What if we put the VERB back into "Logical Levels"? |
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
In the past seven or eight years, while traveling internationally
and training Meta-States, I have been asked scores of questions about "logical
levels." It comes up naturally because a meta-state is a higher "logical level"
than a primary state. The questions emerge also because to understand and
effectively work with our meta-state structures, we have to understand how
"logical levels" work and the mechanisms that drive them.
There are lots of questions also because muddled confusion abounds about the
so-called "logical levels."
What is
a "logical level" and why do you put "logical levels" in quotes?
Before defining it, consider the kind of linguistic
distinction we have in the phrase "logical levels." What do we have? Two
nominalizations that have been strung together. We have a nominalization
phrase. What we are in reference to is not a thing, but an action, or two
actions. But what actions? Both terms, "logical" and "level," are
nominalizations, that is, noun-like terms that freeze some process and seduce us
to imagine something static and objective.
So what
are the processes to which we refer?
Answer: the activity is that of layering level of
thought-and-emotion (or state) upon our thinking. As we do this mental
layering., we are creating a "logical" system of classification. The "logics"
of our reasoning is framing a way of organizing our world.
It’s seductive and deceptive to use this phrase as
if we’re talking about an actual thing when we are not. There are no such
things as "logical levels." You have never stumbled across a "logical level"
that someone left at work or in the living room. You can’t put a "logical
level" in a wheelbarrow, or the refrigerator. It’s not empirical. It is not
that kind of thing.
About "things," we can distinction actual empirical
things that we can see, hear, feel, taste, and touch; things that the tools of
science can measure and quantify. And then there are "things" of the
mind—concepts, ideas, theories, models, and maps. "Things" of the mind involve
the processes of our thinking, mapping, and punctuating.
What is
the referent for "logical levels"?
Answer: our mental-emotional activity of selecting
elements and classifying them for a particular category, a way of naming and
typing, of sorting out what’s in the world.
When asked what a "logical level or type" is,
Gregory Bateson said, "The name is not the thing named, but is of different
logical type, higher than the thing named; the class is of different logical
type, higher than that of its members."
I don’t
understand. What do you mean there are no such things as "logical levels"?
I mean they are not actual empirical facts that you
can see, hear or feel. They refer to how we think about things. When we use
the phrases, "logical level" or "logical type" we are using a generalization, a
concept, and a theory to talk about how we layer our thoughts and feelings level
upon level. It’s something we do, what we mentally do, in our mind-body-emotion
system. It’s just a way of thinking and modeling the structure of our
thinking-feeling system.
Is
there a difference between "logical levels" and "logical types"?
No. Throughout his classic work, Steps to an
Ecology of Mind (1972) Bateson used the phrases interchangeably. The typing
("type" used as a verb) is what we mentally do as we punctuate and classify
various elements and collect them as members of a group. We type the elements
as members of a classification that we invent. In this way we categorize the
world. And inasmuch as we have to step aside or step back and name the entire
group of elements, we move up to a higher level. Watzlawick similarly uses the
phrases interchangeably.
What
does "logical levels" refer to, and how does the hidden process work?
In "logical levels," mind replicates brain. In our
brain structure, we have various brain structures from lower to higher which
process information and then send its transforms to the next level. We have
lower, middle, and top brain structures working over the information as it is
transformed and transduced in the system. So with mind. After we think and
feel something, we then entertain additional thoughts-and-feelings about the
previous experience. We reflexively think about our thinking, feel about our
feeling, feel about our thinking, etc.
It is this self-reflexive consciousness that allows
us to step back, as it were, from ourselves and re-think, re-feel and to do so
repeatedly and without end. This is the "infinite regress" that philosophers
speak about. We can operate at multiple levels of awareness. As an infinite
process, it never ends. Whatever we think or feel at any level, we can always
step aside, and engage the thinking-feeling process again.
