From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sat Apr 26 2003 - 02:45:10 MDT
On Fri, Apr 25, 2003 at 08:36:04PM -0700, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> --- Max M <maxmcorp@worldonline.dk> wrote:
> > Devon White wrote:
> > > Also, The Illuminatus! trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert
> > > Shea is a top of the lister - This book will teach you a way to
> > > "quantum think" - its fun, sexy, seedy, and very smart.
> >
> > I found it to be probably the most boring books I have ever read.
> > They didn't get anywhere. Halfway through the last book I stopped
> > reading. Which I very rarely do once I have started on a book.
>
> I found I!3 to be very entertaining and slightly illuminating, but in
> hindsight, I look at Wilson's work as a slightly humorous depiction of
> the political paranoia of allegedly sophisticated europeans, at least
> those who gravitate toward Ira Einhorn personalities... If a person is
> a european who may or may not consider themselves sophisticated, they
> would likely not find Wilson's work that interesting or unique.
Hmm, I think I consider myself a sophisticated European (for complex
calues of sophisticated and European), and I agree with all three
statements above. The trilogy is very much a zeitgeist document, where
many referenses are totally opaque to people not from the era but also a
collage of ideas from the time that helps make a bit more sense of it.
This also makes it a tough read, even beside the psychedelic literary
style. There are lots of very interesting ideas strewn around in the
mess, some of which have a bearing on transhumanism. But I think Wilson
managed to express them much better in his later books, which of course
can be seen as merely echoes of the first one. It is like the joke about
Philp Glass music: "I have a favourite book by Robert Anton Wilson."
"Which one?" "Any of them".
I have noted that the trilogy has "brainwashing potential" similar to
certain other books like _Atlas Shrugged_ - people who read it from
cover to cover do often exhibit interesting changes in outlook. They do
not necessarily become more sane or smarter, but usually a bit more
interesting. Maybe the trilogy can be compared to a certain spiked
tomato juice...
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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