1
00:00:01,370 --> 00:00:03,538
... and it's very hard
to check out all events.

2
00:00:03,902 --> 00:00:07,457
These little bits are partial bits

3
00:00:07,680 --> 00:00:10,417
of what they call information.

4
00:00:10,610 --> 00:00:11,751
And it's very hard for us to say

5
00:00:11,866 --> 00:00:14,177
"It looks like a shadow of a person,
I wonder if it is."

6
00:00:14,920 --> 00:00:17,244
Alright? It is possible then, perhaps,

7
00:00:17,431 --> 00:00:21,200
to be able to decode something like this

8
00:00:26,890 --> 00:00:30,951
as a pictorial simplification of ... what?

9
00:00:32,106 --> 00:00:33,110
- Pyramids.

10
00:00:33,226 --> 00:00:36,266
- Yeah,
a pictorial simplification of the pyramids.

11
00:00:36,586 --> 00:00:39,315
We can almost get away with this.

12
00:00:44,270 --> 00:00:47,706
We might get away with ... this.

13
00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:57,319
And it is possible that,
like I tried to indicate in the past,

14
00:00:57,653 --> 00:01:02,951
when somebody drew a male,
they drew the male like this:

15
00:01:03,160 --> 00:01:07,048
they drew the legs,
and they drew this extension coming down,

16
00:01:07,626 --> 00:01:10,017
and the female they just drew this area.

17
00:01:12,524 --> 00:01:17,750
That was the major difference ...
and male, woman.

18
00:01:21,884 --> 00:01:27,368
In very early development of language,
they used to do pictorials.

19
00:01:27,635 --> 00:01:32,115
And so, today,
we have gotten so far away from that,

20
00:01:32,390 --> 00:01:34,604
with the small 'a' and the capital 'A' and

21
00:01:34,711 --> 00:01:38,648
the King's English, and the curlicues,

22
00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:42,053
thick and thin lettering
and all that type of shit.

23
00:01:46,350 --> 00:01:47,955
And they have all kinds of crap.

24
00:01:48,780 --> 00:01:52,826
Wouldn't leave it alone, and they kept at it,
and of course you think I'm kidding,

25
00:01:53,333 --> 00:01:57,840
they actually, some people wanted to work
piddling with the inside of that shit too.

26
00:01:59,780 --> 00:02:02,435
On marriage certificates?
We go back in the early days,

27
00:02:02,711 --> 00:02:07,164
like a dollar bill, you got more shit on
there than you can flush in any toilet bowl.

28
00:02:07,422 --> 00:02:10,551
I mean,
when it comes to ginger bread patterns,

29
00:02:11,111 --> 00:02:14,408
money, marriage certificates,
contract certificates have-...

30
00:02:14,826 --> 00:02:18,124
Would you call it surplus information?
What would you call it?

31
00:02:19,130 --> 00:02:20,467
What would you call decoration?

32
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:24,133
- Clutter. Alright?

33
00:02:24,570 --> 00:02:28,791
- Aesthetic information.
- What? - Aesthetic insignificant information.

34
00:02:29,102 --> 00:02:30,888
- Insignificant information.

35
00:02:31,093 --> 00:02:33,964
- It's supposed to make it more impressive
though, to impress the recipient.

36
00:02:34,071 --> 00:02:35,457
- How can it be impressive?

37
00:02:35,937 --> 00:02:36,968
- Just by its excess,

38
00:02:37,075 --> 00:02:39,511
they figure if they've got time to be
this excessive, it must be something ...

39
00:02:39,626 --> 00:02:42,640
- Why don't they send you a
certificate of debt with excess on it?

40
00:02:42,755 --> 00:02:43,955
- They probably do, I don't know ...

41
00:02:44,062 --> 00:02:46,604
- If you owe $10,000, why don't they send you

42
00:02:46,791 --> 00:02:50,764
a beautiful gold inlaid type thing saying
"You owe $10,000"?

43
00:02:50,942 --> 00:02:55,262
It just says "Pay, or you'll be
picked up at 4 o'clock." Very plain.

