Letters to the Editor

 

Dear Frank and Joanna,

 

When are you going to feature some naked men on your cover art for the SCR?� Did I miss any in the back issues? Just curious....

 

Donna, USA

 

My dear Ms Donna,

If you look closely, you will see that the image on the cover of this month's SCR is of a half-eaten watermelon. The fact that it being held by a half-naked woman - and friend - is purely coincidental. Now, if you can find a picture of a half-naked man with a half-eaten watermelon, we will be happy to consider it for publication.

Sincerely,

Frank (Ed.)

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Dear Frank,

 

I just returned to port about an hour ago (0430); was able to check my e-mail for the first time in three days, and found SCR #32.

 

Hearty and heavy congratulations. This must be one of your finest, from the Gaugin masterpiece on. I like you on Le Carr� a lot, and concur, as also with Orville Schell's article. Richard Feynman has been one of my heroes and I'm looking forward to reading him again.

 

This is the first time my verse has been published, so you can have only a faint idea of my elation. The poetry by Corey Mesler and Dan McCann is first-rate, even brilliant, and it's a great honor to be included in that department.

 

Reading "Paternostro's Promise" reminded me of early Hemingway (the best Hemingway), and made me thirsty to know more about your writing and life. (I'm going to research through back SCR issues.)

 

I haven't slept much in the past couple of days, so it will take me a few more to digest #32. But what you've achieved amazes me; I honestly can't remember seeing a more enjoyable or stimulating issue of any magazine, electronic or print. Thanks, immense thanks, for letting me on board.

 

Jim Foley


Frank:

 

Thanks for sending me the addresses for SCR every month. I haven't gotten a March one yet though.

 

I have a Weblog now. It is at http://www.pyracantha.com/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi

 

You may be interested in the Feynman-themed entry of March 8th.

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I created my Weblog to chronicle my quest to learn mathematics and physics at my advanced (50) age.

 

I find most essays/talks by Feynman extremely exasperating because of the pervasive sexism in them. And I feel much pain that my youth was deprived of anything scientific or engineering-oriented, because "girls didn't do anything like that," in my day, while it was naturally expected of boys. I have 40 years of learning to catch up on.

 

Yours, H

Hannah M. G. Shapero

 

For Hannah�s brilliant essay on the Esoteric Aspects of baseball, see:The Diamond Way [ed.]

 

 

Dear Editor,

 

Richard Feynman, in his excellent talk to science teachers reprinted in the SCR this month, wrote:

 

"So there came a time, perhaps, when for some species [humans?] the rate at which learning was increased, reached such a pitch that suddenly a completely new thing happened: things could be learned by one individual

animal, passed on to another, and another fast enough that it was not lost to the race. Thus became possible an accumulation of knowledge of the race.

 

"This has been called time-binding. I don't know who first called it this. At any rate, we have here [in this hall] some samples of those animals, sitting here trying to bind one experience to another, each one trying to learn from the other."

 

It was Alfred O. Korzybski who first called the phenomenon "time-binding". He developed the concept and named it in his first book, "Manhood of Humanity", in 1921. It is a precursor to his magnum opus, "Science and Sanity" which I have reviewed elsewhere in the SCR. I searched my copy for a short definition of time-binding by its innovator and I found on page 303� these three life-dimensions or dimensionality of Korzybski:

 

I.�� Plants ---- basic energy-binders

II.� Animals --- space-binders

III. Humans ---- time-binders

 

"Now, it is, of course, perfectly clear that, according to the foregoing conceptions or definitions, the old zoological conception of man as a species of animal is false . . ."

 

AOK makes its clear that the capacity for time-binding is unique to human beings, who while they can also bind energy and bind space as animals do, animals cannot bind time. He says, "It is a fact that use of the same term

'animal' to denote the members of both classes, --- men and beasts alike --- constantly, subtly, powerfully tends to produce both intellectual and moral obfuscation . . ."

 

AOK's total output of two books and 22 papers would fit into 4 1/2 inches of shelf space --- truly this represents 4 1/2 compact inches of Genius!

 

So, if you have been affected by the work of this obscure Polish count, Alfred O. Korzybski, without knowing it, you're in good company with Richard Feynman. Richard never cared much for words and names of things, but he knew the importance of time-binding and remembered its name. We who can remember names would do well to remember the name Korzybski as the discoverer of time-binding and the founder of General Semantics.

 

in freedom and light,

 

Bobby Matherne