NEW META-MODEL DISTINCTION: Identification Words

Identity / Identification Identification speaks about the factor that Korzybski considered central to sanity and unsanity. For him identification represented the heart of Aristotelian logic and the most basic false-to-fact structure. Read Science and Sanity— there Korzybski as much as declared war on identification. So what does identification mean? It means identifying phenomenon on different levels as the same. Do that and you will not recognize differences.

He defined identity as "absolute sameness in all respects." All in this definition makes identity impossible. Eliminate "all" and the word absolute loses its meaning. Then we simply have "sameness in some respects," an acceptable concept. The concept of similarity allows us to create, work with, and use generalizations, labels, categories, etc. appropriately. By eliminating "absolute" and "all," we no longer have "identity," only similarity.

Now you can more accurately map the world of differences in which nothing is ever the “same.” Even the “same” rock is not actually “the same” from moment to moment when we recognize the sub-molecular world where the “dance of electrons” continually causes change and process. The rock may be similar from moment to moment, even century to century, but it is not “the same.”