Seconded and thirded. These books had a very deep and lasting impact on my development and worldview. Fair warning to those unfamiliar with his writings: they’re chock-full of memetic hazards, but that’s kind of the point. Wilson argues that we stand to benefit a great deal from being able to occupy unusual or even “false” belief systems (I use scare quotes because I think he would be reluctant to use that word), provided we can learn to consciously choose these systems and not get attached to them.
What makes Quantum Psychology worth reading? (I took a look and found that R.A.W. gives a misinterpretation of Claude Shannon’s 1948 paper on information theory—on the first page.)
I haven’t read Shannon’s paper, so I’ll have to take your word that RAW is misinterpreting. Does that make his mention of noise in systems (casually applied though it may be) invalid?
No, RAW’s further discussion of noisy communications channels is pretty good.
(Shannon’s paper proves interesting and surprising things about noisy communications channels, but it takes the noisiness as given—contra RAW, it does not prove that all communications channels are noisy.)
For those interested in these topics I suggest reading Robert Anton Wilson’s nonfiction, specifically the Cosmic Trigger series and Prometheus Rising.
Seconded and thirded. These books had a very deep and lasting impact on my development and worldview. Fair warning to those unfamiliar with his writings: they’re chock-full of memetic hazards, but that’s kind of the point. Wilson argues that we stand to benefit a great deal from being able to occupy unusual or even “false” belief systems (I use scare quotes because I think he would be reluctant to use that word), provided we can learn to consciously choose these systems and not get attached to them.
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What makes Quantum Psychology worth reading? (I took a look and found that R.A.W. gives a misinterpretation of Claude Shannon’s 1948 paper on information theory—on the first page.)
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No, RAW’s further discussion of noisy communications channels is pretty good.
(Shannon’s paper proves interesting and surprising things about noisy communications channels, but it takes the noisiness as given—contra RAW, it does not prove that all communications channels are noisy.)