It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, October 25, 2026
FAU Engineering receives $500,000 NSF grant to prepare AI, robotics workforce of the future
Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science has received a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop an integrated research and training framework for workforce preparation in artificial intelligence, robotics and cyber-physical systems; technologies that are increasingly shaping the future of healthcare, infrastructure, autonomous systems and other critical fields.
AI-enabled robots and cyber-physical systems are rapidly expanding the capabilities of machines to sense, communicate, make decisions and interact with the physical world. Yet gaining meaningful experience with these technologies can be difficult because the computing resources, simulation environments, datasets and physical systems needed for realistic experimentation are often fragmented and inaccessible to students and researchers.
The FAU team will address this gap by developing shared cyberinfrastructure that allows participants to move between digital and physical environments and conduct more realistic, reproducible experiments. The project will provide research-grade workflows, digital twin environments, datasets, simulation resources, executable notebooks and experimental examples that can be used by students, researchers and educators.
The project is led by Xiangnan Zhong, Ph.D., principal investigator (PI), an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and a member of FAU’s Center for Connected Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence (CA-AI). This award marks her fourth NSF grant as PI in intelligent systems and cyber-physical systems, building on a strong research record in these fields.
“Advanced robotics and AI are transforming science and engineering, but access to research-grade tools and hands-on experimentation remains limited,” said Zhong. “This project will help close that gap by bringing advanced computing, simulation and physical experimentation into an integrated research and training environment, opening new possibilities for discovery and building the expertise needed to develop the next generation of intelligent systems.”
The project brings together an interdisciplinary team with expertise in AI, robotics, computing, communications and biomedical engineering. Its applications span healthcare, autonomous systems and networked robots. Co-PIs are Erik Engeberg, Ph.D., professor of ocean and mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering; Zhen Ni, Ph.D., associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science; and George Sklivanitis, Ph.D., Charles E. Schmidt Research Associate Professor of electrical engineering and computer science and a faculty fellow with FAU’s Institute for Smarter Cities, Spaces and Health.
Ni and Sklivanitis are also members of FAU’s CA-AI, where Sklivanitis serves as associate director. The project will build on CA-AI’s cyberinfrastructure, including its digital twin computing platform and networked robotic testbed, to connect advanced simulation with physical experimentation and expand remote access to research-grade tools. These capabilities will support hands-on training and mentored research, helping prepare a skilled research workforce with the computational and data-driven expertise needed to advance AI-enabled robotics and cyber-physical systems.
“This NSF award reflects the strength and breadth of the College of Engineering and Computer Science and its commitment to preparing students for the technologies that will define the future,” said Stella Batalama, Ph.D., dean of FAU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science. “By bringing together AI, robotics, computing, communications and cybersecurity in an integrated research and training environment, Florida Atlantic is helping to develop the highly skilled workforce our nation needs.”
The long-term goal is to establish a scalable and sustainable cyberinfrastructure ecosystem that can support AI-enabled robotics and cyber-physical systems research and education well beyond the initial project. Future efforts will expand the framework to additional application areas, institutions and research communities, increasing access to advanced computing, digital twin and experimental capabilities while strengthening the national workforce in intelligent systems.
- FAU -
About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University is one of the nation’s fastest-rising public research universities, serving more than 32,000 students in South Florida. Ranked among the Top 100 Public Universities by U.S. News & World Report, Florida Atlantic is also one of only 13 institutions nationwide to hold Carnegie Foundation designations for R1 research, opportunity and community engagement. Guided by its strategic plan, “2031FAU: Where Tomorrow Begins,” the university is focused on delivering career-ready education and experiential learning, driving scholarly inquiry that creates healthier, safer and more prosperous communities, strengthening institutional excellence, and elevating its impact across South Florida and beyond. Florida Atlantic continues to advance its position as Florida’s first quantum university, integrating research, education and industry partnerships around next-generation computing technologies. Through other signature strengths in neuroscience and healthy aging, environmental, ocean and coastal innovation, and national defense and autonomous systems, Florida Atlantic expands knowledge, fuels economic opportunity and fulfills its mission as South Florida’s hometown university.
Study suggests 'digitalization' is significant contributor to carbon emissions
A new study underscores the extent to which digital policies cannot be separated from energy policies. The research evaluates the relationship between information communication technologies and carbon dioxide emissions, and finds that the variables they used as proxies for digitalization were associated with increased emissions.
