Deception Detection

To me most of Bob’s work focuses on communication. He discusses what we might understand by clear communication (with different levels or degrees of certainty in the transmission) and ambiguous communication (with multiple possible meanings, or noise and randomness).

He studies and discusses accuracy, truth and proof – but also uncertainty and deception (conscious or unconscious, of self or others, intentional or accidental).

Studies of channels of communication lead to an examination of consciousness and awareness, and the use of tools to improve what and how you communicate with others, (and your self!) As this involves feedback it also means we have to study how alert and astute we feel when on the receiving end of communications (from authority figures, peers, pressure groups, advertising propaganda, etc).

So Bob’s interest in the psychology of perception, magick, neuro-linguistics, drugs, brain-training machines, poetry, etc all seem like the tools he used to explore these realms.

Even his apparent interest in conspiracy, for instance, seems more an example of looking at material you could use to test your own gullibility, or rigour, or desire to believe. You could investigate one of these rumoured cover-ups yourself, and set your own targets for evidence that might convince you, either way. You might also come to realise how easily people adopt beliefs on the flimsiest of evidence, and how strongly they stick to such beliefs, once chosen (not only beliefs in God, or UFOs, but (say) ‘the scientific method’). And then go back and look at your own ‘certainties’ again.

As one of his favourite references he offered Orson Welles’ film ‘F For Fake’ as an example of how difficult it is for us to make accurate assessments and reality checks, particularly in the hands of a magician. To avoid getting cheated you need to know a little about how cheats work; to avoid getting hypnotised and manipulated you need to understand something of how that works, too. An effective policeman can think like a criminal.

Some of the most intensive study of communications occurs in wartime – both how to transmit clear and unambiguous orders and information (securely) and how to intercept your opponent’s attempts to communicate securely. This takes us into the area of codes, and code-breaking – disinformation, misinformation, scams, cons and magic tricks.

I have expanded these notes into a piece for MQ#11 - called The Mind Playing Tricks On Itself - which will come out (unlike the sun in the UK) for The Solstice.

[Later] This edition now available online...also see permanent link top right of the blog.

The Tale of The Tribe

My apologies for over-writing in the previous post. For a moment I thought I had got onto another course! The ideogrammic aspect of Bob’s interests emerged in one course called The Ideogrammic Method, and then later when we discussed internet and McLoon on his course called

Tale of the Tribe

The first of Wilson's MLA courses bridging the political, the social and the psychological, Tale of the Tribe promises to be a landmark journey with our dear Dr. Bob. Starring Giordano Bruno, Giambatista Vico, Friederich Nietzsche, Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound, Alfred Korzybski, James Joyce, Buckminster Fuller, Claude Shannon and Marshall McLuhan -- the nucleus of the extraordinary minds that have helped shape the information age of 21st century and the mindscape of Robert Anton Wilson. Join Wilson as he explores the themes, minds and ideas of his forthcoming book, The Tale of the Tribe.

We got a bit excited on that course, as we felt that our contributions directly affected RAW’s work-in-progress (you can still find it listed as unpublished on Amazon!)

It appears that our interest (both in the course that happened, and the book that didn’t) has encouraged Admin to attempt something new. A self-directed course based around the material. I can see encouraging signs in the Academy that such a course may begin fairly soon.

A Way With Words

If you wonder about our interest in ideograms, it arose from one of Bob’s courses “The Ideogrammic Method”. He made a connection between the vividness of Pound’s poetry, and the Imagist movement, and their interest in using concrete, non-abstract language. The Fenollosa text contributed to this.

Many people think of Egyptian hieroglyphs or Chinese characters as ideograms, but actually some represent sounds, and syllables, and not all ‘pictures’ actually represent the concrete object drawn.

We spent some time discussing the difference between pictograms, hieroglyphs, ideograms, etc


• A Pictogram – literally a sketch/thumbnail of an object – therefore hard to use to just illustrate an action (if I draw a running stickman, do I mean man, or running?) Notice that either/or, because we distinguish verb and noun.
• Phonograms are indicators of pronunciation – I think Chinese has a few of these, but the most developed form is the phonetic alphabet, which indicate sounds (although not always in a logical way – look at English!)

• Hieroglyphs: defined as 'figure of an object standing for a word, syllable or sound, as used in ancient Egyptian and other writing..." I guess, in those terms, hieroglyphics appear to be pictograms (have a look at stele 666 and pick out the birds, etc) but of course a picture of an owl could just be the bird, or could be an ideogram for “wisdom”
• Ideograms seem like symbols for an idea or concept. An everyday one we use is the set of numerals we got from the Arabic languages 1,2,3,4,5. [Note that we can all use these, and agree on them, but when spoken English speakers pronounce 1 as “one”, my French friend says “Un” and a German friend says “ein”.] I assume that icons like the sign for “Men” and “Women” also count.
• Graffiti and Calligraphy combine the phonetic alphabet with variations in ‘fonts’ to add layers of expressiveness. Street signs often only have an icon, but sometimes they are supplemented with words. It’s a design issue. Next time you go through an international airport, see how much you understand without using a dictionary or phrase book.

