Self-Organizing Man

What happens when we abolish the verb "to be" from the English language?

Great things.  Consider E-PRIME (E stands for English). 

E-PRIME, abolishing all forms of the verb "to be," has its roots in the field of general semantics, as presented by Alfred Korzybski in his 1933 book, Science and Sanity. Korzybski pointed out the pitfalls associated with, and produced by, two usages of "to be": identity and predication.

To understand E-PRIME, consider the human brain as a computer where Garbage In equals Garbage Out.  The wrong software guarantees the wrong answer.  The right software provides an answer miraculously….

If the brain functions as a computer:

It seems likely that the principal software used in the human brain consists of words, metaphors, disguised metaphors, and linguistic structures in general. The Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski Hypothesis, in anthropology, holds that a change in language can alter our perception of the cosmos. A revision of language structure, in particular, can alter the brain as dramatically as a psychedelic. In our metaphor, if we change the software, the computer operates in a new way.

Consider the following paired sets of propositions, in which Standard English alternates with English-Prime (E-Prime):

lA. The electron is a wave.

lB. The electron appears as a wave when measured with instrument-l.

 

2A. The electron is a particle.

2B. The electron appears as a particle when measured with instrument-2.

 

3A. John is lethargic and unhappy.

3B. John appears lethargic and unhappy in the office.

The "A"-type statements (Standard English) all implicitly or explicitly assume the medieval view called "Aristotelian essentialism" or "naive realism."

In other words, they assume a world made up of block-like entities with indwelling "essences" or spooks- "ghosts in the machine."

The "B"-type statements (E-Prime) recast these sentences into a form isomorphic to modern science by first abolishing the "is" of Aristotelian essence and then reformulating each observation in terms of signals received and interpreted by a body (or instrument) moving in space-time.

By abolishing the verb to be, we can dispense with "metaphysical puzzles and totally imaginary contradictions…" created by bad software.

"I am a man" and "when am I not a man" become, in E-PRIME, "I appear to myself as a man when I wear clothes" and "I do not appear to myself when I take off my clothes and stand in front of the mirror."

You don’t need to take drugs to hallucinate; improper language can fill your world with phantoms and spooks of many kinds.

The reader may employ their own ingenuity in analyzing how "is-ness" creates imaginary contradictions, hopeless metaphysics and false dichotomies.

E-Prime brings us back to the scientific, the operational, the existential, the phenomenological…

To what humans and their instruments actually do in space-time as they create observations, perceptions, thoughts, deductions, and General Theories.

What happens to political organizing in English without the verb to be….?