“Fundamentally, we wanted to determine whether digitalization has helped to lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions,” says Eiman Aiyash, co-author of a paper on the work and a lecturer in economics in North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management. “Specifically, we looked at three proxies for digitalization – internet usage, fixed telephone subscriptions, and mobile cellular subscriptions – and used a statistical tool called mediation analysis to examine the direct relationship between digitalization and CO2 emissions, as well as indirect relationships operating through several economic and energy channels. Our findings suggest digitalization has not lowered emissions; quite the opposite.”
For the study, the researchers drew on data covering G20 economies from 1990 through 2023. The G20, or Group of 20, consists of 19 countries and the European Union. Collectively, these economies account for the majority of the world’s economic activity and CO2 emissions. The researchers collected data on CO2 emissions as well as the three proxies for digitalization, while accounting for real GDP and population growth. The analysis also examined potential channels through which digitalization may be related to emissions, including trade, industrial activity, fossil fuel energy consumption, renewable energy consumption, and electricity production from renewable sources.
The researchers analyzed the data using panel regression and mediation analysis techniques. Across the three proxies, greater digitalization was positively and significantly associated with CO2 emissions, suggesting that the expansion of information communication technologies in G20 economies has, so far, been associated with greater environmental pressure rather than lower emissions.
What’s more, the researchers found that only a small share of the estimated relationship between digitalization and CO2 emissions was due to indirect effects related to industry and trade channels. Roughly 96–98% of the estimated relationship was direct association with the three proxies of digitalization.
The researchers interpret this finding as consistent with the substantial energy requirements of digital infrastructure and the carbon intensity of the electricity systems that support it.
“Our study shows that digitalization is not inherently green: in the G20, information communication technology expansion is associated with higher CO2 emissions,” says study co-author Ahmed Abou-Zaid, a professor of economics at Eastern Illinois University. “So digitalization’s environmental benefits will depend on whether the energy systems powering the digital economy become cleaner and more efficient.”
“Our results suggest that governments should assess digital progress not only in terms of connectivity and technology adoption, but also in terms of its environmental sustainability,” says Aiyash.
In particular, the researchers say, policymakers should consider:
the carbon intensity of the electricity used to power digital infrastructure;
the energy efficiency of digital infrastructure;
the extent to which digital expansion is supported by renewable energy; and
whether existing regulations help mitigate or unintentionally amplify rebound effects.
“Taken together, these findings highlight the need for a coordinated policy approach that integrates digital, energy, industrial, and climate objectives, rather than treating these areas as separate policy domains,” says Aiyash. “Such an integrated approach can help ensure that continued digitalization supports, rather than undermines, broader environmental and decarbonization goals.”
The paper, “ICT and CO2 Emissions in the G20: A Channel-Based Mediation Analysis,” is published open-access in the journal Sustainability. Corresponding author of the paper is Sami Alabdulwahab of King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia. The work was done with the support of an Ambitious Researcher Grant from King Faisal University.
A new study led by researchers in the Eco-Evo-Devo lab at the University of Ottawa finds that ants can decouple antennae size from both head and body size as they develop into different social castes, revealing how social signals and hormones help shape traits for specialized colony roles.
Bigger animals usually have bigger body parts. It’s one of biology’s most familiar patterns. Yet some ants appear to break that rule. The discovery offers a new view of how evolution can loosen biological constraints and produce new combinations of traits.
When bigger ants don’t have bigger antennae
The researchers studied Pheidole, a highly diverse genus of ants whose colonies include small workers and much larger soldiers. Within each caste, antennae still grow in proportion to body size. Surprisingly, across castes, the relationship changes: the variation of worker and soldier antenna size completely overlap, despite the fact that soldiers have substantially larger heads and bodies.
“It was total serendipity. We were sitting at the microscope and Erica (Erica Vong is a graduate researcher and student at uOttawa and lead author of this study) showed me the antennae of two individuals. One was clearly smaller, yet it turned out to be from the soldier!” says Rajendhran Rajakumar, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at uOttawa’s Faculty of Science; the research was conducted in his lab. “Much like when you are getting your favorite latte, both castes have small, medium, and large sizes of overlapping antennae.”
It turns out, that the big antennae were from the biggest worker and the small antenna was from the smallest soldier, which is still much bigger in both head and body size.
