Model Agnosticism
Reason magazine gives props to Robert Anton Wilson .
“Around 1973 I became convinced for a while that I was receiving messages from outer space,” he informs us in Maybe Logic. “But then a psychic reader told me that I was actually channeling an ancient Chinese philosopher. And another psychic reader told me I was channeling a medieval Irish bard. And at that time I started reading neurology and I decided it was just my right brain talking to my left brain. And then I went to Ireland and discovered it was actually a six-foot-tall white rabbit — they call it the pooka.” A little later he comments, “I like the giant rabbit from County Kerry because there’s no chance anyone will take that literally.”
Updated: Fixed link. Thanks, Dan .
(Via The 18½ Minute Gap)
At the moment, the link in your post goes to an interview with Bruce Sterling. I think the RAW article URL is http://www.reason.com/0312/cr.jw.live.shtml.
Fun article, though. Thanks!
Posted by Dan on January 8 2004 10:20
Whoops. Easy to see how it happened -- I'm planning to link to the Sterling interview, too, so I had cut its URL, too.
Thanks.
Posted by Zed on January 8 2004 22:20
Hey, Zed, can you explain something from the article for me?
So, I've read Illuminatus and seen two of the three movies, but I'm not quite sure what the article is getting at, here. An emphasis on meaningful coincidence?
Also, is it slightly ironic that RAW would be lauded in a magazine called "Reason," or is that just me? :)
Posted by Dan on January 9 2004 10:17
Well, I've read nearly all of RAW, but I haven't seen any of those movies, so I don't know.
Do they offer multiple theories accounting for the same events?
RAW's very reasonable, it's most people who'd label themselves reasonable who aren't; therein lies the irony. In particular, I'd guess there are a lot of Reason readers who are just the sort of dogmatic materialist/mechanist/determinists with an inflated notion of modern science's ability to identify what's possible and impossible that RAW spends a whole book making fun of in The New Inquisition.
Posted by Zed on January 9 2004 12:53
Multiple theories accounting for the same events: "Sex and Lucia", yes (plus a light touch of metafictional stuff), "Magnolia", not so much, I think. I haven't seen "The Mothman Prophecies".
On reason: I suppose my impression of RAW is of a sort of memetic saboteur, making every conceivable (contradictory) connection, complexifying matters until logic simply doesn't work anymore and you have to fall back on intuition or any other epistemological means you can find. In that respect, I'd think that Reason (or even reason itself) would probably feel a little nervous around him. However, that impression of him is based only on Illuminatus, a couple of interviews, and the trailer for "Maybe Logic", so I'll happily backpedal (and take reading assignments) if I've got an incomplete picture.
Posted by Dan on January 9 2004 16:07
I don't think RAW's intent is to counsel abandoning logic for intuition. I think, rather, that he counsels being ever vigilant in noting the human tendency to impose our models, and thus our prejudices, on the world. And to realize that however vigilant we are, we're still going to be doing it -- it's the human condition -- even our words are a trap, being themselves a linguistic model.
So he's a big, big fan of science, the scientific method, and logic... just a detractor of anyone unwilling to question his or her own assumptions, objectivity, or correctness, whether such a person identifies as religious, scientific, or anything else. His memetic sabotage (he himself has used 'ontological terrorist') is just a tool to encourage self-doubt.
I suggest reading The New Inquisition, Quantum Psychology, and Prometheus Rising, in that order, for a pretty good picture of where he sits.
Posted by Zed on January 9 2004 22:44
Nifty. Thanks!
Posted by Dan on January 12 2004 09:47
RAW is an extremely influential modern libertarian philosopher. Reason is the most successful, widely circulated libertarian magazine. That's the connection.
Distinctions and qualifications omitted from the above in the interest of space.
Posted by t. rev on January 22 2004 12:57