Entrevista a Robert Anton Wilson
Aquí dejo un enlance a la entrevista en inglés. Aquí
Algunas respuestas interesante.
Let’s seed them more widely right here! Can you explain to our readers what (Maybe Logic, the Snafu Law and the Cosmic Schmuck Law) are?
Maybe Logic is a label that got stuck on my ideas by filmmaker Lance Bauscher. I decided it fits. I certainly recognize the central importance in my thinking — or in my stumbling and fumbling efforts to think — of non-Aristotelian systems. That includes von Neumann’s three-valued logic [true, false, maybe], Rappoport’s four-valued logic [true, false, indeterminate, meaningless], Korzybski’s multi-valued logic [degrees of probability.] and also Mahayana Buddhist paradoxical logic [it "is" A. it "is" not A, it "is" both A and not A, it "is" neither A nor not A]. But, as an extraordinarily stupid fellow, I can’t use such systems until I reduce them to terms a simple mind like mine can handle, so I just preach that we’d all think and act more sanely if we had to use "maybe" a lot more often. Can you imagine a world with Jerry Falwell hollering "Maybe Jesus ‘was’ the son of God and maybe he hates Gay people as much as I do" — or every tower in Islam resounding with "There ‘is’ no God except maybe Allah and maybe Mohammed is his prophet"?
The Snafu law holds that, the greater your power to punish, the less factual feedback you will receive. If you can fire people for telling you what you don’t want to hear, you will only hear what you want. This law seems to apply to all authoritarian contraptions, especially governments and corporations. Concretely, I suspect Bozo knows factually less about the world than any dogcatcher in Biloxi. The Cosmic Schmuck law holds that [1] the more often you suspect you may be thinking or acting like a Cosmic Schmuck, the less of a Cosmic Schmuck you will become, year by year, and [2] if you never suspect you might think or act like a Cosmic Schmuck, you will remain a Cosmic Schmuck for life.
The Snafu law holds that, the greater your power to punish, the less factual feedback you will receive. If you can fire people for telling you what you don’t want to hear, you will only hear what you want. This law seems to apply to all authoritarian contraptions, especially governments and corporations. Concretely, I suspect Bozo knows factually less about the world than any dogcatcher in Biloxi. The Cosmic Schmuck law holds that [1] the more often you suspect you may be thinking or acting like a Cosmic Schmuck, the less of a Cosmic Schmuck you will become, year by year, and [2] if you never suspect you might think or act like a Cosmic Schmuck, you will remain a Cosmic Schmuck for life.
Can E-prime revolutionize the English language?
I sure hope so, but it needs help, like more computers online and more pot. LOTS more pot.
You’re a self-described model agnostic, and you’ve deconstructed all manner of belief systems (BS) in your books. In Prometheus Rising, you encouraged people to consciously enter as many different reality tunnels as possible, to examine their beliefs from multiple viewpoints. Human culture is filled with people zealously attached to various orthodoxies and ideologies. The clash of fundamental belief systems has often proven destructive to humankind. What will it take to shake people from their dogmas?
In a word, Internet. Ever since I read Wiener’s Cybernetics: Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine back in 1948 I’ve thought of "intelligence" as a function of feedback. The more feedback, the higher the measurable "intelligence," and the less feedback, the less "intelligence." As the computer gave birth to the Net and the Web, feedback has increased exponentially. As R.U. Sirius wrote recently, "The rise of the Net and the Web represents a victory for the counterculture and the subculture. The next generation, raised on the Net as their primary medium, won’t even know what consensus reality is." In other words, feedback and Maybe Logic form a circle that spins faster and faster. The Tsarists fear and hate it — they call it "flip-flopping" — but it characterizes all high intelligence systems, electronic or protoplasmic.
You recently founded the Guns & Dope Party to combat the excesses of Tsarism. What are some of the central tenets of your party’s platform?
- Guns for those who want them; no guns forced on those who don’t want them [Quakers, Amish, pacifists in general etc.]
- Drugs for those who want them; no drugs forced on those who don’t want them [Christian Scientists, herbalists, homeopaths etc]
- Bipedal unity — equal rights for ostriches
- Voluntary taxation: you pay for government programs you want; you don’t pay a penny for any programs you don’t want.
