My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
Most animals, including most domesticated primates (humans) show truly staggering ability to 'ignore' certain kinds of information - that which does not 'fit' their imprinted/ conditioned reality-tunnel
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on how beings, including humans, tend to disregard information that contradicts their established beliefs or perceptions.
Robert Anton Wilson's quote emphasizes the cognitive biases that influence how individuals perceive reality. It suggests that most beings are conditioned by their experiences and beliefs, which creates a 'reality-tunnel' that shapes their understanding of the world. Consequently, they tend to ignore or dismiss information that does not align with their pre-existing viewpoints, highlighting the limitations of human perception and the subjective nature of reality.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
Discussing the importance of open-mindedness in a philosophy class.
More from Robert Anton Wilson
All quotes βThere is no governor anywhere. You are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. If anybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled - by fear of prison, by fear of whips or electroshock, by fear of death, even. All existing society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses. Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists.
I see anarchism as the theoretical ideal to which we are all gradually evolving to a point where everybody can tell the truth to everybody else and nobody can get punished for it. That can only happen without hierarchy and without people having the authority to punish other people.
To work for libertarianism - to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual - used to be an idealistic choice taken for purely idealistic reasons. Now it is an act of intelligent and almost desperate self-defense.
The abandoned infant's cry is rage, not fear.
The only way to stave off boredom, in a complex domesticated primate like humankind, is to increase one's intelligence. This is not appealing to the average primate, who instead invents emotional games (soap opera and grand opera dramatics).
Similar quotes
Solitary confinement is too terrible a punishment to inflict on any human being, no matter what his crime. Hardened criminals in the men's prisons, it is said, often beg for the lash instead.
There are men and women so lonely they believe God, too, is lonely.
Truth and non-violence are not cloistered virtues but applicable as much in the forum and the legislatures as in the market place.
Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?" Marmeladov's question came suddenly into his mind "for every man must have somewhere to turn.
I don't think one can write from a compromised moral position.
To be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future.