44
00:02:55,706 --> 00:02:58,826
See? It's only in a warranty or guarantee,

45
00:02:59,102 --> 00:03:02,444
that you have a silver ribbon hanging ...
all kinds of ...

46
00:03:02,613 --> 00:03:06,186
Yeah! You don't laugh at that stuff yet,
but someday people will,

47
00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:09,564
at diplomas and all that kind of shit,
which they hand-...

48
00:03:09,671 --> 00:03:13,751
It's a piece of paper printed to
look like it has great significance.

49
00:03:13,884 --> 00:03:15,440
- But it's a picture also ...

50
00:03:15,608 --> 00:03:18,480
You often hang those things up if
it has to look nice in your house.

51
00:03:19,955 --> 00:03:21,180
... It's visual!

52
00:03:21,297 --> 00:03:22,586
- Visual noise.

53
00:03:22,906 --> 00:03:26,506
- Visual. No, it's probably derivative from
another time when people had papyrus ...

54
00:03:26,610 --> 00:03:28,633
- Is it necessary?
- No.

55
00:03:29,396 --> 00:03:31,138
- So you get into information.

56
00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:34,631
Now I want to talk about
simulation of information.

57
00:03:35,262 --> 00:03:38,880
At certain times,
people try to impress other people.

58
00:03:39,288 --> 00:03:42,684
And they used to get a whole batch
of United Cigar Store coupons.

59
00:03:42,791 --> 00:03:44,800
That doesn't mean anything to most of you,
does it?

60
00:03:44,986 --> 00:03:47,164
United Cigars, cigar store coupons?

61
00:03:47,386 --> 00:03:50,604
And the United States Navy used
to go to China many years ago,

62
00:03:51,200 --> 00:03:53,333
with a lot of United Cigar Store coupons.

63
00:03:53,570 --> 00:03:56,648
And they'd go into these Chinese
stores and they'd buy lamps and things,

64
00:03:57,946 --> 00:04:00,026
and he'd stash and point ... you know.

65
00:04:00,133 --> 00:04:03,431
It didn't take the Chinese too long,
maybe 6 months.

66
00:04:04,702 --> 00:04:08,186
And in the meantime they came
away with a lot of goods.

67
00:04:08,470 --> 00:04:13,208
So what they did is simulated information.
It's called deception.

68
00:04:14,124 --> 00:04:18,364
There are other people who took United
Cigar Store coupons in great numbers,

69
00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:21,288
and put a hundred dollar bill on the top

70
00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:25,253
of the United Cigar Store coupons,
and a couple of rubber bands around it.

71
00:04:25,555 --> 00:04:27,528
And they went into a store ...
[bankroll riff sound]

72
00:04:27,635 --> 00:04:30,151
and he peals off a hundred dollar
bill and says "Can you change this?"

73
00:04:31,182 --> 00:04:33,910
And that caused people
to be impressed by them.

74
00:04:34,248 --> 00:04:37,955
Now, the technique that was used ...
this has to do with information.

75
00:04:38,284 --> 00:04:40,062
A guy would come into a church

76
00:04:40,693 --> 00:04:43,395
and be very well dressed.
He'd rent a Rolls Royce,

77
00:04:43,710 --> 00:04:46,115
for an hour or two hours,
this guy would pick him up.

78
00:04:46,227 --> 00:04:48,233
He'd get out and he'd come into the church,

79
00:04:48,344 --> 00:04:50,707
and he'd take out that- and
hearing it [bankroll riff sound]

80
00:04:50,817 --> 00:04:54,906
and peel off $100, while everybody
is giving 2 or 3 or 4 dollars.

81
00:04:55,730 --> 00:04:58,524
A hundred dollars! Jesus!

82
00:04:59,173 --> 00:05:01,875
Then he'd walk around.
"Who is he?" "What does he do?"

83
00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:04,524
Then he'd come in,
back to the church, during a social,

84
00:05:04,657 --> 00:05:06,737
on a land promotion scheme ...