“Biologists have long assumed that traits such as antennae generally scale predictably with body size,” Professor Rajakumar says. “Our findings show that evolution can decouple a trait from body size in one context while preserving that relationship in another.”
The team combined laboratory experiments, field data, museum collections and comparative analyses. Measurements from 565 Pheidole species showed that this unusual antennal pattern is widespread across the genus. Comparisons with other ants suggest it may have originated near the common ancestor shared by Pheidole and the closely related Cephalotes turtle ants.
Antennae are essential to an ant’s survival. Ants use them to detect chemical and physical cues, find their way through their surroundings and communicate with nestmates; all critical in the functioning of their societies. Their size and shape can also affect the number and arrangement of sensory structures available to each ant.
“The antenna is not simply getting bigger because the ant is bigger,” Professor Rajakumar explains. “In these colonies, development preserves a flexible range of antennal forms that may help individuals compatibly respond together to changing environmental demands.”
How the colony shapes individual ants
Experiments with Pheidole dentata showed that this flexibility is regulated by the colony’s social environment, juvenile hormone, and signals from an allometry-regulating organ. Previously, Professor Rajakumar had played a vital role in work that had demonstrated that these same factors are critical for soldier and supersoldier development. By changing these factors, particularly the soldier inhibitory pheromone, the researchers now produced novel “nanoworkers” and “nanosoldiers”; nanosoldiers with the body size of a worker and the head size and shape of a soldier. These ants revealed body-and-trait combinations that ordinary development usually keeps hidden, yet the developmental potential exists and can be activated.
The results also show how the colony acts as a superorganism, with social conditions influencing the development of individual ants. “Social signals and hormones do more than determine whether an ant becomes a worker or a soldier,” clarifies Professor Rajakumar. “They can also reshape how different traits grow and scale together (or decouple), within castes, between castes, and more broadly across species.”
Breaking biological rules can create new forms
The findings help explain how biological systems can escape familiar scaling rules, generating new forms. That flexibility may have contributed to the rise of complex caste systems, helping ants become one of the planet’s most diverse and ecologically successful species.
“This work reminds us that evolution is not always a process of adding more or less of the same trait,” Professor Rajakumar concludes. “Sometimes new possibilities emerge when the expected connections between traits are broken and development is reorganized.”
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of four research articles recently published across its esteemed journals. Widely recognized for fostering innovation and advancing ecological knowledge, ESA’s journals consistently feature illuminating and impactful studies. This compilation of papers explores how early-life conditions shape caribou survival and longevity, how changing ocean conditions may influence the habitat use of endangered North Pacific right whales, the risk to Maryland marshes as seas rise and how habitat disturbance can make wild mice stressed and sick.
Listening for clues to the fate of endangered right whales Author contact: Dana L. Wright (danawr4@uw.edu)
With fewer than 50 individuals remaining, the eastern population of the North Pacific right whale faces an uncertain future. New research suggests that changes in the Bering Sea’s cold bottom waters may be linked to where these whales are detected, offering clues to how a warming ocean could affect their habitat. Researchers analyzed underwater recordings from seven locations in the eastern Bering Sea between 2012 and 2019. During years when the area of cold bottom water shrank, whale calling activity expanded northward. But in 2018 and 2019, when the cold pool reached record-low levels, whale calls were detected far less often across most monitored locations. The contrasting patterns suggest that the relationship between ocean conditions and whale activity may not be straightforward. The cold pool helps shape the distribution of the whales’ prey, so changes in this underwater habitat could affect where the whales find food. Researchers found no clear link between the timing of whale arrivals and departures and seasonal sea ice timing, suggesting that the ocean conditions created by sea ice may matter more than the timing of ice formation and retreat itself. The findings highlight the importance of understanding how a changing Bering Sea could reshape habitat for a population already at risk of extinction.
Rising seas could turn a Maryland marsh into open water by the 2060s Author contact: James R. Holmquist (holmquistj@si.edu)
A low-lying marsh along Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay has a greater than 50% chance of converting to open water by the 2060s, according to a new study. The loss could reduce the wetland’s ability to store carbon, as well as threaten habitat and other benefits coastal wetlands provide. But predicting the future of a marsh is inherently uncertain: scientists must account for everything from measurement errors and gaps in ecological knowledge to the future pace of sea-level rise. To tackle that challenge, researchers developed an approach that accounts for these different sources of uncertainty, revealing not only what is likely to happen, but how confident scientists can be in the forecast and which unknowns matter most. Their analysis found that the growth of marsh plants and the preservation of organic matter in the soil play especially important roles in determining whether the wetland can maintain its elevation as seas rise. It also showed that different sources of uncertainty become important at different times, with uncertainty about future sea-level rise playing a larger role later in the century. The findings highlight that marsh survival depends not only on how quickly sea levels rise, but also on how the wetland’s plants and soils respond. The forecasting approach could help coastal managers assess which wetlands are most vulnerable, prioritize restoration efforts and identify where better data could improve predictions of wetland survival and long-term carbon storage.
