My dad reputedly made references to the "cortico-thalamic pause", and it was probably a joke. I think maybe it was more of a reference to A E Van Vogt's science fiction than General Semantics as such. And possibly there was a (humorous) association with "we now pause for station identification" on the radio.
Looking at Wikipedia, it seems like Van Vogt was significantly involved in Dianetics which later became Scientology, which seems vaguely disturbing (I also learned of Theodore Sturgeon's connections to it relatively recently).
But, I mean, the concept of pausing and reconciling your feelings and analytical mind seems to make sense, kind of.
The line between stuff that appeals to smart people who think laterally and total bullshit gets hazy sometimes. Or between obvious truisms and deep insights. My father was a physicist with an interest in various things including philosophy, and I recall books belonging to him by Chomsky and many others that don't necessarily appeal to me but I can't ask him now exactly what he thought of them and how seriously he took something.
My dad reputedly made references to the "cortico-thalamic pause", and it was probably a joke. I think maybe it was more of a reference to A E Van Vogt's science fiction than General Semantics as such. And possibly there was a (humorous) association with "we now pause for station identification" on the radio.
Looking at Wikipedia, it seems like Van Vogt was significantly involved in Dianetics which later became Scientology, which seems vaguely disturbing (I also learned of Theodore Sturgeon's connections to it relatively recently).
But, I mean, the concept of pausing and reconciling your feelings and analytical mind seems to make sense, kind of.
The line between stuff that appeals to smart people who think laterally and total bullshit gets hazy sometimes. Or between obvious truisms and deep insights. My father was a physicist with an interest in various things including philosophy, and I recall books belonging to him by Chomsky and many others that don't necessarily appeal to me but I can't ask him now exactly what he thought of them and how seriously he took something.