The key ideas

Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You and Your World

Robert Anton Wilson, 1990

A psychiatrist introduces himself to a secretary, she hears something quite different, and within a minute each of them thinks the other is a patient. Robert Anton Wilson is sure this happens to everyone in one way or another: we live inside our own tunnels of reality and take them for the world. A provocative book about how language and the habits of the brain create our certainty, and how to learn to say “maybe.”

Who it is for

For those who argue often, label people quickly, or are tired of their own certainty, and want to test their picture of the world for strength.

Since the brain does not accept raw data but edits the data at the same time as it receives it, we should understand the programs the brain uses.

About this book

The psychiatrist Paul Watzlawick comes to a new job and tells the secretary: “I am Watzlawick.” Because of his Austrian accent she hears: “I am not a Slav.” She answers that she never said that. He insists. A couple of exchanges later, each of them seriously suspects the other is a patient.

Robert Anton Wilson opens Quantum Psychology with this story. His question: if two people cannot agree even on a name, how accurately does each of us see the world at all?

First, an important frame. This is a philosophical provocation, not a textbook of psychology or a book about physics. Quantum mechanics serves Wilson as a source of metaphors, not as proof. Ahead are a gosling that took a ping-pong ball for its mother, a lesson in semantics on the day Kennedy was killed, and a language in which the verb “to be” is forbidden.

Idea 1. You have two heads

How many heads do you have? Wilson, following the philosopher Bertrand Russell, answers: two. One exists in the outside world. The other you see in the mirror and feel, and it is part of the model of the world that your brain builds.

According to Wilson, we are dealing not with the universe itself but with its model in the head. Any model is smaller than what it describes. An exact map of Dublin, the author jokes, would have to contain every moving object and two thousand years of the city's history.

Two people argue about whether the same party was fun. Each honestly describes his own model of the evening.

If perception is a model, then the question of who sees correctly can sometimes be replaced by the question of how our models differ.

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About the author

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) was an American writer and provocative philosopher, co-author of the Illuminatus! trilogy. He wrote about consciousness, language and general semantics, and urged agnosticism toward any beliefs, including his own.

All books by this author: Robert Anton Wilson

Terms from the book

  • General semantics
  • Reality tunnel: The term Wilson uses: a person's picture of the world, built in his model from genetics, imprints, habits and learning. An image from the book, not a scientific term.
  • E-Prime: English without the verb “to be.” The idea goes back to Alfred Korzybski, and the rule was formulated by David Bourland. Wilson uses it as an exercise for thinking.
  • Operationalism: The approach of the physicist Percy Bridgman: a concept is defined by the actions through which it is measured or tested.
  • Imprint: A mark that, according to ethologists, the nervous system may acquire in a short sensitive period. Wilson extends this concept to humans within his model.

All terms

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