Philosophisers

It's occured to me that I should probably explain why we like some of the authors that we do around here.

Robert Anton Wilson is one of our favorites because he teaches us to question our reality tunnels. My reality, based on my personal experiences and shaped by my nervous system, is different than yours.....or anyone elses. We see things differently...........and we only see things the way we do because our eyes have evolved to collect, arrange and deliver light to our brains which have evolved to sort that information the way they have. Some people are color blind. That is they can't tell much of, if any, difference between red and green let's say. So their particular reality at a stop light is not the same as ours. Their information gathering system displays the stop light to them differently than mine does for me. Learning this simple concept allows a person to realize that anything they think they believe unquestionably, that they have faith in, could be right, wrong, right and wrong or some varying degree of those. Nothing is as it appears, everything is permitted.....some of Bob's influences have said things similar to that.....namely Hassan iSabba, where the words assassin and hashish come from and Aliester Crowley come to mind.

Old Bob has recently left the building. Shuffling off this mortal coil........but his unique brain activity and his willingness to share with us will influence many of us for a long time. The following are some examples of Bob's thoughts........

On probabilty......Bob learned General Semantics from William Burroughs who himself studied dierctly from the mind behind General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski(spelling???), Bob eventually studied Korzybski extensively himself. General Semantics efforts to try and take the IS's out of everything. Things very rarely fit into an IS, rather things should be referred to as probablities. ex: That stop sign IS red. Well, as stated earlier, to someone with color blindness, that stop sign may very well not be red. So the best we can do is say that the stop sign seems red to me....or perhaps to put a probability % on whether or not it will seem red to any random person.......Essentially, things aren't black and white, but rather varying degrees of gray.

Bob quoting JR Bob Dobbs(the founder of the church of the subgenius. Who, by the way, Wilson says learned the secret of having "followers" or "disciples" from L Ron Hubbard in an elevator in Texas. Sometime in the '50's I believe), commenting on the intelligence of the American people........."You know how dumb the average guy is? Well, mathematically, by defination, half of them are even dumber than that."

The following is an excerpt from an interview Bob did with Paul Krassner in, I believe, 2005.........This just kinda fits in with some other posts I've made about the Bush family, so I thought I'd drop it on ya.

Krassner's question.....A dinner party was scheduled for March 31, 1981, the day after an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, which, if successful, would have elevated the former CIA chief George Bush to the presidency. The dinner was immediately cancelled. It would have been at the home of Scott Hinckley, brother of the would-be killer. Hinckley's father and Daddy Bush were friends and fellow oil industrialists. A PR firm issued a statement: "This horrible coincidence has been devastating to the Bush family. Our condolences go out to all involved. And we hope to put the matter behind us as soon as possible." Congressman Larry MacDonald was the only legislator who demanded an investigation, but his plane crashed. Whattaya think....coincidence or conspiracy?

I have to ask....devestating for the Bush family? What about that actor they hired to play the president during Daddy-o's first 8 years as president? And what about Hinckley's family. And what about Jodie Foster, who Hinckley said was the reason he did it...to get Foster's attention cause he was in love with her.....sketchy.

Wilson's response.......To me it looks at first like coincidence by about 75% probability. I mean, who would be dumb enough to use an assassin with such obvious links to his employers? But then again, the Bush Crime Family seem to think they can get away with anything, from S&L fraud to stealing an election in the light of day with the whole world watching. They must have an even lower opinion of the intelligence of the American people than I do. Maybe I should change the probability down to about 50%. I guess this does deserve further investigation, by somebody who doesn't fly in airplanes.

Anyone with more research gumption than me wanna comment on Jeb and W's brother who got busting during the S&L scandle? I'm sure he didn't go down, but any specifics? Anyone ever found out about Grand Daddy Bush's association with financing of the Nazi party? Anyone?

Philip K Dick died in the 80's just when he was about to recognize some real commercial success. Production on the movie Blade Runner was ongoing when Phil died. Since, he's had other stories of his made into very successful movies with very big name movie personalities. Blade Runner(Harrison Ford fresh off his success in Star Wars was the first, followed by Total Recall(Arnie Swartzengoverner), Minority Reopt(Tom Cruise), Paycheck(Ben Afleck) and most recently A Scanner Darkly, which didn't have the commercial success the others had but which is probably closest to how Phil's brain worked than the others which had gone through the Hollywood polisher more extensively. It wasn't for lack of star talent, that's for sure, A Scanner Darkly starred Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr and Winona Ryder. Phil had plenty more stories and ideas for Hollywood to exploit. And I'm sure they will. I believe that Phil's daughter now holds the rights to his works.

