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

38 / You Are Not
(Pula, General Semantics Seminar, Tape 103-B) Whatever
a person’s nervous system makes out of some process
level energies of reality is not the process level itself.
It might be useful to point out that although the ‘open
curve’ of the parabola represents indefinitely many subatomic
energies of the universe, the ‘close curve’ (circle)
of the object levels disk suggests that a limited number
of energies are abstracted by a person’s nervous system.
(Chisholm, Introductory Lectures on General Semantics,
p. 104) A sensation results from a nervous system responding
to billions and billions of subatomic energies
of reality. This point is illustrated in the diagram as
several strings from the process level parabola meeting
at the same spot in the object level disk. These last
remarks lead to making a distinction between the dots
in the process level parabola and the dots in the object
level disk. The dots in the parabola represent subatomic
energies of reality, but the dots in the disk represent
sensations, which result from a person’s nervous system
transacting with energies of reality. 7 For example, you
cannot see the individual subatomic energies that make
up a wooden table, but you can get visual sensations of
some details in the wood of the table.” (Sawin)
Here we see a major difference between the Structural
Differential Diagram and The Substance Diagram because
it indicates that the person cannot react to any “energies”
separate from reality. The body and later the idea of I AM
and I AM a person are part of THE ONE SUBSTANCE’S
condensation, which is consciousness. Therefore it is the
7 Here we contend that there is no person who reacts to “energies,” rather
these “energies” are what the person is made of. There is no person separate
from these “energies.” In this way, it is not the person who reacts,
because there is no person, just at least a movement of consciousness,
and, at most, not even that.