My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
The final war will be between Pavlov's dog and Schoedinger's Cat.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote humorously juxtaposes two well-known thought experiments to suggest a conflict between determinism and uncertainty.
Robert Anton Wilson's quote presents a playful yet profound idea that the ultimate conflict may emerge from the battle between the principles of classical conditioning, epitomized by Pavlov's dog, which represents behaviorism and predictability, and Schrödinger's cat, a thought experiment from quantum mechanics that embodies uncertainty and paradox. This suggests a philosophical contemplation on the nature of reality and how we interpret behavior, truth, and existence in a complex world.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophy class discussing determinism and free will, this quote can illustrate the clash of ideas.
More from Robert Anton Wilson
All quotes →There 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
Attachment and aversion are the root cause of karma, and karma originates from infatuation. Karma is the root cause of birth and death, and these are said to be the source of misery. None can escape the effect of their own past karma.
I think I would rather be a man than a god. We don’t need anyone to believe in us. We just keep going anyhow. It’s what we do.
What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness; with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.
Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.
However great the exertion of our mind may be to comprehend the Divine Being or any of the ideals, we find a screen and partition between Him and ourselves. Thus the prophets frequently hint at the existence of a partition between God and us.
It is always easy to be logical. It is almost impossible to be logical to the bitter end.