by Milton Dawes
When we give higher values, etc., to what we believe, 'think',
'feel' understand, know;
When we give more significance to what we see and
hear as news, and so on, than to what we are presently seeing, hearing,
touching, pointing to, etc.;
When we behave in these ways, we are behaving "intensionally" (intentionally spelled with an 's'). We are behaving intensionally when we say what someone or something "is" rather than how s-he or it behaves and relates to others and other things. And
when we treat an individual, as if s-he was identical with the class or
category we assigned them (black, white, homosexual, democrat, liberal,
drunk, etc). We are behaving intensionally when we leap before we look.
We are behaving "extensionally", when we give more value, to what we can
point to, show, touch, and so on. We are behaving extensionally, when we
are aware that words are not the processes they represent; that things do
not always behave according to the way we defined them; that a map is not
the territory it is a map of. We are behaving extensionally when we are
aware that we have not, and cannot include everything when we talk, think',
plan, listen, understand, look, listen , etc. . We are behaving
extensionally when we are aware that what is going on, is more than what
we can sense, say, understand and know. We are behaving extensionally,
when we look before we leap. We cannot help believing, having memories,
and opinions, formulating theories, making plans, etc., so it's important
to keep in 'mind', that it's the assigning of higher priority,
significance, importance, etc., as mentioned above, that constitutes
significant differences between intensional and extensional behaviors,
and not the behaviors themselves.
Developing an extensional orientation involves being conscious that we
abstract - being conscious that in our evaluations and interactions, we
select, and we leave out. So we look and listen, with awareness that what
we see, or hear, is not all that we could see or hear. We can practice
recognizing that our descriptions of someone or something, are not the
same as the assumptions we make about them. We can become more
extensional by developing an awareness of the ways we use words like no
body, everybody, never, only, always, because, why, right, wrong, success,
failure, etc. And when we say such things as The important thing is,
the fact of the matter is, the truth of the matter is, what is at issue
here, all the time, every time, I'm quite sure that, that's all there is
to this, that's the end of the matter, it can't be done, it won't work,
it's quite safe, I know what you are thinking', I know how you feel', I
know what you mean, and so on.
When we make plans, and expect things to go our way, remembering that the
world and others do not exist to follow our plans or meet our
expectations helps us to become more extensionally oriented. You might
find that in a world of uncertainties; in a world where we don't know all
about anyone or anything; in a world of differences, changes, and where no
two things are identical ( the same in all respects); behaving extensionally provides us with more increments of information with which to make our plans and decisions. Behaving more extensionally
could increase our chances of success in achieving our goals.
Here are some examples of intensional behaviors - assuming that the
principals were unaware of their abstractings - unaware that they had left
out such important factors as "development, process, time, etc".
When we give higher priority - or more value, greater significance, more
importance, etc. - to our words, names, names, titles definitions, ideas,
memories, imaginings, theories, opinions, oughts, shoulds, expectations, and
so on;
