<p>Pirated transcription of interview videotaped by Raindance Corporation<br>
<p>Pirated transcription of interview videotaped by Raindance Corporation<br>
First published in <em>Radical Software</em>, pg. 5, Vol.1, Issue 1, 1970</p>
First published in <em>Radical Software</em>, pg. 5, Vol.1, Issue 1, 1970</p>
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<p>... and so we find what man's real function is, is sorting out his experience, developing what we call the normale, and being useful ... we hear people talk about technology as something very threatening, but <strong>we are technology, the universe is technology</strong> ... it's simply a matter of our understanding these things ... that nature has these beautiful exchanges ... and what's happened was this shortsighted - really scared - fear of man about whether he's going to survive ... he's been told there's nowhere nearly enough to go around ... therefore you've got to go out and look out for your side, look out for your family - he's got to hold this thing and make the short move ...</p>
<p>... and so we find what man's real function is, is sorting out his experience, developing what we call the normale, and being useful ... we hear people talk about technology as something very threatening, but <b>we are technology, the universe is technology</b> ... it's simply a matter of our understanding these things ... that nature has these beautiful exchanges ... and what's happened was this shortsighted - really scared - fear of man about whether he's going to survive ... he's been told there's nowhere nearly enough to go around ... therefore you've got to go out and look out for your side, look out for your family - he's got to hold this thing and make the short move ...</p>
<p>... so when our young world, like that young girl talking so superbly on earth day, eight year old kid, pure wisdom pouting out, her eyes could see as clear, when she said we ought not to throw away, we ought to reuse, and things like that ... that little girl was seeing that ... and so the net from all of our extraordinary earth day is that we have all of humanity catching on to things that need to be attended to when they were assuming yesterday someone else was attending to ... the fact that they were in such poverty ... they had so little time ... they had to work 12 hours or 14 hours a day ... my first job i really was working 18 hours a day ... you can't get anything done, you go home, i really didn't hardly have enough left to eat my supper before i fell down on the bed to sleep ... so i find man didn't even have time to think, nor did he have the vocabulary ... he didn't have the literacy ...<strong> the literacy did not come as much out of school as out of radio </strong>... the people who had the radio jobs had good diction, good vocabulary necessary for it, so the kid could listen to a good vocabulary that papa didn't have ... and so we really proliferated the capability to communicate ...
<p>... so when our young world, like that young girl talking so superbly on earth day, eight year old kid, pure wisdom pouting out, her eyes could see as clear, when she said we ought not to throw away, we ought to reuse, and things like that ... that little girl was seeing that ... and so the net from all of our extraordinary earth day is that we have all of humanity catching on to things that need to be attended to when they were assuming yesterday someone else was attending to ... the fact that they were in such poverty ... they had so little time ... they had to work 12 hours or 14 hours a day ... my first job i really was working 18 hours a day ... you can't get anything done, you go home, i really didn't hardly have enough left to eat my supper before i fell down on the bed to sleep ... so i find man didn't even have time to think, nor did he have the vocabulary ... he didn't have the literacy ...<b> the literacy did not come as much out of school as out of radio </b>... the people who had the radio jobs had good diction, good vocabulary necessary for it, so the kid could listen to a good vocabulary that papa didn't have ... and so we really proliferated the capability to communicate ...
<strong>and now that we know how to communicate, we know there are many nuances of information </strong>... that little child, impressive beyond her wisdom was the beautiful resource of words that she had which came so spontaneously to her ... when i was a little kid all that kids would say was "i don't like it" or "wow" ... just make a noise because they didn't have the resources to express it ... the same wisdom ...</p>
<b>and now that we know how to communicate, we know there are many nuances of information </b>... that little child, impressive beyond her wisdom was the beautiful resource of words that she had which came so spontaneously to her ... when i was a little kid all that kids would say was "i don't like it" or "wow" ... just make a noise because they didn't have the resources to express it ... the same wisdom ...</p>
<p>... i think the great beautiful thing that's happening in evolution here is that quite clearly we have gone through a great historical sequence of events ... from man as so ignorant and his hunger so great, his needs so great, he doesn't know how to satisfy them so he goes through starvation and he goes through pain and disease ... go back to the earliest pharoah time ... life was so bad that nobody thought of life as worthwhile in its own right ... therefore the only way you could explain your having such experience was getting yourself ready for afterlife ... so everybody thought about afterlife but the fact is part of the experience with so little to go around is that you could only think of the pharoah having an afterlife ... so the great economic drive, all the great ingenuity of the man who could see anything - artist, conceiver - was patronized by the afterlife of the pharoah ... then in getting ready for the afterlife of the pharoah you incidentally discover the levers ... (in order to take care of the pharoahs what are you going to do? ... you know there are thieves everywhere and he's going to need tools after his life so you've got to get all of these fine things under a great stone mountain so it couldn't be stolen and that's why you've got your pyramids ... ) so the Leonardo type, good-thinker, realizes the lever ... he gets an army of prisoners and they use their levers to move those stones around and build that mountain ... however, after the pharoah dies, the leonardo type dies, the people still remember about the lever ... they still remember that the leonardo type saw these people falling at the road ... they needed food, quite clearly, connected food, so there's the nile that would bring water into those side layers ... and we have fertilization ... when the pharoah dies and that thinker dies, the ditches are still there and the levers are still there, and the people remember there's an accumulation of technical capability so when another man comes along he adds to the inventory of tools ... what we may call the scaffolding to make ready for afterlife ... finally there's such accumulation of tools and capability and a little more know-how everywhere - advancement ... well, we may be able to take care of the afterlife of the nobles as well as the pharoahs ... then the tools