Robert Anton Wilson Quotes

If an animal does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence.

Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

All of us show bias when it comes to what information we take in. We typically focus on anything that agrees with the outcome we want.

If a cat does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing, for the same reason, we call it intelligence.

Animals... don't have a sense of time. You just have to do things over and over with animals until they happen to do it right because they don't really know what you want.

Most of us employ the Internet not to seek the best information, but rather to select information that confirms our prejudices.

People who believe their unquestioned thoughts cannot see what is obvious and directly in front of their faces at all times, because they are invested in what they believe to be true. As long as they live out of an unquestioned mind, they must continue to argue with what they believe is happening rather than the reality of what is really happening.

What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

To ensure that our views are credible, our brain accepts what our eye sees. To ensure that our views are positive, our eye looks for what our brain wants. The conspiracy between these two servants allows us to live at the fulcrum of stark reality and comforting illusion.

Humans are able to give very good feedback. You can't tell with an animal what they feel.

To understand animal thinking you've got to get away from a language.

If animals had reason, they would act just as ridiculous as we menfolks do.

Why do people shush animals? Theyve never spoken

The biggest problem we have as human beings is that we confuse our beliefs with reality.

Mere animals couldn’t possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid.

Men who cannot deceive others are very often successful at deceiving themselves.

Human beings have an almost unlimited capacity for self-delusion. We can justify any amount of sadness if it fits our own particular standard of reality.

We talked about how easy it was to make the mistake of anthropomorphizing animals, and projecting our own feelings and perceptions on to them, where they were inappropriate and didn't fit. We simply had no idea what it was like being an extremely large lizard, and neither for that matter did the lizard, because it was not self-conscious about being an extremely large lizard, it just got on with the business of being one. To react with revulsion to its behavior was to make the mistake of applying criteria that are only appropriate to the business of being human.

Our everyday, traditional ideas of reality are delusions which we spend substantial parts of our daily lives shoring up, even at the considerable risk of trying to force facts to fit our definition of reality instead of vice versa.

Though our conduct seems so very different from that of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much alike in them and in us.

Animals don't know as much about jealousy as people, but they're not ignorant of it, either.

I find it valid to understand man as an animal before I am prepared to know him as a man.

As a rule we perceive what we expect to perceive... The unexpected is usually not received at all.