102
" Here we might think again about Dr. Bruner's cat who was able to "edit out" sound at the ear-drum. These processes must be considered, not vaguely "psychological," but concretely neurological. We receive around 10,000 sensory signals per minute and edit out (probably) more than 9,990 of them, to tune in or concentrate attention on less than 10 signals that seem "important" to us. The other 9,990-plus signals are "unconsciously" classified as "meaningless" or "irrelevant"; they are not "consciously" suppressed because they never reach the "conscious" centers of the brain. (It is extremely likely that, if the majority of sensory signals did reach the "conscious" centers, we would be so overwhelmed with data that we could not act at all. It seems plausible to think that the mechanism of psychedelic drugs involves inhibiting inhibitors — turning on circuits that are habitually turned off — and the subject is, then, perceiving, maybe, 20 to 100 signals a minute instead of the usual 10. This itself is startling enough to produce hilarious laughter, profound awe or acute anxiety, especially on first dosage.) "
― Robert Anton Wilson , The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science
103
" The Right Man, and especially the Violent Man, is then, according to Wilson's theory, simply turning off even more signals than is neurologically normal. Specifically, he has been conditioned or imprinted, or has conditioned himself, to suppress as "irrelevant" or "meaningless" the kind of signals that usually evoke compassion, charity or tolerance, in most of humanity. In his reality-tunnel, the only signals that reach the cortex are those confirming his thesis that People Are Rotten Bastards who need to be punished. This mental "set," however appalling socially and historically, is no more "peculiar" neurologically than the mental "set" that allows an artist to see what others ignore while simultaneously ignoring the social Status Game signals that others notice so painfully and acutely, or the "set" which makes certain art works comprehensible (because we have learned to decode their symbolism) while it sees other kinds of art as "meaningless" jumbles. Sometimes it takes quite a while to see a new type of signal: which is why even "cultivated" Europeans once saw Chinese painting as "crude" and heard Chinese music as "weird. "
― Robert Anton Wilson , The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science
109
" If "God" is not mad, as Fort claimed, then maybe "God" is, as Buckminster Fuller once wrote, not a noun but a verb. That is, "God" is what religious people do, as, in some models, an electron is an operation performed by people (physicists) — "God" as the act of praying, the energy raised "
― Robert Anton Wilson , The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science
115
" It seems that the only things in the human world that are not changing rapidly are the reality-tunnels of various Fundamentalists — Roman Catholic Fundamentalists and Islamic Fundamentalists, Marxist Fundamentalists and Ecological Fundamentalists, along with the gents I have been satirising here, and accompanied by a few other varieties of modeltheists who devoutly believe they know what is possible and what is not possible. These Right Men — and, thanks to Feminism, we now have a few Right Women around, also — are, of course, all inhabitants of the "Real" Universe. They literally live in it, in a way similar to an actor "living" a role. They know the "Real" Universe, and they know its laws, and they know what is possible and impossible there. "
― Robert Anton Wilson , The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science