“The future is already here, it’s just not evenly
distributed.”–William Gibson.
July 23rd, 2021 is a day I’ll remember for several reasons, some of which I’d like to drag you through on my sled. The dog days begin when the star Sirius (a.k.a the dog star) and the Sun, appear to rise together as observed from Egypt. The DD’s also coincide with high temperatures in summertime and so it follows with an increase in cases of fire in the head and cases of fire on the land. Who prescribes free public swimming facilities as an antidote to a rise in violence and faith-based thinking following a rise in global temperatures. Give them clean water, they will drink, swim together, be merry and civilize?
“Fuck off you moron,” I said, “stay the fuck away from me, you fucking idiot,” followed by, “I don’t see your lab jacket or Doctors I.D,” it was 9 a.m. I was at work with my colleague, my first day working with him, and I was unleashing harsh language, insulting and in retrospect immature. Rather than blame the dog days, it was probably a number of factors, it was early in the morning, I’m carrying large antennae–early moron warning radar system–and this kid walked right into it . I won’t and can’t get into the details as it’s my workplace and I want to keep my job. What he said triggered me to erupt like a volcano, “you’re a fucking moron, stay the fuck away from me.” To my mind I was insulting him so as to be moved away from him.
This is hardly the way to remember Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) and Maybe Day 2021, I thought to myself while working the rest of the day. Maybe I lost my center, showed too many teeth and hurled a cheap insult? Maybe this was required to get me away from him (he was showing symptoms of a dry-cough, while claiming Corona Virus was a hoax and that 90% of test results were false-positives). My response hardly reflects our current predicament as initiate Maybe Logicians, tasked with communicating clearly in a nuanced language, reflective of the uncertainty and incompleteness of our inner and outer world-views. I had nose dived into the brown hole of circuit one, “Fuck off!”
The guilty English poet living in Amsterdam was put with another colleague, my plan worked. If repeated attempts at nuanced language and gentle nudging fail to awaken whomever you are addressing, to the probability they might be wrong about absolute convictions, some other tactics may be deployed. In particular when protecting their own physical health, and the health of others around them, this was my excuse.
To move away from my personal experience, to propose broader questions and challenges facing those bravely exercising pluralistic coms, philosophy, methods of Maybe Logic in a world divided by culture war and language wars of the words…in some sense. My sense of urgency remains in forwarding the works of our late great wizard of nuanced language, Robert Anton Wilson. From the most far-out edges of semantic wilderness, where Ben Goertzel and Bruce Sterling hang out, to the gritty journalistic realism of Democracy Now or Byline Times, to the playful mystical mutualist syndicalist anarchist defocused realism of Alan More.
Okay, I’m gushing. RAW’s non-fictional Maybe Logic, which includes his unique sit-down philosophy stand-up performances, reflect a species of semantic hygiene unparalleled in writers of both fiction and non-fiction in equal measure. As I’ve stated before, RAW’s prose and performance–written and spoken words–are well archived in audio, video and on the page. The RAW data set is a finite set unless you consider the tale of the tribe as an open system, purposefully unfishished, producing a Maybe portal to infinite recycling, editing, deletion and reversal? RAW’s complete works, plus the incomplete–tale of the tribe–capture the general heart of Maybe Logic.
As like with the traditional interpretation of the tale of the tribe–an epic poem including history from a single author– some problems facing AGI research can be processed and enriched by RAW’s Maybe Logical responses to the conundrum and paradox of being and non-beingness and how to communicate meaningful messages about it. As far as I can see, and having met Bob a number of times, he lived his whole life in a Maybe Logic state of being/non-beingness. He confronted the infinite flux of beingness on and off the page, that’s really saying something when you look around today, and when I look all the way around and back to myself. “Maybe just fuck off.” Would have been a better choice of words for sure [bites thumb].
RAW’s Maybe States resonate with fields of current AGI research, to my mind. As I’ve said before. In natural language for the most part, RAW drills through traditional borders between academic categories, testing his decentralized Maybe Logic using physics, mathematics, biology, psychology, economic models, art, poetry and satire. Testing, feeding back, updating. If a broad question for AGI was something like, “How can you help us to help ourselves process information and uncertainty, how can we save the planet and the human mind-body interface so we can live in peace together.” I’d guess that RAW gives an exemplary data-set (his life’s work and life lived) to evidence why any AGI should care for humans and the planet despite widespread examples of greed, cruelty, ignorance and inhumane culturecide.
RAW’s Maybe Logic Method is exquisitely and carefully crafted, behaving like a hologram in some sense, to get the whole picture using words and their meanings on a page (hologrammar), or in the air (holo-harmolodic?), rather than a special photonic arrangement to produce 3D images (hologram). Combined with RAW semantic hygiene and inclusivity for all-human beings and events, or better yet the ‘human interacting processing of non-simultaneously apprehended events’, it’s easy to forget we’re all inextricably entangled in billions of ways. RAW’s Maybe Logic Method is not limited to being described in one field, it’s a particular RAWish’ mish-mash of semantic tools and language experiments, investigative journalism, Sufi parable, operationalist language, jokes, deduction and induction, Zen Buddhism and satire. Uniquely Robert Anton Wilson. Praise Bob!