Habitat damage may leave wild mice stressed and less able to fight infection Author contact: Laurie Dizney (dizney@up.edu)
Wildlife can sometimes survive in damaged habitats, but staying alive may come at a cost. A four-year study of western deer mice in Oregon found that mice in the most disturbed habitats showed signs of greater long-term stress and weaker immune defenses. But there was also encouraging news: mice at sites where habitat restoration had been underway for 8 to 12 years had stress-hormone levels and immune-cell counts that did not differ significantly from those in intact habitat. Researchers measured stress hormones preserved in the mice’s hair and counted immune cells in their blood. Mice in the most disturbed areas had higher stress-hormone levels and fewer immune cells, potentially leaving them less able to fight infection. The researchers suspect that changes in vegetation, including fewer trees and shrubs and warmer soil, may help explain these differences. The findings suggest that habitat damage may affect wildlife health even when animals continue to inhabit disturbed areas, and that restoration may help improve some physiological measures of health. Measuring stress hormones and immune cells could give conservationists another way to evaluate restoration progress and investigate how habitat changes may influence wildlife susceptibility to disease.
The Ecological Society of America, founded in 1915, is the world’s largest community of professional ecologists and a trusted source of ecological knowledge, committed to advancing the understanding of life on Earth. The 8,000 member Society publishessix journals and a membership bulletinand broadly shares ecological information through policy, media outreach and education initiatives. The Society’sAnnual Meetingattracts 4,000 attendees and features the most recent advances in ecological science. Visit the ESA website athttps://www.esa.org
I don’t think anyone would have suspected it back in the ’60s and ’70s, but the author Robert Anton Wilson may have emerged as the most influential counterculture figure of those times. Who else has massive followings of fans fighting over the implications of his politics and philosophy? I can’t think of anyone.
RAW requires no introduction with this crowd but for those of you stumbling in, here’s a wikipedia page with a full bibliography.
PROP ANON is the author of the upcoming Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson, the first official biography of the late counterculture philosopher. He started his career as a Hip-Hop artist whose 2010 albumSquat the Condos presaged the Occupy movement. In 2014, Prop switched musical gears and released a Stoner Rock album called HAIL ERIS! with his band, HAIL ERIS!
R.U. Sirius: Is there anything about Bob’s childhood that indicates that he will become a counterculture philosopher of note?
Prop Anon: Bob was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn and spent his childhood in one of its most remote neighborhoods, Gerritsen Beach. He described the one-road-town as an “Irish Catholic Ghetto,” as he grew up a prodigious youth who survived two bouts of Polio, child abuse at the hands of the nuns who ran his grammar school, and a narrow-minded working-class neighborhood. The polio that nearly killed him was almost completely cured by The Sister Kenny Method — which today is considered ‘alternative’ medicine, but in 1935 denounced as quackery by the medical establishment. Sister Kenny proved everyone wrong and eventually was considered an alternative medicine pioneer. More indirectly he received inspiration from his favorite contemporary artist, Orson Welles. Welles played with the notion of uncertainty in nearly all his work, and this spoke to Bob. Bob was a fan of Welles’ since his 1938 ‘War of the World’s” was performed on the radio, which catapulted the then 23-year-old Welles to fame. Events like these, and more, sent the message early on to Bob that a keen sense of self was a necessary survival tool. He possessed the desire and capacity to live counter to the dominant culture, and he did. Wilson, like many of his generation, faced some serious existential threats living in a society deeply immersed in bullshit. As a response he developed a highly functional ‘Bullshit Detector.”
RUS: Were you able to learn much about Bob’s time at Playboy? Fun stories from the Bunny Empire? Did he like Hef?
