, if we turned the electron microscope
around and looked at “you,” we would see that YOU ARE
NOT. We would see only the “movement of atoms,” etc., in
emptiness with no boundaries, no “I,” no “you,” no “self,” no
“other”—and no separate, individual, independent “you.”
As the condensation proceeds, we get what Korzybski calls
the object level, condensations that we perceive as objects—
pencils, people, etc. This is a pivotal level because as THE
SUBSTANCE, and at the consciousness level, the process
level, the quantum physics level, and the microscopic levels,
there is NO-I; YOU ARE NOT. However, as the condensingabstracting
process continues, the I AM, a body and a nervous
system, appears. The I AM is the point of contact where the
abstracting-condensing process yields the I AM, an “I,” which
is a representation that is later assumed to be the “you” that
“you” call “you.” Here again, we will add something to Korzybski;
namely, at the object level, six things appear:
1) The body and nervous system appear.
2) The I AM is formed.
3) An “awarer,” which is part of the I AM, is
formed.
4) There is a sensation level.
5) The perceiver appears.
6) There is the appearance of the “my” or “self”consciousness
as an independent, separate,
individual, entity.
Before this contraction, however, YOU ARE NOT. Next
as the abstracting-condensing process continues, the nervous