RAW faced the daily challenge of distinguishing non-fiction from fiction and shared his findings openly, in his published work and remarkably, in his public appearances. This leads me to another thread that bootstraps RAW’s life and work together and which makes his lifework critical for AGI studies: his speech. Having witnessed him perform–and more notably answer questions from his audience including my own questions–RAW exhibited (using performance by example) all of his virtuous knowledge, keeping a cool head when many around him seemed to be hot headed. We could all use a dose of RAW in our daily lives to remind us of the possibility to live happily and optimistically in a world of inner and outer uncertainties and incompleteness.
This may be why RAW, like Marshal McLuhan, Claude Shannon and Terence Mckenna prescribe Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, as a guide for all-around-the-world-humanity to wake up. A Finnegans awakening to the infinite flux of beingness and the tale of the tribe, coming together to save each other and the planet, perhaps the entire multiverse? This is a prospiracy, the coming together of powerful forces for good, good due to the obvious benefit to all-around the world-humanity, and around-the-world ecological environments. Covid has raised the stakes in this prospiracy, and to vaccinate or not to vaccinate is a practical challenge to all-around-the-world-humanity. By definition, its a form of globalism, which by definition implies a coming togetherness of global citizens. Through the lens of prospiracy, this new health world order or global movement to protect the planet and it’s stewards, requires individuals to act and think with the interests of others (strangers) at heart. There are adjacencies with the telling of the tale of the tribe here, a new global epic poem including history. Inclusive and global in its vision and reach, local in it’s idiosyncratic style.
This new global perception of altruistic togetherness is like the tale of the tribe with Buckminster Fuller sauce on top: Critical Path, Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth by Fuller. Other RAW flavoured toppings include, The Open Society And Its Enemies by Karl Popper, The Chinese Written Character As A Medium For Poetry by Ernest Fenollosa, The Mathematical Theory Of Communication by Claude Shannon, The New Science by Giambattista Vico, Science and Sanity by Alfred Korzybski, The Gutenberg Galaxy and Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan, The collected works of Nietzsche, William Butler Yeats, Giordano Bruno, Orson Welles, Ezra Pound, James Joyce and RAW himself. These are books and texts and authors at the tribal gathering, these are some of the innovators in scientific and artistic paradigms, that help define Maybe Logic Method. Individual human beings who’ve had a lasting effect on the global human condition, the general heart, or the general intelligence, in some sense. In a global prospiracy context, the tribe, in the phrase ‘the tale of the tribe’ is to signify all-around-the world humanity. The tale signifies the narrative, story, an epic one including history and the ideosyncratic aesthetic styling of an individual author. See James Joyce, for example.
To put it another way, perhaps consider to begin writing and narrating your inclusive global epic, with the noble aim of reaching out to your own tribe and other tribes, attempting patience and good will when faced with ignorance. Yes, we’re in this together, we, to mean all-around-the-world humanity, and how do you define that? Enter Buckminster Fuller, James Joyce and Marshall McLuhan, updated for the 21st century by RAW’s nervous system and Maybe Logic. Put another way, who can produce the greatest novel of 2021, a novel that captures the general heart, includes world history, and can be considered an epic poem all at the same time? This is a really long-winded way of saying that I have a lot to learn about Maybe Logic, in mind, body and speech, and I’ve a lot of epic novels to read to get a more informed opinion.
I got home from work yesterday, after my mini-rupture, and made myself a delicious mushroom omelette, and prepared myself to record some vocals, Squintin Quarantino was itching to record rhymes. Then, like a karmic boomerang, the next door neighbours started to fight, literally wrestling up next to the fence, just 1 meter away from where I was sitting, about to record. The shouting and pushing and shouting went on for over an hour. I made myself a drink and rolled a doobie, waiting for quiet, trying not to formulate negative frustrations as those I’d felt earlier. Suddenly it hit me. Oh yeah, the dog days.
Next thing I know, it’s 3.00 a.m in the morning, I’d slept on the couch without recording anything and more tragically, missing the Maybe Day Zoom Chat with Bobby Campbell and the other beautifully Maybe Logicians. Those to whom this writing is dedicated.
I sincerely apologize for missing the chat and hope this writing goes some way to show my appreciation to all the contributions to the 2021 edition of NEW TRAJECTORIES edited, produced, designed and illustrated by Bobby Campbell. Another piece of the puzzle of the 2021 tale of the tribe. A great read for all humans and AGI’s alike. Leave your dogma at the door. Love.
#MaybeDay #RobertAntonWilson #NewTrajectories
–Steve Fly
July 24th, 2021.
Postscript (August 1st)
After writing the above, I made the Squintin Quarantino rhymes available at Bandcamp. They comprise part of my message, performance by example. These rhymes are by no means epic, nor do they contain history, they’re examples of an individual author playfully using spontaneous rhymes with an underlying message to Covid truthers (Branch Covidians). In some parts, the rhymes contain a similar mocking tone to my “fucking moron” outburst, I immaturely dress down those I consider to be anti-vaccine conspiracists. Self criticism and analysis of spontaneous rhymes gives the author insight into their mind, body, speech patterns. I share mine in hope others will do the same. For a straight-ahead collection of thoughts and suspicions on the tale of tribe see my book: Fly On The Tale Of The Tribe.
“Let them get sick” has evolved into a refrain that was familiar during the Trump years, for different reasons: “My God, these people are going to get us all killed.”–Emma Brockes, Guardian.
DEEP SCRATCH (REMIX) 