increase some more, as they did then, and we say, well, we can take care of the afterlife of the middleclass ... and that is exactly where you come into roman and greek history - the individual family mausoleums ... finally there's got to be so much tooling around that we've a buddha and a christ and a muhammad coming around saying, you know, i think we can take care of the afterlife of everybody ... and so really the great christian era of 1500 is getting ready for the afterlife of everybody ... the great cathedrals, fantastic things, and you should see the real pathos of that little human being going in there ... the great joy that they're going to have afterlife ... suddenly there's so much tools accumulated here and the know-how keeps accumulating, and man knows a little bit more about nature and what it can do, and so he says, you know, we can take care of the afterlife of the king, as well as his living life, and still take care of everybody's afterlife ... that is what we call the beginning of the divine right of kings ... then the tools accumulate some more, and so now we can take care of the nobles in their present life, as well as the afterlife for everybody - the magna carta days ... then we have so much more proliferation of tools that we know we can take care of the afterlife of everybody, and the king, and the nobles, and the middle class ... that's the great victorian era right up to all the brownstones in new york here ... then suddenly the tools accumulated so much that henry ford said, you know, we can take care of the afterlife of everybody and we can take care of the living life of everybody ... that's the beginning of the new era, but at this point the leonardo artist-type says, up to now we were using our own hands to make end-products for the patron ... so in the victorian era you'll find the beautiful cabinet maker, and you'll find the beautiful shoemaker and tailor ... fantastic craftsmen everywhere ... but now he says, i can't make end-products for everybody ... there aren't enough artists to make end-products for everybody ... therefore, we'll have to have an entirely new kind of thing which is our industrial tools, our mass production ... and that's what is really come to all of humanity ... ... so what we've got to really come to now is developing awareness in that little child ... <p>
<p>... i think the great beautiful thing that's happening in evolution here is that quite clearly we have gone through a great historical sequence of events ... from man as so ignorant and his hunger so great, his needs so great, he doesn't know how to satisfy them so he goes through starvation and he goes through pain and disease ... go back to the earliest pharoah time ... life was so bad that nobody thought of life as worthwhile in its own right ... therefore the only way you could explain your having such experience was getting yourself ready for afterlife ... so everybody thought about afterlife but the fact is part of the experience with so little to go around is that you could only think of the pharoah having an afterlife ... so the great economic drive, all the great ingenuity of the man who could see anything - artist, conceiver - was patronized by the afterlife of the pharoah ... then in getting ready for the afterlife of the pharoah you incidentally discover the levers ... (in order to take care of the pharoahs what are you going to do? ... you know there are thieves everywhere and he's going to need tools after his life so you've got to get all of these fine things under a great stone mountain so it couldn't be stolen and that's why you've got your pyramids ... ) so the Leonardo type, good-thinker, realizes the lever ... he gets an army of prisoners and they use their levers to move those stones around and build that mountain ... however, after the pharoah dies, the leonardo type dies, the people still remember about the lever ... they still remember that the leonardo type saw these people falling at the road ... they needed food, quite clearly, connected food, so there's the nile that would bring water into those side layers ... and we have fertilization ... when the pharoah dies and that thinker dies, the ditches are still there and the levers are still there, and the people remember there's an accumulation of technical capability so when another man comes along he adds to the inventory of tools ... what we may call the scaffolding to make ready for afterlife ... finally there's such accumulation of tools and capability and a little more know-how everywhere - advancement ... well, we may be able to take care of the afterlife of the nobles as well as the pharoahs ... then the tools increase some more, as they did then, and we say, well, we can take care of the afterlife of the middleclass ... and that is exactly where you come into roman and greek history - the individual family mausoleums ... finally there's got to be so much tooling around that we've a buddha and a christ and a muhammad coming around saying, you know, i think we can take care of the afterlife of everybody ... and so really the great christian era of 1500 is getting ready for the afterlife of everybody ... the great cathedrals, fantastic things, and you should see the real pathos of that little human being going in there ... the great joy that they're going to have afterlife ... suddenly there's so much tools accumulated here and the know-how keeps accumulating, and man knows a little bit more about nature and what it can do, and so he says, you know, we can take care of the afterlife of the king, as well as his living life, and still take care of everybody's afterlife ... that is what we call the beginning of the divine right of kings ... then the tools accumulate some more, and so now we can take care of the nobles in their present life, as well as the afterlife for everybody - the magna carta days ... then we have so much more proliferation of tools that we know we can take care of the afterlife of everybody, and the king, and the nobles, and the middle class ... that's the great victorian era right up to all the brownstones in new york here ... then suddenly the tools accumulated so much that henry ford said, you know, we can take care of the afterlife of everybody and we can take care of the living life of everybody ... that's the beginning of the new era, but at this point the leonardo artist-type says, up to now we were using our own hands to make end-products for the patron ... so in the victorian era you'll find the beautiful cabinet maker, and you'll find the beautiful shoemaker and tailor ... fantastic craftsmen everywhere ... but now he says, i can't make end-products for everybody ... there aren't enough artists to make end-products for everybody ... therefore, we'll have to have an entirely new kind of thing which is our industrial tools, our mass production ... and that's what is really come to all of humanity ... ... so what we've got to really come to now is developing awareness in that little child ... <p>
<strong>we've got to proliferate the right kind of information </strong>... industrialization and technology is not something new ... you and i are technology, so superior to any we've ever devised ... that camera looks pretty crude along side of my eye, and my eye has always had its own light meter - it's got the whole works ...
