By the Late John Brockman (12 page)

I can’t think of one anymore. This or that: I can’t differentiate anymore. I don’t
believe it: I can’t think, “I must not try to think, simply utter.” Saying makes it
so. This, this and that: “I shall have to banish them in the end, the beings, shapes,
sounds, and lights with which my haste to speak has encumbered this place.”
⁸⁵

The necessity of stopping before starting. The necessity to forget it all.

Nobody knows, and you can’t find out.

P
LEASE REFER TO
the end of this book for the source of many citations and quotations throughout the
text.

Q
UOTATIONS FROM
T. S. Eliot’s
The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950
, © copyright by T. S. Eliot, published by Harcourt Brace and World, Inc. and used
by permission.

Quotations from William Empson’s
Collected Poems
, © copyright by William Empson, published by Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc. and
used by permission.

Quotations from Ezra Pound,
Personae
, copyright © 1926 by Ezra Pound, published by New Directions Publishing Corporation,
and used by permission.

Quotations from Wallace Stevens’
The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
, copyright © 1954 by Wallace Stevens, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and used
by permission.

Quotations from Wallace Stevens’
Opus Posthumous
, copyright © 1957 by Elsie and Holly Stevens, published by Alfred A. Knopf Inc.,
and used by permission.

Quotations from I. A. Richards’
The Screens and Other Poems
, copyright © by I. A. Richards, published by Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., and
used by permission.

Part I

   
1.
Norbert Wiener,
I Am a Mathematician
(Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1956), p. 323. “The world about . . . system can
transmit.”

   
2.
Karl S. Lashley, “Cerebral Organization and Human Behavior,” in Harry G. Solomon
et al
. (eds.),
The Brain and Human Behavior
(New York: Hafner Publishing Co., Inc., 1966), p. 4. “there are order . . . considered
the organizer.”

   
3.
George Kubler,
The Shape of Time
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 17. “The rest of . . . being
are projected.”

   
4.
J. Z. Young,
Doubt and Certainty in Science
(London: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 16. “Any system . . . it’s own stability.”

   
5.
John C. Lilly,
The Mind of a Dolphin
(New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967), p. 103. “Information does not . . .
of these data.”

   
6.
Young, op. cit., p. 17. “To speak of . . . to the change.”

   
7.
Lilly, op. cit., p. 104. “The mind of . . . bits of signals.”

   
8.
H. Marshall McLuhan,
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964), p.26. “Effect involves the . . . of information
movement.”

   
9.
Stuart Brand, correspondence. “All that’s traceably . . . except through effects.”

  
10.
Heinz von Foerster, “Logical Structure of Environment and Its Internal Representation,”
in R. E. Eckerstrom (ed.),
International Design Conference, Aspen, 1962
(Zeeland, Mich.: Herman Miller, Inc., 1963). “program is nothing . . . don’t do that
. . .”

  
11.
Lilly, op. cit., p. 104. “a brain and . . . body, another brain.”

  
12.
Edward T. Hall, conversation. Professor Hall pointed out to the author that “we’re
talking.” Theme is developed in Professor Hall’s books:
The Hidden Dimension
(New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966) and
The Silent Language
(New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1959).

  
13.
Wiener, op. cit., p. 325. “new concepts of . . . and of society.”

  
14.
Alfred North Whitehead,
Science and the Modern World
(New York: The Free Press, 1967), p. 59. “it is of . . . period of progress.”

  
15.
W. Grey Walter,
The Living Brain
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1963), p. 148. “The supreme abstraction
. . . glimpses of itself.”

  
16.
Kenneth M. Sayre, “Philosophy and Cybernetics,” in Frederick J. Crosson and Kenneth
M. Sayre (eds.),
Philosophy and Cybernetics
(New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1967), p. 20. “Neither the presence . . . his
observable behavior.”

  
17.
René Descartes, “
Cogito ergo sum
.”

  
18.
Benjamin Lee Whorf,
Language, Thought, and Reality
(Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1956), p. 252. “an unfortunate word . . . characterized
by patterning.”

  
19.
Niels Bohr,
Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge
(New York: Science Editions, Inc., 1961), p. 76. “Only by renouncing . . . account
its characteristics.”

  
20.
Ibid., p. 91. “the description of . . . simple physical pictures.”

  
21.
Ibid., p. 70. “represent relations for . . . for objective description.”

  
22.
Von Foerster, op. cit. “A measure of . . .
b
with
a
.”

  
23.
Bohr, op. cit., pp. 78-79. “In return for . . . object-subject separation.”

  
24.
Von Foerster, op. cit. “not only a . . . observing this universe.”

  
25.
René Dubos,
Man, Medicine, and Environment
(New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1968), p. 118. “The past experience . . .
their ultimate expressions.”

  
26.
D. and K. Stanley-Jones,
The Kybernetics of Living Systems
(New York: Pergamon Press, Inc., 1960), p. 55. “The only unit . . . or permeability
wave.”

  
27.
Ibid., p. 53. “each local area . . . source of origin.”

  
28.
Ibid. “It matters nothing . . . of the telegraph.”

  
29.
Ibid. “The qualities of . . . or frequency varies.”

  
30.
Ibid. “namely, the diameter . . . of the procession.”

  
31.
Ibid. “It is these . . . may be constructed.”

  
32.
Ibid., pp. 53-54. “If an operation . . . bell was rung.”

  
33.
Ibid., p. 54. “The mechanism whereby . . . the single track.”

  
34.
John Lucas, “Minds, Machines, and Gödel,” in Kenneth M. Sayre and Frederick J. Crosson
(eds.),
The Modeling of Mind Computers and Intelligence
(New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1968), p. 255. for any formal system . . . within
the system.

