{"id":484,"date":"2008-02-06T09:44:56","date_gmt":"2008-02-06T17:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/06\/carrollian-syllogisms\/"},"modified":"2008-02-06T13:19:35","modified_gmt":"2008-02-06T21:19:35","slug":"carrollian-syllogisms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/06\/carrollian-syllogisms\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrollian Syllogisms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently when not frantically trying to finish Hylozoic<\/em>, I\u2019ve been working on an email interview with Cris Hollingsworh and Steve Hooley, intended as a contribution for a volume of articles that Cris is editing: The Spaces of Wonderland<\/em> (University of Iowa Press). My interview topic is my thoughts about Lewis Carroll and his influences on me. I even started rereading the two Alice <\/em>books, having nothing else on my reading table just now—other than my notes about the maelstrom and beanstalk bridges to infinity in Hylozoic<\/em>. More on that anon.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Re. the interview, I started thinking back to the mid 1980s when I read Carroll\u2019s book The Game of Logic<\/a><\/em>, and I described some of his ideas in the \u201cLogic\u201d\u009d chapter of my nonfiction book Mind Tools <\/a><\/em>. Carroll made up these wonderfully mad syllogisms to illustrate modes of logical reasoning. The syllogisms are almost like haiku, where the restriction is that the three lines must represent a rigorously logical argument about three properties of things. The essence of a syllogism is that if you accept the first two premises, you are obliged to grant the correctness of the third.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In 1985 I myself wrote a series of transreal Carrollian syllogisms, each illustrating a distinct mode of reasoning, and each of them crafted them to express something about my personal life. (Here’s a link to syllogism info<\/a> that I found on the fabulously comprehensive Lewis Carroll society <\/a>page. I\u2019ll quote five of my syllogisms here, taken from pp. 203-204 of Mind Tools, <\/em>each preceded by a sentence of explanation.<\/p>\n


\n[Most of today’s pictures are from Moffet field.]<\/p>\n

I was living in Lynchburg, Virginia, the home town of evangelist Jerry Falwell.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\tNo beggar is honest;
\n\tAll evangelists are beggars.
\n\t\tNo evangelist is honest.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

I was out of my latest teaching job, even though I was in fact a popular teacher.<\/em><\/p>\n

\nNo teachers are enthusiastic;
\n\tYou are enthusiastic.
\n\t\tYou are not a teacher.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Ronald Reagan was president.<\/em><\/p>\n

\nNo president is a moron;
\n\tSome illiterates are morons.
\n\t\tSome illiterates are not president.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

As always, my books were getting less recognition than I would have liked.<\/em><\/p>\n

\nEvery good book is readable;
\n\tSome classics are not readable.
\n\t\tSome classics are not good books.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

As always, I was terminally out of step with mass culture.<\/em><\/p>\n

\nEverything he likes is esoteric;
\n\tNo esoteric things are on TV.
\n\t\tNothing on TV is what he likes.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Kvetch, kvetch! Resent, resent! Poor me, poor me, pour me a drink!<\/p>\n

I’m happier now, these 23 years later, in my golden twilight age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently when not frantically trying to finish Hylozoic, I\u2019ve been working on an email interview with Cris Hollingsworh and Steve Hooley, intended as a contribution for a volume of articles that Cris is editing: The Spaces of Wonderland (University of Iowa Press). My interview topic is my thoughts about Lewis Carroll and his influences on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}