<b>we've got to proliferate the right kind of information </b>... industrialization and technology is not something new ... you and i are technology, so superior to any we've ever devised ... that camera looks pretty crude along side of my eye, and my eye has always had its own light meter - it's got the whole works ...
<strong>and so i simply say, if you had that camera so it could also rebuild itself and keep itself going and improving itself for the next 70 years then you have something approximating the technology you and i really consist of ... technology's not new ... we've just been a little too crude at it ... our society's got to be sure not to let somebody mislead us ... not let our own ignorance mislead us into making the wrong moves ...</strong>
<b>and so i simply say, if you had that camera so it could also rebuild itself and keep itself going and improving itself for the next 70 years then you have something approximating the technology you and i really consist of ... technology's not new ... we've just been a little too crude at it ... our society's got to be sure not to let somebody mislead us ... not let our own ignorance mislead us into making the wrong moves ...</b>
<p>... in your picture of earth day, if the young people go out with a broom and start collecting, and if they went further than picking out the paper from it and the metal and said we're going to find out how to get those recirculated, then we're really getting somewhere ... each one of us is process ... we're not things ... and so it's fantastic - there's no scientist been asked to look at the plumbing ... the best flushing toilet you have is so inefficient that we use 65 volumes of water to get rid of one volume of human waste - but it is waste, and it's very, very valueable chemistry ... at the university of illinois way back in 1929 we found that the human excrement in one farm family has in it enough energy to run all the farm machinery ... so these are the things - i hope your young world first is getting aware, and then getting to be critical and picking out things ... and now we're really beginning to understand this need of a greater understanding of nature ...</p>
<p>... in your picture of earth day, if the young people go out with a broom and start collecting, and if they went further than picking out the paper from it and the metal and said we're going to find out how to get those recirculated, then we're really getting somewhere ... each one of us is process ... we're not things ... and so it's fantastic - there's no scientist been asked to look at the plumbing ... the best flushing toilet you have is so inefficient that we use 65 volumes of water to get rid of one volume of human waste - but it is waste, and it's very, very valueable chemistry ... at the university of illinois way back in 1929 we found that the human excrement in one farm family has in it enough energy to run all the farm machinery ... so these are the things - i hope your young world first is getting aware, and then getting to be critical and picking out things ... and now we're really beginning to understand this need of a greater understanding of nature ...</p>
<p>... it's very important for me to tell you that the word failure is invented by man just like the word pollution ... it's a word of ignorance because nature can't fail ... nature knows exactly what she's doing ... but when man doesn't understand nature and thinks that this is the way nature behaves, and he tries to make it do this and that's not in her program then it frustrates him and he calls it a failure ... but nature doesn't intend to have anything go on for very long ... she's always transforming so she has a way of terminating, and when man wants her to go on beyond that termination point then he calls it failure, but it's not so ... </p>
<p>... it's very important for me to tell you that the word failure is invented by man just like the word pollution ... it's a word of ignorance because nature can't fail ... nature knows exactly what she's doing ... but when man doesn't understand nature and thinks that this is the way nature behaves, and he tries to make it do this and that's not in her program then it frustrates him and he calls it a failure ... but nature doesn't intend to have anything go on for very long ... she's always transforming so she has a way of terminating, and when man wants her to go on beyond that termination point then he calls it failure, but it's not so ... </p>
<p><strong>nature is intent on trying to make man a success despite himself</strong>, and despite his long, long history of his great ignorance where i'm trying to give you the way the breakthrough is occuring ... we're still assuming fallaciously there's not enough to go around ... you have to prove your right leave; you have to earn a living ... was the old statement ... the young world really feels now that's wrong ... that the information we can get to the moon and do all this is very important because i think it tells man he can do anything he needs to do and he can make man work ...</p>
<p><b>nature is intent on trying to make man a success despite himself</b>, and despite his long, long history of his great ignorance where i'm trying to give you the way the breakthrough is occuring ... we're still assuming fallaciously there's not enough to go around ... you have to prove your right leave; you have to earn a living ... was the old statement ... the young world really feels now that's wrong ... that the information we can get to the moon and do all this is very important because i think it tells man he can do anything he needs to do and he can make man work ...</p>
<p>... he's got to learn that the space program is not something - (never mind that space stuff, let's get back on earth, let's be practical, let's be blaise about the moon shoot ... ) the fact is our earth is a little spaceship ... unless we catch on to the fact we are a space program ourselves and that we have just so much supply and we've got to learn how to run that big spaceship which we are onboard ... to send off little spaceships to find out exactly what we need to be able to keep human beings doing ... this is the only way we will ever find out about ecology ...</p>
<p>... he's got to learn that the space program is not something - (never mind that space stuff, let's get back on earth, let's be practical, let's be blaise about the moon shoot ... ) the fact is our earth is a little spaceship ... unless we catch on to the fact we are a space program ourselves and that we have just so much supply and we've got to learn how to run that big spaceship which we are onboard ... to send off little spaceships to find out exactly what we need to be able to keep human beings doing ... this is the only way we will ever find out about ecology ...</p>
