Conversation with Richard May (“May-Tzu”/”MayTzu”/”Mayzi”) on Physics and Erotica, the Laputans, Ontological Password, “Journal of Uncompleted Projects,” OCPD, May’s Paradox, May’s Wager, Digital Computers’ Minds: Co-Editor, “Noesis: The Journal of the Mega Society” (5)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/12/22
Abstract
Richard May (“May-Tzu”/“MayTzu”/“Mayzi”) is a Member of the Mega Society based on a qualifying score on the Mega Test (before 1995) prior to the compromise of the Mega Test and Co-Editor of Noesis: The Journal of the Mega Society. In self-description, May states: “Not even forgotten in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), I’m an Amish yuppie, born near the rarified regions of Laputa, then and often, above suburban Boston. I’ve done occasional consulting and frequent Sisyphean shlepping. Kafka and Munch have been my therapists and allies. Occasionally I’ve strived to descend from the mists to attain the mythic orientation known as having one’s feet upon the Earth. An ailurophile and a cerebrotonic ectomorph, I write for beings which do not, and never will, exist — writings for no one. I’ve been awarded an M.A. degree, mirabile dictu, in the humanities/philosophy, and U.S. patent for a board game of possible interest to extraterrestrials. I’m a member of the Mega Society, the Omega Society and formerly of Mensa. I’m the founder of the Exa Society, the transfinite Aleph-3 Society and of the renowned Laputans Manqué. I’m a biographee in Who’s Who in the Brane World. My interests include the realization of the idea of humans as incomplete beings with the capacity to complete their own evolution by effecting a change in their being and consciousness. In a moment of presence to myself in inner silence, when I see Richard May’s non-being, ‘I’ am. You can meet me if you go to an empty room.” Some other resources include Stains Upon the Silence: something for no one, McGinnis Genealogy of Crown Point, New York: Hiram Porter McGinnis, Swines List, Solipsist Soliloquies, Board Game, Lulu blog, Memoir of a Non-Irish Non-Jew, and May-Tzu’s posterous. He discusses: Physics as Erotica: Objective Lust”; “The Laputans”; the space program of the Laputans; a reasonable place for the Laputans to have gathered, after the exploratory missions, the “somewhere”; ‘What is satire? What is not?’; the Laputan Olympics; other oddities of Laputan memory; “Security Check”; ontological password; “The Colonies”; “Delay in publication of Journal of Uncompleted Projects”; OCPD; “May’s Paradox”; “May’s Wager”; and “The Silicon Scream.”
Keywords: digital computers, erotica, May’s Paradox, May’s Wager, OCPD, Physics, Richard May.
Conversation with Richard May (“May-Tzu”/”MayTzu”/”Mayzi”) on Physics and Erotica, the Laputans, Ontological Password, “Journal of Uncompleted Projects,” OCPD, May’s Paradox, May’s Wager, Digital Computers’ Minds: Co-Editor, “Noesis: The Journal of the Mega Society” (5)
*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: “Physics as Erotica: Objective Lust,” one can find a number of great plays on terms with “Omni Amorist,” “Poly Amory,” “orthodox Bi Poly Amorists,” “Multi Omni,” “Bi Poly Amorists,” and, simply, “Poly.” It’s a delightful play on sexual orientation, sexuality, physics, and cosmology. It’s not merely a rhyming scheme, as in some formal poetry, or straightforward writing. It feels as if more developing a sensibility of conceptual rhythm to read it. Something like this. How do you take disparate ideas, including the sexual and physics, and unite them in a common weave, as in this piece?
Richard May[1],[2]*: This was inspired by a woman, or at least “she” seemed to identify as a woman, back in the ancient world, before the time when the only important thing is how a person identifies, who was an advocate of bipolyamory. But maybe ‘she’ was cat-fishing the cosmos. I thought that this was quite quaint, because she also claimed to be an Orthodox member of one of the world’s great religions. This is how bipolyamory came to my attention. I wanted to outdo her through satire.
