Alfred Korzybski said that our human abstractive (or modeling) power is infinite (1941). We can always say something about what we have just said or abstracted about our previous state or abstraction. Thus, we can always think-feel (experience a state of consciousness) about other states. The above is the basis for meta-states (states-over-states).
From this point on, NLP has a lot to say about states in terms of “running your own brain” and controlling your own states. We have technologies for interrupting states, changing states, triggering states, reaching resource states, performing contrast analysis between states, taking off into more enhanced states, etc.
Now, with the new meta-state model, all of the above and much more can be applied. Meta-states add more complexity, as does the introduction of logical levels and self-reflective consciousness. Accordingly, a mixture of meta-states can generate all kinds of wild and sometimes bizarre results. And each of these results provides additional feedback we can get from our customers and buyers. This expands our capabilities and flexibility.
States about states.
Manipulating the process of transforming (as he called) “first-order effects” into “second-order effects”, Korzybsky wrote:
“… we then have curiosity about curiosity, attention to attention, analysis of analysis, reasoning about reasoning (which is a science, psycho-logic, epistemology, etc.); choice of choice (which is freedom, the absence of psychological blockages and also shows the semantic mechanism for the elimination of these blockages); respect for respect is an important cultural achievement; knowledge of knowledge includes abstraction and structure, becomes “consciousness”, at least in some respects – for example, as conscious abstractions; evaluation of evaluation becomes a theory of sanity “Science & Sanity.
But not all meta-states have great effects. Korzybsky warned about the way in which certain states interact and “represent morbid semantic reactions.”
“Thus, anxiety, nervousness, fear, regret, and other first-order states can be perfectly reasonable and relatively harmless. But if these are states of a higher order and they are identified with states of the first order in such a way that there is anxiety about anxiety, fear of fear, they become morbid. “
Then we are dealing with negative and debilitating meta-states!
Korzybski continues:
“The regret of regret is dangerously close to self-regret. The second-order effect of belief in belief leads to fanaticism. To know what we know, to condemn condemnation, to be in ignorance about ignorance, etc. – shows the mechanism of dogmatism; while effects such as free will free will, or motive motive, etc. often become delusions and illusions. “
Thus, we see how the meta-state reinforces the primary state until it becomes a large distortion – the “draconian state.” Perhaps this explains why pure technology of primary states usually does not touch such complex states, which include multiple levels of consciousness in consciousness.
This way of thinking about “states about states” is an indicator of the complexity that can arise in human experience, nature, or consciousness when one or more states begin to interact with another state. The result of this interaction is not simply the summation of these states. We shouldn’t just move horizontally (as when we deal with strategy work in NLP). We have to move vertically to higher logical levels, higher relationship frames that play strange “math” with lower levels.
For example, sometimes the opposite happens. Korzybsky writes:
“The third group is represented by such first-order effects as suppression, hatred, doubt, contempt, disgust, anger and similar semantic states; second order effects reverse and cancel first order effects.
Thus, the suppression of suppression becomes positive arousal or release; hate hate is almost close to love; doubt doubt becomes scientific criticism and conveys scientific tendency; others apparently reverse or cancel out unwanted first-order semantic reactions. “
NLP: Now Lets Play
Playing with Meta States
Judith Delozier said that if she had given the name to NLP, she would have decoded it in some other way, such as “Now Lets Play” (1). In this spirit of playfulness, allow yourself to envision all the wild and supernatural, beneficial and harmful, empowering and debilitating meta-states that we can generate as well as observe how states interact at logical levels.
To facilitate this, take a look at the following tables. Table 1 lists the set of states-about-states that we found in Korzybski’s work. Table 2 contains some additional examples. Table 3 gives you the opportunity to come up with your own drink from columns that I have compiled from random states. For example, if you follow the top line, you can start with the stress state and get a good idea of it. Then, achieve a state of resilience about your stress, and then a state of fun about your resilience about your stress.