<p>... on earth day i spoke at 4 universities ... i asked each one of the audiences of kids if they could tell me how much of the earth was necessary to support each life ... when you talk ecology that is a pattern of the science of the total process in life ... what's necessary to regenerate it ... each species is a relationship to the environment ... we're not really qualified to use the word ecology until we get into that ... but i'll tell you the way we'll find out is to send a man off into space ... get him outside where there's no air to be breathed; no water available; no foods ... what do we have to have on board to keep him out there for a year? ... we've literally found now that it is possible - there are two space program researches where we have teams of six men each, sealed up in cylinders (completely different operations, really quite remote from one another, the russians are doing one and the same thing too) ... those men are sealed for a year, and we give them preliminary equipment which you did learn by having scientists who are good ecologists and good chemists ... putting everything in there necessary, they hope to keep the men going ... they're connected by telephone (really very easy to talk in now - you have a window) ... but they are now operating six men for one year on 350 pounds of apparatus and the whole apparatus being able to put in an airplane suitcase ... that we could get everything you need to regenerate life ... there is entropy so the system in the end has to have something added but you're able to have it sufficiently so you only have to add but once a year ... this is really getting somewhere ... so we come back on earth - we have 350 pounds suitcase size; even at the most expensive mass production for $2 a pound; that's $700 and you do away with sewers, all the water supply lines; all you need is a milk bottle or so a year to add into the system ... on a rental basis per six men for $700 you're down to $200 a year capital cost; maybe $1 a year you've got the equipment, and you go on any mountain top and really start living the highest standard ... and this equipment when it gets first used by those men off in space due to the television relay system around the world you'll have <strong>possibly a billion people watching those six men all year round and you'll have every kid really catching on to this </strong> ... here would be <strong>the great educational system </strong>about what the chemistry changes really are ... </p>
<p>... on earth day i spoke at 4 universities ... i asked each one of the audiences of kids if they could tell me how much of the earth was necessary to support each life ... when you talk ecology that is a pattern of the science of the total process in life ... what's necessary to regenerate it ... each species is a relationship to the environment ... we're not really qualified to use the word ecology until we get into that ... but i'll tell you the way we'll find out is to send a man off into space ... get him outside where there's no air to be breathed; no water available; no foods ... what do we have to have on board to keep him out there for a year? ... we've literally found now that it is possible - there are two space program researches where we have teams of six men each, sealed up in cylinders (completely different operations, really quite remote from one another, the russians are doing one and the same thing too) ... those men are sealed for a year, and we give them preliminary equipment which you did learn by having scientists who are good ecologists and good chemists ... putting everything in there necessary, they hope to keep the men going ... they're connected by telephone (really very easy to talk in now - you have a window) ... but they are now operating six men for one year on 350 pounds of apparatus and the whole apparatus being able to put in an airplane suitcase ... that we could get everything you need to regenerate life ... there is entropy so the system in the end has to have something added but you're able to have it sufficiently so you only have to add but once a year ... this is really getting somewhere ... so we come back on earth - we have 350 pounds suitcase size; even at the most expensive mass production for $2 a pound; that's $700 and you do away with sewers, all the water supply lines; all you need is a milk bottle or so a year to add into the system ... on a rental basis per six men for $700 you're down to $200 a year capital cost; maybe $1 a year you've got the equipment, and you go on any mountain top and really start living the highest standard ... and this equipment when it gets first used by those men off in space due to the television relay system around the world you'll have <b>possibly a billion people watching those six men all year round and you'll have every kid really catching on to this </b> ... here would be <b>the great educational system </b>about what the chemistry changes really are ... </p>
<p>... at any rate i simply say we must be very careful ... and we must not cut off things simply because the wrong people, with short and selfish and non-thinking motives have used tools ... a pencil is a beautiful thing but you could literally jab it into a man's heart and it would kill him ... so don't say that a pencil is lethal ... we must not blame the universe ... it would be like saying the universe is used in the wrong way, therefore it's better we not have any universe ... if we accept universe at all, if we accept life, and really would like to have something best for it, then we've simply got to learn how to use our universe in the best way ... and the universe is technology, and it's always evoluting, it's always complex, it's not repeating, so we have to be catching on to our new technology and realize we really do have a machinery of mutual regeneration around the world which has been for the moment - it's so powerful, so confident - very highly exploitable by the ignorant man who happens to get to monopolize it ... but in itself it's getting out from under him ... because he has sovereign claims - well, look, you can't stop the radio waves from going out of the sovereign limits ...</p>
<p>... at any rate i simply say we must be very careful ... and we must not cut off things simply because the wrong people, with short and selfish and non-thinking motives have used tools ... a pencil is a beautiful thing but you could literally jab it into a man's heart and it would kill him ... so don't say that a pencil is lethal ... we must not blame the universe ... it would be like saying the universe is used in the wrong way, therefore it's better we not have any universe ... if we accept universe at all, if we accept life, and really would like to have something best for it, then we've simply got to learn how to use our universe in the best way ... and the universe is technology, and it's always evoluting, it's always complex, it's not repeating, so we have to be catching on to our new technology and realize we really do have a machinery of mutual regeneration around the world which has been for the moment - it's so powerful, so confident - very highly exploitable by the ignorant man who happens to get to monopolize it ... but in itself it's getting out from under him ... because he has sovereign claims - well, look, you can't stop the radio waves from going out of the sovereign limits ...</p>