  
35.
Norbert Wiener,
Cybernetics
(Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1967), p. 199. “It is important . . . the imposed
disturbance.”

  
36.
Carlos Castenedas,
The Teachings of Don Juan
(Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1968), p. 76. “All paths are . . .
they lead nowhere.”

  
37.
New York Post
, April 7, 1968, p. 11. Deaths were caused . . . faulty television tubes.

  
38.
Popular Science
, February, 1968, p. 79. Scientific institutes warned . . . could cause cancer.

  
39.
Walter, op. cit., p. 68. The most obvious . . . for the brain,

  
40.
René Dubos,
Man Adapting
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967), pp. 49-51. “in all animal . . .
the human species.”

  
41.
Ibid., p. 54. “there may well . . . environmental periodicities.”

  
42.
Norbert Wiener,
Extrapolation, Interpolation, and Smoothing of Stationary Time Series
(Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1949), p. 2. “A message need . . . transmission
of ideas.”

  
43.
Ibid., p. 3. “The main function . . . it’s own technique.”

  
44.
Walter, op. cit., p. 189. “the parts of . . . stimulation has ceased.”

  
45.
Stanley-Jones, op. cit., p. 60. “The visual receptors . . . of neural energy.”

  
46.
Wiener,
Cybernetics
, pp. 134-35. “The human eye . . . range as possible.”

  
47.
Dubos,
Man, Medicine, and Environment
, p. 40. “Mechanisms for perceiving . . . by earlier stimulation.”

  
48.
Ibid., p. 41. “The information received . . . of new programs.”

  
49.
Ibid. “The ability to . . . the early ones.”

  
50.
Wiener,
Cybernetics
, p. 124. “There is reason . . . the storage elements.”

  
51.
Stanley-Jones, op. cit., pp. 19-21. The orthosympathetic systems . . . through the
system.

  
52.
Dubos,
Man Adapting
, p. 29. The hormonal changes . . . performance actually begins.

  
53.
Vishvassara Tantra. “what’s here’s everywhere; what’s not here’s nowhere.”

  
54.
Edward T. Hall,
The Hidden Dimension
(New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966), p. 4. “Man created his . . . use of
it.”

  
55.
Sören Kierkegaard, quoted in Loren Eiseley,
The Firmament of Time
(New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1966), p. 117. “The future is not.”

  
56.
Lashley, in Solomon
et al
., p. 2. “a man thinks . . . good to eat.”

  
57.
Wilder Penfield, “Functional Localization in Temporal and Deep Sylvan Areas,” in
Solomon
et al
., p. 219. Electrical stimulation of . . . different from real.

  
58.
R. G. Bickford, D. W. Mulder, H. W. Dodge, Jr., H. J. Svien, and H. P. Rome, “Changes
in Memory Function Produced by Electrical Stimulation of the Temporal Lobe in Man,”
in Solomon
et al
., p. 232. “By appropriate electrical . . . the phenomenon elicited.”

  
59.
Young, op. cit., p. 16. The key to . . . of man’s communication.

  
60.
Wiener,
The Human Use of Human Beings
, p. 132. Where man went, so went man’s information.

  
61.
Penfield, in Solomon
et al
., p. 219. Illusions of familiarity . . . for minor-handedness.

  
62.
Walter, op. cit., pp. 98-100. the flicker experience . . . exaggerated electrical
discharge.

  
63.
Young, op. cit., p. 19. “a sense in . . . and his products.”

  
64.
Whorf, op. cit., p. 239. “it may even . . . now call ‘mental.’”

  
65.
Werner Heisenberg,
Philosophic Problems of Nuclear Science
(New York: Fawcett World Library, 1966), p. 106. “When we talk . . . by their application.”

Part II

   
1.
Sir James Jeans,
The Mysterious Universe
(New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1932), pp. 117–18. “
Entia non sunt
. . . takes something away.”

   
2.
Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Zettel
, eds. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1967), p. 73e, para. 410. “A person can . . . learned
to calculate.”

   
3.
Alfred North Whitehead,
Process and Reality
(New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1960), p. 14. “Progress is always . . . what
is obvious.”

   
4.
Wallace Stevens, “Adagia,” in
Opus Posthumous
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), p. 157. “progress in any . . . changes of terminology.”

   
5.
Leon Brillouin,
Scientific Uncertainty and Information
(New York: Academic Press, Inc., (1964), p. 64. “A no man’s . . . past and future.”

   
6.
Wittgenstein, op. cit., p. 116e, paras. 662-64. “a seeing into . . . past to us.”

   
7.
Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
, trans.D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuiness (New York: The Humanities Press, 1960), p.
13, para. 5.4732. “point is that . . . language mean nothing.”

   
8.
T. S. Eliot, “Choruses from ‘The Rock,’” in
The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), p. 107. “a moment in . . . gave the meaning.”

   
9.
Whitehead,
Process and Reality
, p. 13. “the primary advantage . . . of common sense.”

  
10.
I. A. Richards, “Complementary Complementarities,” in
The Screens and Other Poems
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, (1960), p. 34. “Where you end . . . draw a line.”

  
11.
Gertrude Stein,
Lectures in America
(Boston: Beacon Press 1935), pp. 209-10. “A noun is . . . write about it.”

  
12.
Eliot, “Four Quartets,” op. cit., p. 126. “the growing terror . . . to think about.”