85
00:05:08,780 --> 00:05:10,844
and thousands of people
would want to buy into this

86
00:05:10,951 --> 00:05:13,955
wonderful God-caring, good giving man.

87
00:05:15,288 --> 00:05:19,671
And so, what he did is simulate
the greedy fucking values

88
00:05:20,391 --> 00:05:22,800
of the people that attend the church.

89
00:05:23,210 --> 00:05:26,603
He simulated their values,
so they got sucked in.

90
00:05:28,222 --> 00:05:31,102
But if they were churchmen they'd say "Oh no,
you know,

91
00:05:31,431 --> 00:05:34,515
I don't want to make that much
profit off my fellow man!"

92
00:05:35,271 --> 00:05:37,226
Anyway, it didn't work that way.

93
00:05:37,462 --> 00:05:40,381
So he had people to continuously
simulate information.

94
00:05:40,497 --> 00:05:43,662
Can you name other examples
of information simulation?

95
00:05:45,386 --> 00:05:47,386
- Newspapers?
- Alright.

96
00:05:47,733 --> 00:05:50,186
- Merchants.
- What? - Well merchants,

97
00:05:50,506 --> 00:05:52,586
public relations in general, I mean ...

98
00:05:52,693 --> 00:05:57,937
- Rubber tits? [Laughter]
Rubber ass? [More laughter]

99
00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:01,520
Artificial hair? [Laughter] Artificial hair?

100
00:06:01,662 --> 00:06:04,435
- Rubber dolls? ...
- Whatever!

101
00:06:05,706 --> 00:06:09,582
What is then, what is information?
How can you deal with that kind of word?

102
00:06:10,053 --> 00:06:14,497
So, if you sit down and try to figure
out an approach to our life's problems,

103
00:06:14,728 --> 00:06:17,173
you're going to have to do what
Fuller does to some extent.

104
00:06:17,502 --> 00:06:20,750
Whenever he runs into a linguistic jam,
he invents his own language.

105
00:06:21,182 --> 00:06:24,900
He says alright, here's a new word,
this is what it means. And from here on out-

106
00:06:25,022 --> 00:06:28,470
it's much easier than saying
"What do you mean by information?"

107
00:06:28,586 --> 00:06:30,610
You can get stuck wrestling with people,

108
00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:33,555
because they have different
associations as genuine as yours.

109
00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:36,613
When you start, "I'm gonna think about
new ideas," they look at the dictionary

110
00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:39,146
and they'll argue with you
"Here's exactly what it means," see?

111
00:06:39,395 --> 00:06:41,617
And so, it's better to invent a new word,

112
00:06:41,822 --> 00:06:44,640
and than you don't go through all that shit.
And then they say

113
00:06:45,164 --> 00:06:48,293
"Where the hell did that word come from?"
Don't say it came from you.

114
00:06:48,850 --> 00:06:52,871
Say it came from a professor of language ...
at Oxford.

115
00:06:54,453 --> 00:06:57,715
Then you repeat it. But if you say
it came from you, "Who are you?"

116
00:06:57,955 --> 00:07:00,995
Euripides Sneed? A new word?
Not worth a shit!

117
00:07:01,540 --> 00:07:04,817
So, if you invent words,
go out and invent a more appropriate word.

118
00:07:04,920 --> 00:07:08,266
No one has the right to say
"This is the only word that you use."

119
00:07:08,497 --> 00:07:12,275
Now we think, when we write books,
we always look in a dictionary,

120
00:07:12,391 --> 00:07:14,746
or a thesaurus to find an appropriate word.

121
00:07:14,986 --> 00:07:16,506
Make your own words, because you'll find,

122
00:07:16,675 --> 00:07:18,737
you get up in your school and say
"It's not adequate!"

123
00:07:19,084 --> 00:07:22,080
Teacher says "What do you mean it's not adequate?
Everybody's been using it for 1000 years."

124
00:07:22,346 --> 00:07:26,750
They've been beheading people
for thousands of years.