<p>Yet this is not China in the 1930's. Though there is much to learn from Mao and traditional guerilla warfare this is not the same. Critically, for instance, in an economy that operates on the transformation of differences a hundred flowers must bloom from the beginning. In order to "win" in cybernetic guerilla warfare, differences must be cherished, not temporarily suppressed for the sake of "victory". A la McLuhan, war is education. Conflict defines differences. We need to know <em>what not to be</em> enough to internally calculate our own becoming earth-alive noosphere. The more we are able to internally process differences among us the more we will be able to process "spoils" of conflict with the entropic establishment-i.e., understanding the significant differences between us and them in such a way as to avoid processing what is dangerous and death producing. Learn what you can from the Egyptians, the exodus is cybernetic.</p>
<p>Yet this is not China in the 1930's. Though there is much to learn from Mao and traditional guerilla warfare this is not the same. Critically, for instance, in an economy that operates on the transformation of differences a hundred flowers must bloom from the beginning. In order to "win" in cybernetic guerilla warfare, differences must be cherished, not temporarily suppressed for the sake of "victory". A la McLuhan, war is education. Conflict defines differences. We need to know <em>what not to be</em> enough to internally calculate our own becoming earth-alive noosphere. The more we are able to internally process differences among us the more we will be able to process "spoils" of conflict with the entropic establishment-i.e., understanding the significant differences between us and them in such a way as to avoid processing what is dangerous and death producing. Learn what you can from the Egyptians, the exodus is cybernetic.</p>
<p>Traditional guerilla warfare is concerned with climate and weather. We must concern ourselves with decoding the information contours of the culture. How does power function here? How is this system of communications and control maintained? What information is habitually withheld and how? Ought it to be jammed? How do we jam it? How do we keep the action small enough so it is relevant to real people? How do we build up an indiginous data base? Where do we rove and strike next?</p>
<p>Traditional guerilla warfare is concerned with climate and weather. We must concern ourselves with decoding the information contours of the culture. How does power function here? How is this system of communications and control maintained? What information is habitually withheld and how? Ought it to be jammed? How do we jam it? How do we keep the action small enough so it is relevant to real people? How do we build up an indiginous data base? Where do we rove and strike next?</p>
<p>Traditional guerilla warfare is concerned with knowing the terrain. We must expand this to a full understanding of the ecological thresholds within which we move. We must know ourselves in a cybernetic way, know the enemy in a cybernetic way, and know the ecology so that we can take and take care of the planet intact.</p>
<p>Traditional guerilla warfare is concerned with knowing the terrain. We must expand this to a full understanding of the ecological thresholds within which we move. We must know ourselves in a cybernetic way, know the enemy in a cybernetic way, and know the ecology so that we can take and take care of the planet intact.</p>
<p>The traditional concern is for good generals. What's desirable for us is adhoc heterachies of power which have their logistics down. Cybernetics understands that power is distributed throughout the system. Relevant pathways shift and change with the conditions. The navy has developed war plans where the command is a fleet moves from ship to ship every fifteen minutes. It is near impossible to knock out the command vessel.</p>
<p>The traditional concern is for good generals. What's desirable for us is adhoc heterarchies of power which have their logistics down. Cybernetics understands that power is distributed throughout the system. Relevant pathways shift and change with the conditions. The navy has developed war plans where the command is a fleet moves from ship to ship every fifteen minutes. It is near impossible to knock out the command vessel.</p>
<b>The traditional tricks of guerilla warfare are remarkably suited for cybernetic action in an information environment. To scan briefly:</b>
<b>The traditional tricks of guerilla warfare are remarkably suited for cybernetic action in an information environment. To scan briefly:</b>
<b>Mixing "straight" moves with "freak" moves. Using straight moves to engage the enemy, freak moves to beat him and not letting the enemy know which is which.</b></p>
<b>Mixing "straight" moves with "freak" moves. Using straight moves to engage the enemy, freak moves to beat him and not letting the enemy know which is which.</b></p>
<b>Running away when it's just too heavy. Leave the enemy's strong places and seek the weak. Go where you can make a difference.</b></p>
<b>Running away when it's just too heavy. Leave the enemy's strong places and seek the weak. Go where you can make a difference.</b></p>
@ -54,25 +54,19 @@
<b>Faking the enemy out. Surprise attacks.</b></p>
<b>Faking the enemy out. Surprise attacks.</b></p>
<p>The business of deception in guerilla warfare is a turn off for most people in this relatively open culture. This is simply an area that need be better understood, if we are to be successful. People feel that concealing is unethical. Yet overexposure means underdevelopment. Many projects die of too much publicity. There is a sense in which we are information junkies feeding off each others unlived hopes. The media repeatedly stuns the growth of alternate culture in this country through saturation coverage. It is hard for an American to just keep his mouth shut and get something cooking. You are what you reveal. The start system renders impotent by overexposure and keeps others impotent through no exposure. Seeming different is more important that making a difference. Deception in guerilla tactics is an active way of avoiding control by an alien, alienating intelligence. When a policeman takes your name, he takes over. I know a guy who is inventing another identity for the computer. There is a virtue of mistrust and wisdom in knowing significantly more about yourself than you reveal. <em>Love Thy label as thyself.</em></p>