Reflexivity as the infinite progress allows us to
abstract about our abstractions, generalize about our generalizations, believe
about our beliefs, value our values, decide about our decisions, etc. This is
the structure of mindfulness, higher level awareness, the transcendence of the
human spirit. In cognitive psychology, it has generated the field of
Meta-Cognition and has much influence in the modeling and structuring of A.I.
(Artificial Intelligence).
You
speak about our "psycho-logics", is that the same as "logical levels"?
Yes. Korzybski hyphenated "psychology" to speak
about our psycho-logics and of psychologists as psycho-logisticians. The inner
"logics" or reasonings of our belief systems or embedded frames within frames
within frames (the matrix of our frames) is "logical" only to the extent that we
classify one thing as a member of some class. Whatever results from this "makes
sense," and is "logical" within those psycho-logics.
How have you classified "an action that doesn’t
reach its goal"? Is that "failure"? What category do you put it in? Whatever
classification or category, you have stepped aside from the first variable and
put it in some category. You have typed it as a member of some class. In this
way we create our psycho-logics. The person who puts the activity in the
category of "feedback" will have a different experience to the first person.
And the person who classifies it as a member of the class of "curiosity"
—something to feel curious about and to explore, will have yet again another
experience.
Doing these things create "logical levels." We have
rise up —in our mind—and created a structure that frames the class. We
transcend the first thought to a second thought. We make a meta-move to think
about the first. We move above and beyond ("meta") the first and set a
frame-of-reference. All of these terms describes the "logical leveling" that
makes up the nominalization phrase that we call "logical levels."
So is a
"logical level" the same thing as a meta-level?
Yes. When we set one thought or feeling in a
meta-relationship to another, we simultaneously set a frame. This means that
the scope of the frame is higher and greater than the members of the class, that
is, the elements within the lower state.
As we move up the scale from details to
generalities (inductive thinking), the scope of our awareness enlarges. We
create summaries of things, classifications, generalizations, frames,
frames-within-frames, etc. This is feedback to ourselves. When we take one of
these belief frames and move down with it (deductive thinking), we meta-detail.
We feed the information and knowledge forward through ourselves, through the
levels of our mind-body-emotion system.
Thinking systemically about "logical levels"
enables us to see all of the moving parts of the mind-body-emotion system. This
allows us to see the "logical levels" as a system, and as fluid and moving, as
dynamic. And from that, we can then see emergent properties in the system.
How many "logical levels" are there?
There are as many as we have words and synonyms for
these meta-level facets of our awareness. In Neuro-Semantics we have a list of
26 of the most frequent "logical levels." There are the Other "Logical Levels"
beyond the first few identified by Dilts (see article on web site by this
title).
What do you mean that all "logical levels" are at
the same time all of the other "logical levels"?
We do
better to think about these mental-emotional layerings as facets of the same
thing. That is, there is not "belief" as a "logical level" and then there is
"values" or "understandings," or "decisions," or "identity," etc. Rather, every
"logical level" is at the same time a belief, a value, an understanding, etc.
Do you believe that learning is valuable? Then
from one perspective that’s a belief, from another it is a value. It may also
from yet another be a decision, an understanding, a pleasure, an intention,
etc. These meta-terms offer us many everyday terms for the multi-faceted nature
of "logical levels." What we call it depends on how we look at it.
Since the layering of the mind is a process, we
need fluid metaphors rather than static ones. The dynamic structure of a
tornado is much better for convey this energy and movement than steps, stairs,
ladders, or pyramids. There is a "hierarchy" but it is not a rigid one, it is
more like a holoarchy (from a hologram), ever moving, and "alive."
Hasn’t Steve Andreas or others proven
"logical levels" are "brain dead"?
In
Anchor Point Steve wrote the following:
"The theory of logical types (and any conclusions
derived from it by Bateson, Dilts, Hall, and others) was declared ‘brain-dead’
by Bertrand Russell himself in 1967, as reported by G. Spencer Brown. ...
Please let us hear no more about the ‘Theory of Logical Types.’" (March 2003,
p. 11)
Actually Steve’s argument against using and working
with "logical levels" is a particularly creative one, even though spacious. In
essence it amounts to this.