125
00:07:27,235 --> 00:07:29,235
They've been burning people
for thousands of years.

126
00:07:29,448 --> 00:07:31,884
It doesn't make it right,
it doesn't make it useful.

127
00:07:32,177 --> 00:07:35,120
Therefore I suggest that you,
when you use a new word,

128
00:07:35,333 --> 00:07:37,742
in the beginning of your book,
or the end of your book,

129
00:07:37,920 --> 00:07:42,090
you have a, an explanation of the new word;
you ever see things like that?

130
00:07:42,800 --> 00:07:46,613
Fuller uses it and technical journals
use it when they write for the layman.

131
00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:51,410
They have a built-in dictionary at the back
of the work, a glossary of terms. Alright?

132
00:07:51,660 --> 00:07:54,986
Now, a lot of you people
here are afraid to do that,

133
00:07:55,413 --> 00:07:58,106
or you're afraid that you don't have
command of the English language.

134
00:07:58,364 --> 00:08:00,933
Command of the English language
is nothing but trouble.

135
00:08:01,180 --> 00:08:02,951
If you have good command
of the English language,

136
00:08:03,128 --> 00:08:06,168
it means you are stubbornly non-utilitarian.

137
00:08:07,457 --> 00:08:11,048
Good command of the English language forces
you to a discipline that's inadequate.

138
00:08:11,662 --> 00:08:13,795
Therefore, you've got to change the language.

139
00:08:14,769 --> 00:08:17,750
We set for some guys and we sit
back and try to solve the problem,

140
00:08:18,222 --> 00:08:21,902
a lot of us, at least must of us here,
think in terms of words.

141
00:08:22,180 --> 00:08:26,702
We sit back and we think well, can I use you?
Paulette?

142
00:08:27,030 --> 00:08:28,252
"Many times with my grandmother,

143
00:08:28,373 --> 00:08:30,613
she's not fucking bearable,
it bothers my ass," you know.

144
00:08:30,737 --> 00:08:35,431
We think in terms of words, and the words
that we think about are the old words.

145
00:08:35,710 --> 00:08:37,724
So that's why its hard for
us to work out a problem.

146
00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:40,222
Now, you don't have any problem -

147
00:08:40,337 --> 00:08:43,635
no-one has any psychological problems -
when you show a movie

148
00:08:43,840 --> 00:08:46,782
and it shows the floor getting hotter,
while a person's lying on it.

149
00:08:47,066 --> 00:08:48,826
So as the temperature is going
up and the audience yells,

150
00:08:49,066 --> 00:08:53,360
"Get up and get off! Get up and get off!"
Notice how appropriate everyone is?

151
00:08:53,706 --> 00:08:57,626
Or the Indian says [grunting] "Hnh! hnh! hnh!"
But they're very appropriate.

152
00:08:57,857 --> 00:09:00,542
And you see a tremendous
alligator coming out of a swamp

153
00:09:00,650 --> 00:09:02,248
and there's a little baby
playing and the mother

154
00:09:02,410 --> 00:09:04,080
is sewing something
looking the other direction

155
00:09:04,195 --> 00:09:08,142
and the audience says "Turn your head
you fool!" They're very appropriate.

156
00:09:08,337 --> 00:09:10,391
"Look! Save your child,"

157
00:09:10,940 --> 00:09:12,951
when the alligator
comes out of the water. So,

158
00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:15,191
people have kind of appropriateness.

159
00:09:15,440 --> 00:09:19,022
Language has put in so much elaboration,

160
00:09:19,991 --> 00:09:22,462
sometimes in between the act of behavior,

161
00:09:23,084 --> 00:09:26,257
that - can you can the act
of elaboration of language?

162
00:09:26,520 --> 00:09:29,733
Whereas a certain particular
aspect of behavior is desirable,

163
00:09:30,062 --> 00:09:33,688
think of elaboration,
and even in technology and medicine,

164
00:09:33,991 --> 00:09:35,493
that isn't necessary.

165
00:09:38,892 --> 00:09:48,406
Fresco's Classic Lecture Series
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