Best Viewed With FireFox
On The Music Box: Bombay Beats…
Paradise Lost, Book XII
‘They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.’
Tuesday… Rain… Tuesday…. Rain… Oregon… Rain…. Oregon…. Rain….
And so it goes. Everything, is ever so incredibly GREEN.
What is up for today…. a fondue of fun, a cluster of clutter, a jump for joy…!
On The Menu:
The Links
TIMZ – IRAQ
E-Prime – Robert Anton Wilson
Poetry: William Allingham
Quotes: Milton
Art:Sidney Harold Meteyard
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
________
The Links:
A Mind Blowing Little Discussion: Is Ayahuasca becoming a party drug?
A mysterious aerial device falls in Somalia
Highway shut for butterfly travel
________
From My Brother Peter….
TIMZ – IRAQ
_________
Comus
‘Sabrina rises attended by water nymphs,
“By the rushy-fringed bank,
Where grows the willow and the osier dank,’
______________
TOWARD UNDERSTANDING E -PRIME
Robert Anton Wilson
E-PRIME, abolishing all forms of the verb “to be,” has its roots in the field of general semantics, as presented by Alfred Korzybski in his 1933 book, Science and Sanity. Korzybski pointed out the pitfalls associated with, and produced by, two usages of “to be”: identity and predication. His student D. David Bourland, Jr., observed that even linguistically sensitive people do not seem able to avoid identity and predication uses of “to be” if they continue to use the verb at all. Bourland pioneered in demonstrating that one can indeed write and speak without using any form of “to be,” calling this subset of the English language “E-Prime.” Many have urged the use of E-Prime in writing scientific and technical papers. Dr. Kellogg exemplifies a prime exponent of this activity. Dr. Albert Ellis has rewritten five of his books in E-Prime, in collaboration with Dr. Robert H. Moore, to improve their clarity and to reap the epistemological benefits of this language revision. Korzybski felt that all humans should receive training in general semantics from grade school on, as “semantic hygiene” against the most prevalent forms of logical error, emotional distortion, and “demonological thinking.” E-Prime provides a straightforward training technique for acquiring such semantic hygiene.
To understand E-Prime, consider the human brain as a computer. (Note that I did not say the brain “is” a computer.) As the Prime Law of Computers tells us, GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT (GIGO, for short). The wrong software guarantees wrong answers. Conversely, finding the right software can “miraculously” solve problems that previously appeared intractable.
It seems likely that the principal software used in the human brain consists of words, metaphors, disguised metaphors, and linguistic structures in general. The Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski Hypothesis, in anthropology, holds that a change in language can alter our perception of the cosmos. A revision of language structure, in particular, can alter the brain as dramatically as a psychedelic. In our metaphor, if we change the software, the computer operates in a new way.
Consider the following paired sets of propositions, in which Standard English alternates with English-Prime (E-Prime):
lA. The electron is a wave.
lB. The electron appears as a wave when measured with instrument-l.
2A. The electron is a particle.
2B. The electron appears as a particle when measured with instrument-2.
3A. John is lethargic and unhappy.
3B. John appears lethargic and unhappy in the office.
4A. John is bright and cheerful.
4B. John appears bright and cheerful on holiday at the beach.
5A. This is the knife the first man used to stab the second man.
5B. The first man appeared to stab the second man with what looked like a knife to me.
6A. The car involved in the hit-and-run accident was a blue Ford.
6B. In memory, I think I recall the car involved in the hit-and-run accident as a blue Ford.
7A. This is a fascist idea.
7B. This seems like a fascist idea to me.
8A. Beethoven is better than Mozart.
8B. In my present mixed state of musical education and ignorance, Beethoven seems better to me than Mozart.
9A. That is a sexist movie.
9B. That seems like a sexist movie to me.
10A. The fetus is a person.
10B. In my system of metaphysics, I classify the fetus as a person.
The “A”-type statements (Standard English) all implicitly or explicitly assume the medieval view called “Aristotelian essentialism” or “naive realism.” In other words, they assume a world made up of block-like entities with indwelling “essences” or spooks- “ghosts in the machine.” The “B”-type statements (E-Prime) recast these sentences into a form isomorphic to modern science by first abolishing the “is” of Aristotelian essence and then reformulating each observation in terms of signals received and interpreted by a body (or instrument) moving in space-time.
Relativity, quantum mechanics, large sections of general physics, perception psychology, sociology, linguistics, modern math, anthropology, ethology, and several other sciences make perfect sense when put into the software of E-Prime. Each of these sciences generates paradoxes, some bordering on “nonsense” or “gibberish,” if you try to translate them back into the software of Standard English.