An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek iδέα idea "idea" + γράφω grapho "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea.

In relation to Pound, the Imagists included this in a manifesto:

1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ the exact
word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word.

2. We believe that the individuality of a poet may often be better expressed in free verse than in conventional forms. In poetry, a new cadence means a new idea.

3. Absolute freedom in the choice of subject.

4. To present an image. We are not a school of painters, but we
believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in
vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is for this
reason that we oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk the real difficulties of his art.

5. To produce a poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor
indefinite.

6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the very
essence of poetry.
RAW discussed some similarities between Pound's love of "precision, luminous detail, phalanx of particulars, image, vortex, and ideogram" and Korzybski’s extensional view of the world – where we deal with concrete particulars, not generalizations.

RAW: In extension we do not define humans as
mammals, mammals as vertebrates,
vertebrates as life forms etc
as caricatured by Fenollosa.

In extension we define humans as Odysseus,
Helen of Troy, El Cid, Lorenzo de Medici,
Eleanor of Aquitaine, Tom Jefferson,
Cunizza daRomano, John Adams, Kungfutse,
Tai Tsong, Andy Jackson, Yong Ching,
JP Morgan, etc ...

Ideogrammic Method involves

montage
concrete particulars
perspectivism
observer - observed relationships
presenting various facets
condensare
luminous fragments

A typical topic for the week, from Bob: Pound & Fenollosa consider ideogram the heart of poetry. Korzybski thought extensionality the essence of science. Think about this and cuss and discuss in the forums.
On the course, we hammered out our own understandings about all this, through discussion.

Ezra Pound's book ABC of Reading also proved interesting:

...if you ask him what red is, he says it is a 'colour'.
If you ask him what a colour is, he tells you it is a vibration or a refraction of light, or a division of the spectrum.
And if you ask him what vibration is, he tells you it is a mode of energy, or something of that sort until... you get in beyond your depth, and beyond his depth.
In the more traditional western view, red is a color is part of the spectrum of light is wavelengths is a form of energy, etc. The ideogram of red is rust, flamingo, cherry, rose.
Or, as Cosmic Ray put it...until I read Fenollosa's essay, I would have defined (categorized) rust, cherry, flamingo, and rose as "things that are red." I would never have thought to define red as "what rose, cherry, rust, and flamingo have in common." And there is how ideograms/extension seems quite opposite to the (or at least, my) traditional way of thinking: whether the term in question is defined by being placed in larger categories, or it is defined by what it categorizes. I would think that someone who once could see but is now blind, upon being told something is red, would remember things he once saw that were red, and apply that to the description of the object. He might even further define the redness of that object by asking "red like a cherry or red like a flamingo?"
The neuro-linguistic aspect of Bob's work has roots in this perception of Korzybski's:
All words transmitted as sonic or visual signals -- sound waves or light waves -- rapidly become photons, electrons, neurotransmitters, hormones, colloidal reactions, reflex arcs, conditioned or imprinted "frames." physiological responses etc. as they impact upon the total synergetic organism.
You could sum the whole complex of ideas this way:
The Vico-Fenollosa-Pound-Korzybski-Whorf-Bandler Hypothesis holds that language influences thought-feeling-perception and the organism-as-a-whole
"A change in language can transform our apprehension of the cosmos." --Benjamin Lee Whorf
And, in our monoculture of English online (although MLA has several members with other first languages) I'll finish with this from Pound in The ABC of Reading:
"The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is CAPABLE of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension."
"Away with words!" language is a virus from outer space...

Ideogramic Series Vol 1 - the Chinese Written Character

Just to follow up on my Comment...on the previous post by Fly Agaric 23

I have scanned the three sections of Chinese characters that do not seem to appear in the online PDF file that I found.

For Page 3: Moon Rays Like Pure Snow

For Page 4: Man Sees Horse

For page 18: Sun rises (in the ) East


Those would allow you to read the available text without frustration.

In the 1936 edition you get a brief Foreword by Ezra Pound. You also, delightfully, get some end notes - entitled WITH SOME NOTES by A VERY IGNORANT MAN. [Fenollosa left the notes unfinished; I am proceeding in ignorance and by conjecture. The primitive pictures were "squared" at a certain time. E.P.]
These consist of five plates of Chinese characters, with sample translations...

Fenollosa/Pound

Many of the Maybelogic courses featured "The Chinese Written Character as a medium for poetry by Ernest Fenollosa, which has an introduction by Ezra Pound thats helpful in making a concrete connection between these two individuals (Who never actually physically met) and creates a kind of "bridge" within the "Tale of the Tribe", to mean the characters which RAW often directed us towards reading and processing during the MLA classes. Ernest Fenollosa seems one of the lesser know characters from RAW's already slightly arcane T.O.T.T MOB.
Fenollosa's influence upon Pound is something RAW often gestured towards us to look at and therefore i'll gesture you, good reader to do the same. I think there are still texts of " "The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry" by Ernest Fenollosa available on the web, but i can't find one to link to this evening.

Haiku

“Sitting quietly,
Doing nothing,
Spring comes,
And the grass
grows by itself.“

Matsuo Basho (1644 - 1694)