One of the ways in which humans differ from other animals; we store up information and use our big collection of symbols to communicate it to others, so each generation can build on the knowledge of its forebears.

Korzybski came up with the name time-binding, which sounds kind of cool and mystico-scientific if you don't know what it refers to.

I don't know what he thought of the dark ages.

Time binding is the human ability to pass information and knowledge between generations at an accelerating rate. We do this through a variety of mechanisms and processes including:

  • Education
  • Publishing
  • Social Rules
  • Infrastructure that constrains and guides human behaviour and learning
  • Web and other electronic media
  • Stories and language
  • Symbols and Signs
  • Art
  • Memes (self-replicating ideas)
  • etc.

The concept of Time binding was originally articulated by Alfred Korzybski in the field of General Semantics that he founded.

More information can be found on the structure and processes of Time binding on the wiki: Bound to Last!

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