Ad astra

Robert Anton Wilson
on "The trick top hat"

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The majority of Terrans were six-legged, but we are not concerned with them. We are concerned with a tiny minority of domesticated primates who built pyramids and wrote books and eventually achieved Space Migration and entered into the galactic drama.
They were very clever primates - excellent at mimicry and even capable of creative thinking at times.
They never would have escaped from their planet and the boom-and-bust cycles of all life-forms adapted to planetside living if it hadn't been for the H.E.A.D Revolution.
HEAD means Hedonic Engineering and Development. It consists of learning to use the primate brain for fun and profit.
At the time of our story the HEAD Revolution, after an underground existence of many centuries, included only about 2 percent of the domesticated primates on Terra. The rest of the domesticated primates were still using their brains for misery and failure.
They did not know they were misusing their brains. They thought there was something wrong with the universe.
They called it the Problem of Evil.
Experts on the Problem of Evil were known as theologians. These were very erudite primates, skilled in primate logic, who wrote long books trying to answer the question "Why did God create an imperfect universe?"
"God" was their name for the hypothetical biggest-alpha-male-of-all. Being primates, they could not comprehend how anything could run if there weren't an alpha male in charge of it.
They assumed the universe was imperfect because it was obviously not set up for the convenience of domesticated primates.
The universe was not even designed for the convenience and comfort of the six-legged majority on Terra. The convenience and comfort of planetside species has very little to do with the cosmic drama.
A few of the primates had realized this. They were known as cynics.
Cynics were primates who realized the monotonous life-death cycle of terrestrial life, but were not imaginative enough to conceive of future evolution after longevity and escape velocity had been attained.
(...)
The six-legged majority on Terra, for instance, followed a life script of four or more stages. In general, the pattern was: (1) the embryonic or egg form; (2) the larval period; (3) the pupal or chrysalis stage; (4) the adult insect. During each stage the biot or biological unit - the so-called individual - passed through a metamorphosis during which it was totally or partially transformed.
The same was true of the domesticated primates. Most of them passed through, and kept neurological circuits characteristic of, the following four stages: (1) imprinting and using the self-nourishing networks of the primate brain - the neonate or infant stage (oral biosurvival consciousness); (2) imprinting and using the emotional-territorial networks of the primate brain - the "toddler" stage (anal status consciousness); (3) imprinting and using the semantic circuits - the verbal or conceptual stage (symbolic rational consciousness); (4) imprinting and using the socio-sexual circuits - the mating or parenting stage (tribal taboo consciousness).
It was all very mechanical - but that's the way planetside life is.
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