<p>The business of deception in guerilla warfare is a turn off for most people in this relatively open culture. This is simply an area that need be better understood, if we are to be successful. People feel that concealing is unethical. Yet overexposure means underdevelopment. Many projects die of too much publicity. There is a sense in which we are information junkies feeding off each others unlived hopes. The media repeatedly stuns the growth of alternate culture in this country through saturation coverage. It is hard for an American to just keep his mouth shut and get something cooking. You are what you reveal. The start system renders impotent by overexposure and keeps others impotent through no exposure. Seeming different is more important that making a difference. Deception in guerilla tactics is an active way of avoiding control by an alien, alienating intelligence. When a policeman takes your name, he takes over. I know a guy who is inventing another identity for the computer. There is a virtue of mistrust and wisdom in knowing significantly more about yourself than you reveal. <em>Love Thy label as thyself.</em></p>
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<p><em>We retreat in space, but we advance in time.</em>
<em>We retreat in space, but we advance in time.</em>
<br>— Mao</p>
<br>— Mao</p></br>
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<p><b>Count the Cost. We need develop an information accounting system, a cultural calculus.</b>
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</p>
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<p><b>Use the enemies supply. With portable video one can take the Amerikan mythology right off the air and use it as part of a new perceptual collage.</b></p>
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<p><b>Be flexible. In cybernetics, flexibility, the maintenance of a good guessing way is critical.</b>
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</p>
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<p><b>Patience. Cybernetics is inherently concerned with timing and time design. It is a protracted war.</b>
<b>Count the Cost. We need develop an information accounting system, a cultural calculus.</b><br><br>
</p>
<b>Use the enemies supply. With portable video one can take the Amerikan mythology right off the air and use it as part of a new perceptual collage.</b><br><br>
<p><em>Do not repeat a tactic which has gained you victory, but shape your actions in an infinite variety. Water sets its flow according to the ground below; set your victories according to the enemy against you. War has no constant aspect as water has no constant shape.</em><br>— Sun Tzu</p>
<b>Be flexible. In cybernetics, flexibility, the maintenance of a good guessing way is critical.</b><br><br>
<b>Patience. Cybernetics is inherently concerned with timing and time design. It is a protracted war.</b><br><br>
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<p>
<em>Do not repeat a tactic which has gained you victory, but shape your actions in an infinite variety. Water sets its flow according to the ground below; set your victories according to the enemy against you. War has no constant aspect as water has no constant shape.</em><br>— Sun Tzu</p>
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<p>Part II<br>ATTEMPTING A CALCULUS OF INTENTION</p>
<p>Part II<br>ATTEMPTING A CALCULUS OF INTENTION</p>
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@ -89,49 +83,50 @@
<p>While the following formulations may not in fact work as a calculus of intention I put them forth both because they have been exciting and useful for me and because the calculus itself seems a critical problem in terms of cybernetic guerilla warfare. Dialogue degenrates and moves to conflict without an understanding of mutual intent and non-intent. While it does not seem that we can work out such a common language of intent with the people pursuing the established entropic way of increasingly dedifferentiated ways of eating bullshit; it is critical we develop such a language with each other. The high variety of self organizing social systems we are working toward will be unable to co-cybernate re each other re the ecology without such a calculus of intent.</p>
<p>While the following formulations may not in fact work as a calculus of intention I put them forth both because they have been exciting and useful for me and because the calculus itself seems a critical problem in terms of cybernetic guerilla warfare. Dialogue degenrates and moves to conflict without an understanding of mutual intent and non-intent. While it does not seem that we can work out such a common language of intent with the people pursuing the established entropic way of increasingly dedifferentiated ways of eating bullshit; it is critical we develop such a language with each other. The high variety of self organizing social systems we are working toward will be unable to co-cybernate re each other re the ecology without such a calculus of intent.</p>
<p>This calculus of intention is done in mathematical topology.<b> Topology is a non-metric elastic geometry. It is concerned with transformations of shapes and properties such as nearness, inside and outside.</b><p> Topologists have been able to describe the birth of a baby in terms of topological necessity. There is a feeling among some topologists that while fixed math has failed to describe the world quantitatively, it may be able to describe the world qualitatively. Work is being done on topological description of verbs that seem commmon to all languages. Piaget felt that topology was close to the core of the way children think. Truck drivers have been found to be the people who are most able to learn new jobs. While driving truck for Ballantine one summer, it became apparent to me why. Hand and experienced driver a stack of delivery tickets and he could route in five minutes what would take you an hour. It was a recurring problem of mapping topologically how to get through this network in the shortest amount of time given one way streets etc.</p>
<p>This calculus of intention is done in mathematical topology.<b> Topology is a non-metric elastic geometry. It is concerned with transformations of shapes and properties such as nearness, inside and outside.</b><p> Topologists have been able to describe the birth of a baby in terms of topological necessity. There is a feeling among some topologists that while fixed math has failed to describe the world quantitatively, it may be able to describe the world qualitatively. Work is being done on topological description of verbs that seem commmon to all languages. Piaget felt that topology was close to the core of the way children think. Truck drivers have been found to be the people who are most able to learn new jobs. While driving truck for Ballantine one summer, it became apparent to me why. Hand and experienced driver a stack of delivery tickets and he could route in five minutes what would take you an hour. It was a recurring problem of mapping topologically how to get through this network in the shortest amount of time given one way streets etc.</p>