PA: There are some stories about Bob’s time at Playboy, which he never wrote about in his books. One story he called ‘How I became a Paranoid,’ which began when a mysterious Playboy executive visited his office during a workday and told him that his name was added to Chicago PD’s ‘Red Squad,’ which was a list of radical people the authorities put under surveillance. An early example of Red Squad behavior was seen in 1886, when Chicago agents targeted Anarchists with surveillance directly after the Haymarket Affair in 1886. 85 years later, there were specific Red Squad agents that targeted people like Bob, who they would have called a ‘closet hippie.’ In others, a person who had a regular job and didn’t dress like a hippie yet were protesting the Vietnam War. During this visit, Bob and Arlen, were at their peak of political activism. Both were involved with local Anarchist groups; Arlen was an early member of the Anarcho-Feminist group and magazine, Siren. She was also a part of the Chicago Woman Liberation Union (CWLU) Bob was exploring a Surrealist angle of Anarchism, through his associations with Franklin Rosemont and the Chicago Surrealist Group. They were both part of an Anarchist group that changed its name for every event. On top of that, Arlen and Bob were sociable people who hosted parties and discussion groups at their apartment.
In Bob’s office the mysterious executive had shut the door and told him that a police informant had tipped the Chicago PD off to Bob’s activities as a gunrunner for the Black Panthers. Bob said that he and Arlen were actually helping the Panthers with their influential Free Breakfast program for local children. After Bob denied the accusation he asked how Playboy was able to find out about police informants circulating through radical circles within Chicago. The executive told Bob that Playboy had their own cadre of informants, who heard the whispers of police informants and then reported to Playboy, especially when it concerned someone who worked at Playboy. Perhaps this Playboy editor was playing a prank on Bob. There was never any tip to the ‘Red Squad,’ just a great bullshiter who wanted to test Bob Wilson. However, the FBI’s COINTELPRO was going strong during this time, and the extent of the spying on activist communities by law enforcement agencies was not fully known to the public as of 1971. Bob later said this conversation sparked the idea for the character Tobias Knight from Illuminatus! Knight is a quintuple-agent and is the punchline to the joke highlighting about how many agents and informants there were in resistance movements of the late 60s, and continue to be today.
As far as Wilson and Hefner went, from my research, it seems like Bob did not really know Hefner on a personal level. He and Arlen, did however, attend some of Hefner’s movie nights at the Playboy mansion while Bob worked at Playboy. Wilson appreciated Hefner’s stance on Civil Liberty issues within the United States. Both were committed to the First Amendment, and Playboy was a progressive voice within the media when it came to such issues. Something about his job at Playboy must have worked because Bob was able to harness his ability as a writer. He honed his craft while working at Playboy, wrote Illuminatus! with his co-worker and friend, Robert Shea, and managed to provide full medical and dental insurance for his family while getting paid, Playboy worked well for Bob and his family.
RAW & Robert Shea
R.U.S:Robert Shea — coauthor of Illuminatus Triology — sort of ended up being “the quiet one”. What can you tell us about Shea and he and Bob’s relationship?
PA:Wilson and Shea became fast friends at Playboy. They would hang out together at the bar on payday. They, and their wives, would all hang out, smoke weed, watch TV or listen to records and think of funny sketches that made each other laugh. They had a lot in common: Both raised Irish Catholic, both left the Church young, both seeking to become full time free-lance writers. They both really dug into the Anarchist perspective. After Illuminatus!, Shea went on to start an Anarchist newsletter called No Governor, which Wilson contributed to. Wilson had a talent for collaborating with like-minded artists and thinkers; his and Shea’s collaboration resulted in Illuminatus! and that was itself a further collaboration out of their involvement with The Discordian Society. The two continually spoke of writing their sequel, Bride of Illuminatus, which they barely started before Shea was diagnosed with cancer. Shea’s death left Bob deeply distraught. Michael Shea, described seeing Bob at his father’s funeral looking shook by the whole event. Bob’s eulogy, Chimes at Midnight, published in Cosmic Trigger vol. III, written shortly after Shea provides a glimpse into Bob’s thoughts about his dead friend.
Arlen & Robert Anton Wilson
R.U.S: He had a long and loving marriage to Arlen, all of it in the midst of a lot of cultural chaos and sexual libertinism. Any complications there?
