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

The structural differential diagram / 43
mean that the someone or something exists. Because with
each abstraction-symbol, that which the person abstracted
or symbolized is assumed to be when the concept of being is
only a representation and an abstraction of “what is”—the
abstraction is not it. Each time we condense-abstract down
to another level, we lose more and more information. So, as
we will come to see, the inferences made about the symbol
have not only nothing to do with the symbolized, they have
nothing to do with “what is.”
Words are static in the sense that they have relatively
unchanging and general meanings that are supposed to
represent ever-changing, unique objects, situations, etc.
Weinberg wrote:
“The words are maps, and the map is not the territory.
The map is static; the territory [or process level]
constantly flows [THE SUBSTANCE is prior to flowing].
Words are always about the past or the unborn future,
never about the living present. The present is ever too
quick for them; by the time the words are out, it is gone.”
(Weinberg, Levels of Knowing and Existence, p. 35)
WORDS, THOUGHTS, EXpERiEnCES,
AnD EvEn THE “i”
ARE
SYMBOliC REpRESEnTATiOnS,
OR METApHORS
Of “WHAT iS”
AnD
HAvE nOTHinG TO
DO WiTH
“WHAT iS.”
—Stephen H. Wolinsky