<p>I should say that my own topological explorations have a lot to do with a personal perspective system that never learned phonetics, can't spell or sing, and took to topology the way many people seem to take to music. The strangest explicit experience with toplogy I've had came via a painter friend, Claude Ponsot, whose handling of complex topological patterns on canvas convinced me that a non-verbal coherent graphic thing was possible. The following transformations on the klein bottle-klein worms, if you will-came in the context of working with Warren Brody on soft control systems using plastic membranes. Behind that are three years of experience infolding videotape. I checked these formulations with a Ph.D topologist. He had not seen them before, questioned whether they were strictly topological. As far as I know, they are original.</p>
<p>I should say that my own topological explorations have a lot to do with a personal perspective system that never learned phonetics, can't spell or sing, and took to topology the way many people seem to take to music. The strangest explicit experience with toplogy I've had came via a painter friend, Claude Ponsot, whose handling of complex topological patterns on canvas convinced me that a non-verbal coherent graphic thing was possible. The following transformations on the klein bottle-klein worms, if you will-came in the context of working with Warren Brody on soft control systems using plastic membranes. Behind that are three years of experience infolding videotape. I checked these formulations with a Ph.D topologist. He had not seen them before, questioned whether they were strictly topological. As far as I know, they are original.</p>
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<p>There are three specific areas where I think this topological calculus of invention can be of use: acid metaprogramming, a grammar of video infolding and perceptual sharing, and in soft control structures using plastic membranes.</p>
<p>There are three specific areas where I think this topological calculus of invention can be of use: acid metaprogramming, a grammar of video infolding and perceptual sharing, and in soft control structures using plastic membranes.</p>
<p>Relative to acid metaprogramming I am not recommending LSD-25 to anyone nor am I endorsing Leary's approach. I am simply looking at some of the work John Lilly has done and suggesting that this calculus might be useful in that context. Both in <em>Programming and MetaProgramming in the Human Biosphere</em> and in <em>Mind of the Dolphin </em>Lilly uses the notion of interlock to describe communication between people and between species. In <em>Programming and MetaProgramming</em> he describes a personal experience with acid that in some way undercuts the metaphor of interlock, and to me suggests that the klein worms might be a better way to describe the process he calls "interlock". Here is Lilly's description of that experience he titles "the key is no key".</p>
<p>Relative to acid metaprogramming I am not recommending LSD-25 to anyone nor am I endorsing Leary's approach. I am simply looking at some of the work John Lilly has done and suggesting that this calculus might be useful in that context. Both in <em>Programming and MetaProgramming in the Human Biosphere</em> and in <em>Mind of the Dolphin </em>Lilly uses the notion of interlock to describe communication between people and between species. In <em>Programming and MetaProgramming</em> he describes a personal experience with acid that in some way undercuts the metaphor of interlock, and to me suggests that the klein worms might be a better way to describe the process he calls "interlock". Here is Lilly's description of that experience he titles "the key is no key".</p>
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<p><em>Mathematical transformations were next tried in the approach to the locked rooms. The concept of the key fitting into the lock and the necessity of finding the key were abandoned and the rooms were approached as "topological puzzles". In the multidimensional cognitional and visual space the rooms were now manipluated without the necessity of the key in the lock.</em></p>
<em>Mathematical transformations were next tried in the approach to the locked rooms. The concept of the key fitting into the lock and the necessity of finding the key were abandoned and the rooms were approached as "topological puzzles". In the multidimensional cognitional and visual space the rooms were now manipluated without the necessity of the key in the lock.</em>
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<p><em>Using the transitional concept that the lock is a hole in the door through which one can exert an effort for a topological transformation, one could turn the room into another topological form other than a closed box. The room in effect was turned inside out through the hole, through the lock leaving the contents outside and the room now a collapsed balloon placed farther from the self metaprogrammer. Room after room was thus defined as turned inside out with the contents spewed forth for use by the self-metaprogrammer. Once this control "key" worked, it continued automatically to its own limits.</em></p>
<br><em>Using the transitional concept that the lock is a hole in the door through which one can exert an effort for a topological transformation, one could turn the room into another topological form other than a closed box. The room in effect was turned inside out through the hole, through the lock leaving the contents outside and the room now a collapsed balloon placed farther from the self metaprogrammer. Room after room was thus defined as turned inside out with the contents spewed forth for use by the self-metaprogrammer. Once this control "key" worked, it continued automatically to its own limits.</em>
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<p><em>With this sort of an "intellectual crutch" as it were, entire new areas of basic beliefs were entered upon. Most of the rooms which before had appeared as strong rooms with big powerful walls, doors and locks now ended up as empty baloons. The greatly defended contents of the rooms in many cases turned out to be relatively trivial programs and episodes from childhood which had been over-generalized and over-valued by this particular human computer. The devaluation of the general purpose properties of the human biocomputer was one such room. In childhood the many episodes which led to the self-programmer not remaining general purpose but becoming more and more limited and "specialized" were entered upon. Several levels of the supra-self-metaprograms laid down in childhood were opened up.</em></p>