PA: The short answer is, yes, there were bumps in the road, though they chose to stay committed to their marriage. That said, while Bob was working at Playboy, her two daughters told me that Arlen had a short-lived affair with a mutual friend of theirs; a fellow activist who attended Arlen’s weekly meetings. Alex believes that Bob was also having an affair with his secretary at Playboy, Pat. Though Christina believes that Bob only went so far as flirting with Pat and never engaged physically with her. Christina says she knows this because she asked her father towards the end of his life if he’d ever had an affair while married to Arlen. She told me that he said he never did because Arlen was everything he needed. This moment of Arlen’s affair, and Bob’s possible affair, occurred at a very intense time for the Wilson family. A psychic pressure had built up around the whole family during 1970 &’ 71. Bob believed his family may have been under some type of surveillance, and Arlen was immersed in a ‘mid-life crisis,’ while battling depression. The pressure was felt by their children as well, as Christina was going through her own battles with Trichotillomania-compulsive hair pulling due to anxiety. Bob was unaware of Arlen’s affair at the time, but his feeling that he needed a change may have saved their marriage, as the following years of adventure and poverty drew the two even closer together, remaining so until Arlen’s death in 1999.
R.U.S.: He was a self-described libertarian who went on welfare to finish Illuminatus. Was this a struggle for him?
PA: While Wilson did call himself a Libertarian at times, he did not go on welfare to finish Illuminatus! Wilson and Shea completed their novel, in 1971, while Bob was still working for Playboy. It was the completion of the book, and the confidence he felt in it being picked up quickly by a publisher, which played a role in his leaving the magazine. Wilson went on welfare during his tour of Chapel Perilous in 1973, two years after completing Illuminatus! He went on welfare because of the financial struggles he faced while getting his freelance writing career off the ground. During the period of 1971 to ’76, Wilson produced a dizzying number of articles, taught classes at his family’s apartment, published three non-fiction books through Playboy Press, his first fiction book with a small publisher, also pitching numerous books proposals to other publishers, while working as a book reviewer for the San Francisco Phoenix. On top of all this, he still needed to go on welfare. With the publication of Illuminatus! Wilson’s earnings rose incrementally, however, most of his career he was “living paycheck to paycheck” like most Americans, until the day he died.
His appreciation for Libertarianism, seems most informed, to me at least, through his exposure to the work of the American Individualist-Anarchist, Benjamin Tucker. Wilson read nearly all of Tucker’s journal, Liberty, when he lived and worked at the School of Living in Ohio in 1962-63. Tucker, and other Individual-Anarchists like Lysander Spooner, Ezra Heywood, Josiah Warren, and a few others are often left out of the narrative of the Anarchist tradition within America, as Emma Goldman and the Anarcho-Communists are mistakenly credited with bringing Anarchism to America. The influence of Ayn Rand, Ludwig Von Mises, and Murray Rothbard pale in comparison to the work of Tucker and the Individualist-Anarchists. Wilson also liked Bucky Fuller’s radically optimistic declarations that it is possible for everyone on earth to live more abundantly than ever before. These two philosophies are prominent threads in an eclectic economic and political lattice that he called ‘Non-Euclidean Politics.’ He rejected the economics of scarcity and concentrated his efforts in how to conceive of tapping into the abundant energy sources that are not yet ‘in-tune,’ like how electricity was not in tune at one point, there may be other energy sources which our minds haven’t learned how to grasp yet. The ultimate nexus for his ‘Non-Euclidean Politics’ is a ‘non-zero-sum society,’ where cut throat ruthless competition is phased out by exchanges guided by cooperation and equality. Wilson’s views moved in flux and he liked to change the different hats he was trying on quickly at times. I’d like to think that I unpack Wilson’s ‘Non-Euclidean’ political perspective, thoroughly in my book.
R.U.S: Reading his essays and his collaborations with Timothy Leary I imagined them as hangout buddies. But there lives were pretty separate and their temperaments were pretty different. Any thoughts in this regard?
PA: Going into the research phase of Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson, I was also under the impression that Bob and Tim were “hang out buddies.” It is clear to me that the two had a tremendous amount of respect for each other, and both believed deeply in the others work. They were intellectual comrades, much like Shea and Gregory Hill were his artist comrades. Wilson and Leary inspired each other as they enthusiastically crafted and refined the 8-Circuit Model of Intelligence together. I got a chance to view the successive drafts of their book The Game of Life, during visits to the Timothy Leary Archive at the New York Public Library, and it really shows how much of a collaboration that book and the 8-Circuit Model of Intelligence really was.