The theme for which he is most admired around here is the question, what makes us human? Best displayed, I think, in Blade Runner, the story from which it was based is titled Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? The question specifically asked by Phil in this story is....if you have a fully functioning android, what's the difference between them and us. What makes us human and them not? Would a fully functioning android, which pointed out by Phil, would necassarily, not know it was an android(although that concept wasn't fully realized in Blade Runner. In the movie only one character didn't realize she was an android, the rest did.), have dreams, desires, a concious, etc. How would that android, that didn't know it was an android, differ from us? If at all? What is a soul? Would a fully functioning android be different than us? What makes us human? That's just a brilliant concept.

Another interesting thing about Phil was his writing process. He would hash out the entire story or novel in his head, maybe over several months or years and then get all geeked up and lock himself in his room and write til he was done, just sleeping for small periods or not at all. He had serious medical and health issues because of these intense sessions. When he finished his last novel(that got finished, he was working on a novel, The Owl In The Daylight, when he died), he actually experienced internal bleeding and various other maladies as a result of the process.

Phil was another author who forced you to question what you knew about the world....which is basically nothing.

John Shirley is just a dark, brilliant mind, who is good enough to share that with us. Shirley wrote the screenplay for The Crow, has fronted bands and has written songs for others, such as Blue Oyster Cult. His novels City Come A' Walkin and Crawlers, express his concerns about our continued and increasing technical advances and dependency. And the danger inherent therein. You'll also see that theme in Dick's work.

If you get a chance to read Shirley's collection of short stories titled Dark Butterflies, I think you'll notice some similarities to Parish. I don't think I'd be injury anyone's feelings to postulate that Shirley's skill supersedes that of Parish...and he'd be the first to tell you that, BUT, I do see a similar influence in style and content.

Mark Twain is....well, a little different in style and content than the previous authors, but they are all the same in that they all have incredible wit, are very highly intelligent and force us to ask ourselves questions about ourselves and our belief systems(belief systems, as referred to by Bob as BS, by the way). Twain, with his humor and style encourages one to look past the superficial to find the meaning.

I list Twain because he was one of my earliest influences. I give him the credit for building the foundation for my sense of humor. I encourage anyone who hasn't read Twain's take on Adam's(first man, like Adam and Eve) time in the garden, to do so as soon as possible. It's a hilarious. Twain also has some pretty interesting insights into the cultures and politics of his time......most of which are really timeless. They translate as well now as then.

And finally, HP Lovecraft. What can I say. A world as rich in history and intricacy as those Tolkein ever created.....well maybe not, but close. Tolkien rules too by the way. But I digress.....Lovecraft. An absolute freak. Cthulu, for the love of God. The Necronomicon....please.

Old Bob has said that there is one detective writer, Raymond Chandler and one horror writer, Lovecraft and everyone else is just doing them.....I have to admit, that while I don't have any insight into Chandler, I absolutely agree about Lovecraft. The horrific world he created finds itself into many, many works still. ex: did anyone see the monster that lived in the lake outside the Mines of Moria in the Rings movie? If that monster didn't come straight from Cthulu I'll kiss your ass. I'm not suggesting Tolkien used Cthulu, I'm not even sure about the timeline, if I had to wager, I'd say Lovecraft was around then, but I still don't know if he influnced Tolkien at all. Something I'm gonna have to study now I suppose. But for sure, Lovectraft influenced the design team that created that monster in the lake.....fer sure, yup.


So, I hope you see why we insist on calling them philosopher's instead of just authors(note, it could be argued that Lovecraft was more psychologist or maybe anthropologist, than philosopher(he pulled that world out of our collective subconcious, maybe even historic collective subconcious, see the peoples who populated Europe before, during and after the Celtic era), but I think you can find a fair amount of philosophisin in there too). Please check these guys out, from the links we provide as well as anything else you can google.

Finn