"Since mathematicians have stopped using the Theory
of Logical Types to deal with mathematical concepts and paradoxes, and since the
Theory would eliminate the branch of mathematics known as imaginary numbers,
therefore it is ‘brain dead,’ totally worthless, and should not be used at all."
Yes, I know that sounds pretty fantastic. And yes,
I know it is as if Steve forgot to meta-model his own argument and so violated
the well-formed specifications for speaking with precision. But I’m not making
this up. This is what he wrote.
"G. Spencer Brown in the preface of Laws of Form
(1974) has shown that Russell’s theory of logical types is not only unnecessary,
but if accepted, would deprive us of the branch of mathematics dealing with
imaginary numbers, which is very useful in electronics and in calculations
involving sine waves and other trigonometric functions!" (Anchor Point, March
2003, p. 11)
Well that does it. Now I have to make a choice, if
I use the meta or logical level distinctions for modeling an experience I have
to give up imaginary numbers. What shall I do? Giving up the mathematical
field of imaginary numbers is going to be a tough choice since it is so much of
NLP! If I use classes and categories and thinking in terms of meta-cognitive
structures of frames to model the meta-levels of abstraction and mind, but have
to recognize that it doesn’t work in mathematical imaginary numbers... hmmmmm,
what shall I choose?
As if
that wasn’t enough, he adds more to his spacious reasoning:
"The theory of logical types would make impossible
the many useful self-referential (and sometimes paradoxical) messages which
people do, in fact, make and respond to. It would also outlaw important and
interesting phenomena such as the self-concepts, which describes itself
recursively, including itself in its description."
Let me see if I get this right. The Theory of
Logical Types "outlaws" various concepts? That’s interesting. This theory
somehow sets up a regime and declares certain meta-level classifications "legal"
and others are "against the law"? I wonder how a theory does that? Steve, of
course, doesn’t explain, he just declares this as a fact. He declares it so, so
it must be that way, right?
Obviously I hold a different view. The theory of
"logical types" indicates that when we do not clearly distinguish levels, when
we engage in a "typing error," then we create paradox. Simple. There’s no need
for laws or out-lawing of things here. There’s only the failure to make
critical distinctions. Of course, that’s what Bateson noted as well with
schizophrenia. It creates double-binds—some malevolent, some benevolent.
As far as recursion goes, self-referencing, etc.,
this is precisely what Korzybski meant by the levels of abstracting, and multi-ordinality.
We can legitimately use a nominalization like "self" on itself. When we do, we
can operate at different levels of "self" with different levels of awareness.
"Self" at the primary state is just being a living breathing organism. When we
are aware of self, we have self-awareness. Can we be aware of ourselves as a
self? Yes. I have written about this in The Structure of Personality,
Meta-States, and The Secrets of Personal Mastery.
So what’s the story about imaginary numbers
and "logical types"?
Let me let Paul Watzlawick in his book, The
Invented Reality speak to this.
"All numbers are either positive, negative, or
zero. Consequently, any number that is neither positive nor zero is negative;
and any number that is neither negative nor zero must be positive. Now what
about the seemingly harmless equation x2+1=0? If we transpose the 1 to the
other side of the equation, we obtain x2 = -1 and, further, that x = % -1.
"But in a conceptual universe that is constructed
such that any number can only be positive, negative, or zero, this result in
unimaginable. For what number multiplied by itself (raised to its square) can
possibly yield -1?
"The analogy of this impasse with the
above-mentioned paradoxical dilemma arising in a world based on the concept of
truth, falsehood, and the excluded middle is obvious. But, imaginable or
unimaginable as the square root of -1 may be, mathematicians, physicists, and
engineers have long since accepted it with equanimity, have assigned to it the
symbol i (meaning imaginary), and included it in their computations just as the
other three (imaginable) number categories (positive, negative, and zero), and
have obtained practical, concrete, and perfectly imaginable results from it.
