When I read John Horgan's review in the Wall Street Journal of James Gleick's new book, The Information, I was surprised at how many topics Robert Anton Wilson wrote about that the book discusses -- the nature of information, quantum mechanics, paradoxes, the limitations of reason. I look forward to tracking down a copy of the book.
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RAW was trained as an electrical engineer, and glommed on to the importance of Claude Shannon's 1948 paper on the mathematical theory of communication right around the time it came out, i.e, not long after he turned 16 years old.
Due to his steepage in Korzybski and other influences, he seemed to immediately see the vast cosmic epistemological import of Wiener's books on cybernetics and the earlier versions of General Systems Theory. He also studied very closely Schrodinger's seminal What Is Life?, which bridges these fields also. He was also an early reader of Morgenstern and Von Neumann's vast Theory of Games and Economic Behavior.
The only other fiction/science fiction writer of great imagination that seemed to be as well-versed in these areas as RAW: Stanislaw Lem. But anyone please correct me if I'm leaving someone out.
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