As to how I take disparate ideas, including the sexual and physics, and unite them in a common weave, as in this piece, I suppose most of my pieces come from my subconsciousness, not thinking. — Gurdjieff said that “Subconsciousness is the real consciousness of man.” — Sexuality and physics are held to be in an analogical relationship.
I once read that William James wrote that the ability to see analogies is the surest indication of genius. I particularly liked this quote because I was the 2nd person to get a perfect score on the verbal half of the Mega Test, eons ago when there was no internet to allow cheating. But now the only relevant quote I can find by Googling is Emerson’s that science was ‘nothing but the finding of an analogy’.
Sexuality and physics can also be unified by May-Tzu’s Theory of Nothing (TON). Most Theories of Everything (TOEs) predict nothing and explain nothing. May-Tzu’s Theory of Nothing also predicts nothing and explains nothing, but does so with far more parsimony and hence is to be preferred by Ockham’s razor.
Jacobsen: We’re back to the Laputans, in “The Laputans.” I love this paragraph:
Among the Laputans it was not considered true that a house built of metaphors was not as strong as a house built of straw. It had been said since time immemorial that a house built of metaphors was stronger than a house built of bricks and mortar. It’s not known if they meant this metaphorically or literally.
It’s clever, witty, and entertaining. Also, why would the lack of the existence of the monuments of the Laputans speak to the enduring legacy of the Laputans?
May: The Laputans may represent the more practical side of my nature. — The Laputans have no legacy whatsoever, as they have no monuments.
I’m not even forgotten in the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
Jacobsen: What comprised the space program of the Laputans?
May: The Laputans are Luftmenschen or air people from German/Yiddish, so they don’t have quite as far to travel to find non-terrestrial space. The most practical and grounded Laputans would probably attempt to launch into interstellar space on a flight of ideas or abstract free associations.
Jacobsen: What might be a reasonable place for the Laputans to have gathered, after the exploratory missions, the “somewhere”?
May: Since the Laputan spacecraft were mutually incommunicado and did not agree prior to their dispersal to a specific meeting place, it is not inconceivable that they could encounter problems attempting to reunite. Perhaps they could attempt to land at a high-IQ society gathering, e.g., a ggg999 gathering *somewhere* in the cosmos.
Jacobsen: I like how you take the ordinary and make them seem like the exceptional in some of the writing. In fact, in some manner, you show the reverse is the case, as in the satire. It raises fresh questions, ‘What is satire? What is not?’
So, as a reader, you’re left with more question marks leaving than coming in – and more exclamation marks. Are you, more or less, playing around with ideas, putting them into text, and basing them off observations to both make satire and make a point, sometimes no point whatsoever?
May: On the Myers-Briggs Type Index I’m an INTP, described as an “architect of ideas.” So, yes, I’m more or less, playing around with ideas. As to what is satire and what is not, I’ve thought that maybe the laws of physics of our universe represent a mathematical satire at some higher level of dimensions/being/intelligence.
Jacobsen: “Among the Laputans endurance breathing was considered a lifetime sport and one that they were truly motivated to play, usually on highly competitive endurance breathing teams, but sometimes in solitude among the clouds. The games were, of course, televised 24 -7. But often the uninitiated had difficulty differentiating sportsmen from spectators,” as some version of you wrote. This seems a case in point of making the ordinary, breathing, extraordinary, something other. Any updates on the Laputan Olympics? Any other sports as part of the Laputan Olympics?
May: Yes, as you know the Laputans are quite libertarian, they oppose the use of force of any kind, and have for centuries attempted to repeal the laws of gravitation and of electromagnetism, seeking to replace them with a susurration of tautologies. The Laputan Olympics have now instituted direct competitions between Olympic Doping Teams, rather than attempting to enforce the prohibition of certain performance enhancing drugs among the athletes.
Jacobsen: Any other oddities of Laputan memory needing mentioning here?
May: It is suspected by some that certain notable individuals in the higher-IQ community may be Laputans. Because even the most substantial Laputans are said to have no shadows, these individuals may only appear in public undetected at noon or on sunless days. But this has never been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Jacobsen: As noted elsewhere, and as mentioned in “Security Check,” obviously, this is a satire on the ways in which modern technology requires a constant certification of a human operator rather than a computer. Are our thoughts our own in any manner, sensei?