<br><em>With this sort of an "intellectual crutch" as it were, entire new areas of basic beliefs were entered upon. Most of the rooms which before had appeared as strong rooms with big powerful walls, doors and locks now ended up as empty baloons. The greatly defended contents of the rooms in many cases turned out to be relatively trivial programs and episodes from childhood which had been over-generalized and over-valued by this particular human computer. The devaluation of the general purpose properties of the human biocomputer was one such room. In childhood the many episodes which led to the self-programmer not remaining general purpose but becoming more and more limited and "specialized" were entered upon. Several levels of the supra-self-metaprograms laid down in childhood were opened up.</em>
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<p><em>The mathematical operation which took place in the computer was the movement of energies and masses of data from the supra-self-metaprogram down to the self metaprogrammatic level and below. At the same time there was the knowledge that programmatic materials had been moved from the "supra-self position" to the "under self-control position" at the programmatic level. These operations were all filed in meta-program storage under the title "the key is no key".</em></p>
<br><em>The mathematical operation which took place in the computer was the movement of energies and masses of data from the supra-self-metaprogram down to the self metaprogrammatic level and below. At the same time there was the knowledge that programmatic materials had been moved from the "supra-self position" to the "under self-control position" at the programmatic level. These operations were all filed in meta-program storage under the title "the key is no key".</em><br>
<br><em>Programming and MetaProgramming</em>,<br>Lilly, pp. 42-43<br></p>
<p><em>Programming and MetaProgramming</em>,
<br>Lilly, pp. 42-43</p>
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<p>Relative to video infolding it is near impossible to describe in words even using klein worm graphs what I'm talking about. The following will mean little to anyone except those who have had some experience of taping with themselves at different levels.</p>
<p>Relative to video infolding it is near impossible to describe in words even using klein worm graphs what I'm talking about. The following will mean little to anyone except those who have had some experience of taping with themselves at different levels.</p>
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<b>Taping something new with yourself is a part contained.</b><br>
<p><b>Taping something new with yourself is a part contained.</b></p>
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<b>To replay the tape for yourself is to contain it in your perceptual system.</b><br>
<p><b>To replay the tape for yourself is to contain it in your perceptual system.</b></p>
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<b>Taping yourself playing with the replay is to contain both on a new tape.</b><br>
<p><b>Taping yourself playing with the replay is to contain both on a new tape.</b></p>
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<b>To replay for oneself tape of self with tape of self is to contain the process in a new dimension.</b><br>
<p><b>To replay for oneself tape of self with tape of self is to contain the process in a new dimension.</b></p>
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<b>Parts left out of that process are parts uncontained.</b><br>
<p><b>Parts left out of that process are parts uncontained.</b></p>
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<b>All of this is mapable on computer graphic terminals.</b><br>
<p><b>All of this is mapable on computer graphic terminals.</b></p>
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<b>At one level that of reality that is left off the tape is the part contained.</b><br>
<p><b>At one level that of reality that is left off the tape is the part contained.</b></p>
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<b>Raw tape replayed is part contained in the head.</b><br>
<p><b>Raw tape replayed is part contained in the head.</b></p>
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<b>If it is somebody else's tape you are watching you can to an extent share in this live perceptual system via the tape he took.</b><br>
<p><b>If it is somebody else's tape you are watching you can to an extent share in this live perceptual system via the tape he took.</b></p>
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<b>To watch another's edited tape is to share in the way he thinks about the relation between his various perceptions in a real time mode. This enters the realm of his intention.</b><br>
<p><b>To watch another's edited tape is to share in the way he thinks about the relation between his various perceptions in a real time mode. This enters the realm of his intention.</b></p>
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<b>If you are editing some of your tape along with tape somebody else shot and he is doing the same thing using some of your tape then it is possible to see how one's perceptions relate to another's intentions and vice versa.</b><br>
<p><b>If you are editing some of your tape along with tape somebody else shot and he is doing the same thing using some of your tape then it is possible to see how one's perceptions relate to another's intentions and vice versa.</b></p>
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<p>Relative to sharing perceptual systems it is somewhat easier to talk about since there are parallels with photography and film.</p>
<p>Relative to sharing perceptual systems it is somewhat easier to talk about since there are parallels with photography and film.</p>
<p>The most explicit experience of this mode of perceptual sharing came in the early days of Raindance when Frank Gillette, Ira Schneider, Michael Shamberg and myself "shot" twelve rolls of tape on earth day. Both in replay that evening (we laughed our heads off digging each others tape while the old perceptual imperialist, Walter Cronkite, explained Earth Day for us) and in the edits that followed each of us got a good idea of how each saw and thought about the events vis-a-vis the others.</p>
<p>The most explicit experience of this mode of perceptual sharing came in the early days of Raindance when Frank Gillette, Ira Schneider, Michael Shamberg and myself "shot" twelve rolls of tape on earth day. Both in replay that evening (we laughed our heads off digging each others tape while the old perceptual imperialist, Walter Cronkite, explained Earth Day for us) and in the edits that followed each of us got a good idea of how each saw and thought about the events vis-a-vis the others.</p>