Concretely, “The electron is a wave” employs the Aristotelian “is” and thereby introduces us to the false-to-experience notion that we can know the indwelling “essence” of the electron. “The electron appears as a wave when measured by instrument-1″ reports what actually occurred in space-time, namely that the electron when constrained by a certain instrument behaved in a certain way.
Similarly, “The electron is a particle” contains medieval Aristotelian software, but “The electron appears as a particle when measured by instrument-2″ contains modern scientific software. Once again, the software determines whether we impose a medieval or modern grid upon our reality-tunnel.
Note that “the electron is a wave” and “the electron is a particle” contradict each other and begin the insidious process by which we move gradually from paradox to nonsense to total gibberish. On the other hand, the modern scientific statements “the electron appears as a wave when measured one way” and “the electron appears as a particle measured another way” do not contradict, but rather complement each other. (Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity, which explained this and revolutionized physics, would have appeared obvious to all, and not just to a person of his genius, if physicists had written in E-Prime all along. . . .)
Looking at our next pair, “John is lethargic and unhappy” vs. “John is bright and cheerful,’ we see again how medieval software creates metaphysical puzzles and totally imaginary contradictions. Operationalizing the statements, as physicists since Bohr have learned to operationalize, we find that the E-Prime translations do not contain any contradiction, and even give us a clue as to causes of John’s changing moods. (Look back if you forgot the translations.)
“The first man stabbed the second man with a knife” lacks the overt “is” of identity but contains Aristotelian software nonetheless. The E-Prime translation not only operationalizes the data, but may fit the facts better-if the incident occurred in a psychology class, which often conduct this experiment. (The first man “stabs,” or makes stabbing gestures at, the second man, with a banana, but many students, conditioned by Aristotelian software, nonetheless “see” a knife. You don’t need to take drugs to hallucinate; improper language can fill your world with phantoms and spooks of many kinds.)
The reader may employ his or her own ingenuity in analyzing how “is-ness” creates false-to-facts reality-tunnels in the remaining examples, and how E-Prime brings us back to the scientific, the operational, the existential, the phenomenological–to what humans and their instruments actually do in space-time as they create observations, perceptions, thoughts, deductions, and General Theories.
I have found repeatedly that when baffled by a problem in science, in “philosophy,” or in daily life, I gain immediate insight by writing down what I know about the enigma in strict E-Prime. Often, solutions appear immediately-just as happens when you throw out the “wrong” software and put the “right” software into your PC. In other cases, I at least get an insight into why the problem remains intractable and where and how future science might go about finding an answer. (This has contributed greatly to my ever-escalating agnosticism about the political, ideological, and religious issues that still generate the most passion on this primitive planet.)
When a proposition resists all efforts to recast it in a form consistent with what we now call E-Prime, many consider it “meaningless.” Korzybski, Wittgenstein, the Logical Positivists, and (in his own way) Niels Bohr promoted this view. I happen to agree with that verdict (which condemns 99 percent of theology and 99.999999 percent of metaphysics to the category of Noise rather than Meaning)–but we must save that subject for another article. For now, it suffices to note that those who fervently believe such Aristotelian propositions as “A piece of bread, blessed by a priest, is a person (who died two thousand years ago),” “The flag is a living being,” or “The fetus is a human being” do not, in general, appear to make sense by normal twentieth-century scientific standards.
This text comes from:
D. David Bourland, Jr. & Paul Dennithorne Johnston, “To Be or Not: An E-Prime Anthology,” International Society for General Semantics, 1991, pp. 23-26
Robert Anton Wilson has published science fiction, historical novels, poetry, and futuristic sociology, and he has two plays published.
An earlier version of this article appeared in Trajectories, no. 5, the newsletter published by Robert Anton Wilson. Reprinted from Etcetera 46, no. 4 (Winter 1989).
Also see Robert Anton Wilson’s “Quantum Psychology,” (E and E-Prime, Chapter 13, pages 97-107), New Falcon Publications, 1990
The forms of “to be” that E-Prime excludes includes the words: “is,” “are,” “were,” “was,” “am,” “be,” “been,” and their contractions.
________
The Poetry Of William Allingham
A Dream
I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night;
I went to the window to see the sight;
All the Dead that ever I knew
Going one by one and two by two.
On they pass’d, and on they pass’d;
Townsfellows all, from first to last;
Born in the moonlight of the lane,
Quench’d in the heavy shadow again.
Schoolmates, marching as when we play’d
At soldiers oncebut now more staid;
Those were the strangest sight to me
Who were drown’d, I knew, in the awful sea.
Straight and handsome folk; bent and weak, too;
Some that I loved, and gasp’d to speak to;
Some but a day in their churchyard bed;
Some that I had not known were dead.
A long, long crowdwhere each seem’d lonely,
Yet of them all there was one, one only,
Raised a head or look’d my way:
She linger’d a momentshe might not stay.