May: Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote that we are asleep and sometimes we awaken just enough to realize that we are dreaming. Maybe “our” ’thoughts’ are just echos of echos reverberating in the Buddhistic void, Shunyata. “We are the space between our thoughts.” — Jean Klein. But in the near future after brain implants, our brains and thoughts will be hackable.
Jacobsen: What’s your ontological password?
May: Oy vey! You expect me to know what I’m talking about? Me of all people?
Maybe my “ontological password” is actually my attention and the sensation/feeling of “I am.”
Jacobsen: “The Colonies” existing as a colony of moles of sorts. The recording of yourself spying on your self, a hall of mirrors. Did you manage to escape complete ontological detection?
May: I’m not a conscious unified being most of the time. So the question is who is spying on whom?
“The possibility of my existence is too private for me to share with myself
— May-Tzu”
Jacobsen: “Delay in publication of Journal of Uncompleted Projects,” sadly, doesn’t seem so much as satire as a reality of most projects for most people, incomplete or partially done, so not done. Who were some of the hoped-for contributors to the journal?
May: This piece was inspired by certain prominent members of the higher-IQ community, who must, of course, remain nameless.
Jacobsen: What were some of the too-many-interests interests of those with OCPD?
May: The too-many-‘interests’ could be anything, not just objects of intellectual curiosity, but any object that attracts or distracts one’s attention, either internally or externally.
If a person has OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder) everything under the control of the person has to be absolutely ‘perfect’, e.g., if one is proofreading, the clerical minutia and visual-spatial formatting. Individuals with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder were highly sought after as employees at Zeno Publications.
Jacobsen: “May’s Paradox” asks, “Why, if a multitude of New Yorkers exist in Manhattan, evidence of New Yorkers, such as automobiles or subways, is not seen?” Why?
May: Obviously there is no evidence of New Yorkers existing, such as automobiles or subways, in New York City. That would be a Conspiracy Theory. May’s paradox should have been called the May paradox. The clear absence of evidence for the existence of New Yorkers makes May’s paradox analogous to the Fermi paradox.
In the SETI program we have searched for years for signals in the hydrogen frequency. As was pointed out in a YouTube video by Dr. Michio Kaku, there is no particular reason to assume that advance alien life would use the hydrogen frequency to send signals, even if one assumes that such beings would use radio signals at all. Dr. Kaku also points out that if the extraterrestrial communications used spread-spectrum signals, such as we humans use even now in our cellphone signals, then we would not even recognize the alien spread-spectrum signals as signals.
Given the exponential and unpredictable course of the growth of human technology, it seems entirely possible that a civilization even a few hundred years more advanced scientifically and technologically than our own might accomplish things that in ways that we could not understand at our present level of scientific-technological development.
Do you suppose we would comprehend the technology of a civilization a thousand or more years older than our own? “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” — Arthur C Clarke. So where are the smoke signals?
Just for fun let’s take the Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash myth. Of course, it’s just a Conspiracy Theory. The so-called Roswell incident been explained – – at least twice. Last time it was sad to be a weather balloon. It might just as well have been a flock of geese or the planet Venus, I suppose.
But let’s be silly and play devil’s advocate. Suppose an unexplained extraterrestrial craft or vehicle had crashed there in 1947 after WWII. Presumably the US. military would have little or no interest in such an event. There would have been no suspicion that it might have been a Russian or German device after World War II. There would have been no military interest; There would have been no interest if not duty of the U.S. military to study and reverse engineer the advanced off-world technology for American national security. So a possible crash of some sort would not have been investigated.
But if what was discovered was thought to be an unexplained craft or an “off-world device,” as they are apparently called today, of some sort, then a high-ranking military officer or perhaps the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or our President would certainly have gone on the radio and told the U.S. public. “Fellow Americans, an unknown craft appearing to be extraterrestrial in origin has crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. We do not know its origin or understand its method of propulsion. The technology is far superior to American technology or that of any other nation on Earth.
