Three Laws

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Michael

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Joined: Mar 22, 2002
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Posted: Oct 26, 2007 - 12:48 PM
Post subject: Three Laws

Quote from Robert Anton Wilson.. one of my favorite authors who I found out died in last year. Will post some quotes from him later. MAYBE.. this is interesting though...

"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

Michael

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Posted: Oct 27, 2007 - 10:27 AM

Yep

CoffeeHawk_0
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Joined: July 14, 2005
Posts: 14444

Posted: Oct 27, 2007 - 10:44 AM

Thanks for the reminder that I should be reading more non-fiction books.

I notice only Rapport chooses to define in absolute terms. Does this lend itself to becoming caught by the Snafu law more often, thereby causing one to become a Cosmic Schmuck?