How long since I saw that fair pale face!
Ah! Mother dear! might I only place
My head on thy breast, a moment to rest,
While thy hand on my tearful cheek were prest!
On, on, a moving bridge they made
Across the moon-stream, from shade to shade,
Young and old, women and men;
Many long-forgot, but remember’d then.
And first there came a bitter laughter;
A sound of tears the moment after;
And then a music so lofty and gay,
That every morning, day by day,
I strive to recall it if I may.
—
The Girl’s Lamentation
With grief and mourning I sit to spin;
My Love passed by, and he didn’t come in;
He passes by me, both day and night,
And carries off my poor heart’s delight.
There is a tavern in yonder town,
My Love goes there and he spends a crown;
He takes a strange girl upon his knee,
And never more gives a thought to me.
Says he, ‘We’ll wed without loss of time,
And sure our love’s but a little crime;’
My apron-string now it’s wearing short,
And my Love he seeks other girls to court.
O with him I’d go if I had my will,
I’d follow him barefoot o’er rock and hill;
I’d never once speak of all my grief
If he’d give me a smile for my heart’s relief.
In our wee garden the rose unfolds,
With bachelor’s-buttons and marigolds;
I’ll tie no posies for dance or fair,
A willow-twig is for me to wear.
For a maid again I can never be,
Till the red rose blooms on the willow tree.
Of such a trouble I’ve heard them tell,
And now I know what it means full well.
As through the long lonesome night I lie,
I’d give the world if I might but cry;
But I mus’n’t moan there or raise my voice,
And the tears run down without any noise.
And what, O what will my mother say?
She’ll wish her daughter was in the clay.
My father will curse me to my face;
The neighbours will know of my black disgrace.
My sister’s buried three years, come Lent;
But sure we made far too much lament.
Beside her grave they still say a prayer
I wish to God ’twas myself was there!
The Candlemas crosses hang near my bed;
To look at them puts me much in dread,
They mark the good time that’s gone and past:
It’s like this year’s one will prove the last.
The oldest cross it’s a dusty brown,
But the winter winds didn’t shake it down;
The newest cross keeps the colour bright;
When the straw was reaping my heart was light.
The reapers rose with the blink of morn,
And gaily stook’d up the yellow corn;
To call them home to the field I’d run,
Through the blowing breeze and the summer sun.
When the straw was weaving my heart was glad,
For neither sin nor shame I had,
In the barn where oat-chaff was flying round,
And the thumping flails made a pleasant sound.
Now summer or winter to me it’s one;
But oh! for a day like the time that’s gone.
I’d little care was it storm or shine,
If I had but peace in this heart of mine.
Oh! light and false is a young man’s kiss,
And a foolish girl gives her soul for this.
Oh! light and short is the young man’s blame,
And a helpless girl has the grief and shame.
To the river-bank once I thought to go,
And cast myself in the stream below;
I thought ‘twould carry us far out to sea,
Where they’d never find my poor babe and me.
Sweet Lord, forgive me that wicked mind!
You know I used to be well-inclined.
Oh, take compassion upon my state,
Because my trouble is so very great.
My head turns round with the spinning wheel,
And a heavy cloud on my eyes I feel.
But the worst of all is at my heart’s core;
For my innocent days will come back no more.
—
The Nobleman’s Wedding
I once was a guest at a Nobleman’s wedding;
Fair was the Bride, but she scarce had been kind,
And now in our mirth, she had tears nigh the shedding
Her former true lover still runs in her mind.
Attired like a minstrel, her former true lover
Takes up his harp, and runs over the strings;
And there among strangers, his grief to discover,
A fair maiden’s falsehood he bitterly sings.
‘Now here is the token of gold that was broken;
Seven long years it was kept for your sake;
You gave it to me as a true lover’s token;
No longer I’ll wear it, asleep or awake.’
She sat in her place by the head of the table,
The words of his ditty she mark’d them right well:
To sit any longer this bride was not able,
So down at the bridegroom’s feet she fell.
‘O one, one request, my lord, one and no other,
O this one request will you grant it to me?
To lie for this night in the arms of my mother,
And ever, and ever thereafter with thee.’
Her one, one request it was granted her fairly;
Pale were her cheeks as she went up to bed;
And the very next morning, early, early,
They rose and they found this young bride was dead.
The bridegroom ran quickly, he held her, he kiss’d her,
He spoke loud and low, and listen’d full fain;
He call’d on her waiting-maids round to assist her
But nothing could bring the lost breath back again.
O carry her softly! the grave is made ready;
At head and at foot plant a laurel-bush green;
For she was a young and a sweet noble lady,
The fairest young bride that I ever have seen.
____________
Il Penseroso
‘And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that heaven doth show.’