A few small gray(?) humanoid bodies have been retrieved from the crash site. They’re not thought to be Americans. We don’t know yet with certainty if these beings are Christian or Jewish. But we can be sure they are Baptists. At this point in time it is apparent that the U.S. military cannot control its own airspace. — But, hey, don’t worry about it! — America is number one, the greatest power! — Have a nice day.”
The Brookings Institution report on the possible consequences of advanced extraterrestrial contact that concluded that when a more primitive civilization encounters an advanced civilization, the more primitive civilization is damaged by the contact would certainly not be considered relevant by those in authority. The conclusion that religious fundamentalists would be highly unreceptive to contact with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization would also certainly be ignored as irrelevant.
Below are a few crackpot books of Conspiracy Theories, perhaps good for a few laughs:
*Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times* by Jacques Vallee (Author), Chris Aubeck (Author)
*UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record* Paperback – August 2, 2011 by Leslie Kean (Author), John Podesta (Foreword)
*UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Coverup, 1941-1973* Paperback – June 1, 2002 by Richard M. Dolan (Author), Jacques F. Vallee (Foreword).
A cottage industry of woo woo, no doubt. Everyone with a high IQ knew about the Manhattan Project. You couldn’t keep something like that secret.
And in any case there are no conspiracies, ever. The Watergate break-in and subsequent Watergate cover-up were certainly not conspiracies. Project MK-Ultra was certainly not a conspiracy. Industrial espionage certainly does not involve conspiracy. — The belief that there are ever conspiracies is no more than a meta-conspiracy theory.
Jacobsen: “May’s Wager,” noted elsewhere, states:
It is extremely improbable that God exists.
But it is certain that I do not exist.
Therefore, the existence of God is a much better bet.
What are some potential hidden premises here?
May: That either we or God or both exist. Western philosophy and neuroscience are beginning to catch up with Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism, the Abiddama in particular, Vedanta, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the psychological theories and phenomenological observations of G.I. Gurdjieff. In particular neuroscientist Sam Harris is insightful and Thomas Metzinger, author of *Being No One — The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity* is noteworthy.
If there is no being resembling the human conceptions of a ‘God’,
then perhaps we will at least have “being no one” in common with He/She/It.
(As you know, *Stains Upon the Silence* is “something for no one.”)
Here is one possible relationship among ourselves and the other:
“More and less than stardust
The perceiving subject and the object perceived,
‘internally’ and ‘externally’, are usually separate in our ordinary, biologically useful state of ‘consciousness’. Duality, the subject-object dichotomy, can be abolished, as in cosmic consciousness or ‘objective consciousness’. We are the universe observing itself. But as skin-encapsulated egos, we live the delusion of ‘our’ separateness. There is only the One, the Cosmos, at various levels of scale ‘within’ and ‘without’. But there are an infinite number of points within the hologram, Indra’s net of gems, from which to see and be the totality, depending upon state and station, knowledge and being, “hal” and “makam.”
“The observer is the observed.” — J. Krishnamurti
May-Tzu”
Jacobsen: “The Silicon Scream” seems to echo the infinite incompleteness of the digital computers’ minds. Are some of these May-sian paradoxes?
May: “The Silicon Scream
Behold —
Infinite recursive paradoxes
in a cognitive hall of mirrors.”
I imagine that a “silicon scream,” a scream coming from or experienced by the ‘mind’of an advanced AI-unit would not refer to sensations or emotions as we feel them, not the despair, pain and love we wetware units know, but would be of a purely intellectual-cognitive sort; perhaps occasioned by encountering an infinite series of unresolvable logical paradoxes or by cognizing Godel’s incompleteness theorems; The absolute terror of seeing an inherent limitation within a logical or a mathematical system.
Wikipedia: “Gödel’s incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that demonstrate the inherent limitations of every formal axiomatic system capable of modelling basic arithmetic. These results, published by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel%27s_incompleteness_theorems
Appendix I: Footnotes
[1] Co-Editor, “Noesis: The Journal of the Mega Society.”
[2] Individual Publication Date: December 22, 2020: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/may-5; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2021: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.
*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.
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