Personally, Bob and Tim really liked each other. I think Wilson enjoyed Leary’s freewheeling ways. Tim was extremely outgoing and charming, while Bob could come across as aloof at times. Bob, when not on the microphone, was often was quiet and polite. Leary was more gregarious. Tim believed that Wilson was an extremely important philosopher. Another layer of companionship exists between the two as both had children who were schizophrenic. Tim’s daughter, Susan, suffered greatly from schizophrenia-she ultimately took her own life after she was arrested for the attempted murder of her live-in boyfriend. Bob’s son, Graham, had a schizophrenic break when his sister, Luna was murdered in 1976. Bob was reticent in speaking about his son’s illness, and he never once mentioned Graham’s battle with the disease in any of his books. However, he was able to speak openly with Tim Leary about his son because he knew Leary was going through something similar. This could have strengthened their bond as friends.
As far as hanging out goes, I think Wilson and Leary probably hung out most when Bob and Arlen were living in West Hollywood from 1988 to the early 90s. Leary was living in Beverly Hills at the time, and the two were often on speaking panels together.
During the 90s, when Bob and Arlen moved to Santa Cruz, he and Leary saw less of each other. Arlen’s health issues with her heart began shortly after arriving in Santa Cruz and Bob’s attention increasingly turned towards taking care of his wife, while maintaining a very disciplined writing practice of typing for hours a day. Though they hung out less and less in the 90s, their friendship remained strong. When Tim was nearing his death, Bill Maher invited him in his television show Politically Incorrect. Maher wanted to provide Leary a proper media toast, as opposed to the litany of media roasts he endured over the years. When Leary was unable to attend, he sent Bob to take his place. Leary had more famous friends than Bob, and it’s clear from viewing the episode that Bill Maher never heard of Bob before, but he chose to send Bob because he knew that Bob could best relate Leary’s perspectives. It was also a cool thing to do for Bob, as mainstream media attention eluded him in America throughout his career, appearing on the show may have given him a boost in book sales that month.
R.U.S.: Bob did not like the radical left and he was a bit into a “men’s rights” thing —writing, essentially, that some aspects of feminism were dehumanizing men. I wonder if you dealt with that and how you feel and think about it.
PA: I wouldn’t say that Wilson disliked the radical left. I think he was opposed to when the radical left, or any group of people, engaged in groupthink and witch hunt behavior. From the later 50s on, he wrote for Paul Krassner’s pioneering underground newspaper, The Realist, while living in Yellow Springs, Ohio and he took part in a civil rights protest to desegregate a local barbershop, which led to the only arrest of his life. This protest has become local legend as the chaos of that day made the national news. His work with the Chicago Black Panthers during the late 1960s and his role as an organizer of Anti-Vietnam War demonstrations got him tagged as a radical leftist by local authorities.
Wilson remained committed to the idea that only Individual events and creatures exist in nature. Though one can be associated with a group, one can never be branded the same as a group. This was even the premise of his first, unpublished book, Authority and Submission. To Wilson, groups are grammatical fictions and only individuals exist. Most of philosophy is concerned with how to open one’s mind to this, because, he hoped, this raising of consciousness would decrease the amount of violence in the world.
Wilson’s criticism of some opinions expressed in radical feminist rhetoric begins with their stated assertions that “All men are potential rapists,” or “All men are pigs,” etc. Wilson regarded such demonological thinking as a conspiracy theory, because the statement has fallen into the realm of either/or logic that Wilson’s General Semantics training would not let him accept any value from the previous statements. He especially disliked Andrea Dworkin, Gloria Steinem, and MS. Magazine. He thought that much of the theory coming forth from some radical feminist camps in the early 1970s was unproductive and divisive. Arlen Wilson was an avowed feminist and women’s rights activist throughout her life. Bob listened to Arlen’s perspectives on gender issues. There was a healthy discussion and debate about gender issues going on in their marriage. Arlene Meyers, the co-founder of Siren called Bob a ‘sexist pig.’ Many years later, Bob told me that the greatest compliment he’d ever received was from Arlen who told him that if all men were like him there would be no need for feminism. Wilson believed he saw some unproductive tendencies forming in some feminist circles in the early 1970s, and he had a point. At the same time, I wonder how quickly he threw the proverbial baby out with the bath water, as his rejection of a whole group based on some stupid statements does not seem to fit with his constant stress of remaining open minded.
