SOURCE: "Time-Binding: To Build a Fire," in ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 46, No. 3, Fall, 1989, pp. 194-96.

In the following essay, French analyzes Korzybski's concept of time-binding and its role in the progress of human civilization.

Perhaps we knew about fire before we even knew we were human. We were using fire to drive and trap animals and to roast meat 500,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene Era. However, exactly when or how Homo Erectus discovered fire is unknown, although there are theories: A woman may have been chipping flakes from a piece of flint, and the sparks that flew from the blows ignited nearby leaves and twigs; then again, there may have been a lightning strike and a forest fire, and our man Grog took a burning branch home to light and warm the cave.

Of course, the generations of humans that came after the great discovery...