Page "General semantics" Paragraph 4

In the 1946 " Silent and Verbal Levels " diagram, the arrows and boxes denote ordered stages in human neuro-evaluative processing that happens in an instant.

Although newer knowledge in biology has more sharply defined what the text in these 1946 boxes labels " electro-colloidal ," the diagram remains, as Korzybski wrote in his last published paper in 1950, " satisfactory for our purpose of explaining briefly the most general and important points.

" General semantics postulates that most people " identify ," or fail to differentiate the serial stages or " levels " within their own neuro-evaluative processing.

" Most people ," Korzybski wrote, " identify in value levels I, II, III, and IV and react as if our verbalizations about the first three levels were ' it.

' Whatever we may say something ' is ' obviously is not the ' something ' on the silent levels.