But for our lay thinking, the imaginary number i remains of a fantastic
irreality." (p. 253)
There you have it. In the field of mathematics,
and specifically in the specialized field of imaginary numbers, and what
mathematicians do with the square root of -1, the theory of "logical types" is
not all that useful. Okay. But what in the world does that have to do with the
psycho-logics of the human meaning making brain that defines, evaluates, frames,
classifies, categorizes, use metaphors, etc.? That it may not be useful for one
thing does not discount all of the other ways it may be useful, does it? I
think not.
Declaring the theory "brain dead" for the
mathematical field of imaginary numbers, and solving the paradoxes around
unimaginable numbers like the square root of -1, does not automatically exclude
"logical types" from being very useful in other areas and domains, does it? Of
course not.
Where
did the theory of "logical types" come from?
Russell and Whitehead came up with The Theory of
Logical Types in 1904 in their book, in the field of mathematics, Principia
Mathematica. It was not about psychology at all. It was about members of a
group, how to classify groups, and how to work with groups. It’s about grouping
and organizing categories. That was 1904. Much later, Gregory Bateson used the
basic concepts and axioms of this theory in his modeling of cultures and
cultural phenomenon. As he explored how people learn and the fact that we can
learn about our learning, he created what we now call The Levels of Learning.
It was in this way that the Theory of Logical Types was applied to human
functioning and to the strange or paradoxical experience arise. For Bateson,
this was central to his theoretical and practical work with schizophrenia.
Fast forward a few years and one of Bateson’s
students began using the Logical Types to set forth a particular version of the
levels of mind. It was in this way that Robert Dilts created the NLP model of
Neuro-Logical Levels. While there’s been criticisms of it as a model of
"logical levels" because, after all, it is not a "logical level" system, it has
led to a great many NLP patterns and processes and has proven highly useful in a
great many areas.
Alfred Korzybski similarly set for a model of the
Levels of Abstraction to describe the ordered structure of experience. He spoke
of the levels in terms of orders—first-level order, second-order, third-order,
etc. This enabled him to articulate a theory of sanity and science. He called
that multi-ordinality. This describes human function as multi-dimensional in
its layering of ideas upon ideas.
Fast forward to 1994, and it was the combination of
these understandings, along with studies in Meta-Cognition, Cognitive
Linguistics, Reflexivity, etc. that led me to organize the Meta-States model as
a formalized model for rigorously dealing with our reflexive thoughts and
feelings.
Summary
References:
1. Bateson, Gregory. (1972/ 2000). Steps to
an ecology of mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago.
2. Hall, L. Michael; Bodenhamer, Bobby
(1999). The structure of excellence: Unmasking the meta-levels of
“sub-modalities.” Grand Jct. CO: E.T. Publications.
3. Hall. L. Michael (2000). Meta-States:
Managing the higher levels of your mind. Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics
Publications.
4. Hall, L. Michael. (2000). Secrets of
Personal Mastery: Advanced techniques for accessing your higher levels of
consciousness. Wales, UK: Crown House Publications.
5. Hall, Michael (2002). The Matrix Model.
Clifton, CO: N.S. Publications.
6. Hall, Michael. (1997/2001). NLP: Going Meta
— Advance modeling using meta-levels. Grand Jct. CO: ET Publications.
7. Hall, L. Michael. (2003). MovieMind:
Directing the cinemas of the mind. Clifton, CO: Neuro-Semantic Publications.
8. Watzlawick, Paul; Weakland, John H.; Fisch,
Richard. (1974). Change: Principles of problem formation and problem
resolution. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
9. Watzlawick, Paul. (1984). The invented
reality: How do we know what we believe we know? Contributions to
constructivism. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Author: Michael Hall, Ph.D., author of numerous books in NLP and NLP Trainer conducts training in meta-states, advanced language skills, etc. He can be reached at 1904 N. 7th. St. Grand Jct. Co. 81501.
©2007 L. Michael Hall. and Bobby G. Bodenhamer All rights reserved.