International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

A symbolic device – generally spoken, written or drawn, that is used to represent something.

A. KORZYBSKI insisted much on the correct use of labels (1950). To begin with, identification of the thing labelled and the label should be carefully avoided. The label is not the thing and their confusion could bring very serious semantic, psycho-sociological and even practical problems. According to KORZYBSKI, the importance of the label is in its meaning to us, because it produces reactions (semantic, psychological and, in some cases, even biological) in us.

We should also take good care to avoid confusing labels of different levels of abstraction. KORZYBSKI showed with his structural differential (see Fig. p.331) that what is commonly known as an "object" is already a labelled abstraction of low level, synthetized through simplifications from the inexhaustible collection of characteristics of a "something there outside". However, the abstraction process does not stop there, as shown by the following example: This is "Kuki" (level 1); she is my "basset hound" (level 2); i.e. a "dog" (level 3); i.e. a "canine" (level 4); i.e. a "mammal" (level 5); i.e. a "vertebrate" (level 6); i.e. an "animal" (level 7); i.e. a "living being" (level 8). Every higher level covers more "objects"… but that which is gained in generality is lost in specificity.

We finally reach the totally abstract level and create the label "life", open to much scientific and even ideological argument. Obviously, the whole of systemics is a labelling undertaking, a fact that should never be forgotten: The system is not identical to that "something there outside"