NULL-A
Breathes there a fan with soul so dull
He
sounds his A without the null?
Fen look aghast at all such antics
Because they are not good semantics.
--Art Rapp
from Fancyclopedia 2
Non-Aristotelian logic; specifically, Alfred Korzybski's General
Semantics. It's multivalued rather'n two- valued, hence much better suited
for showing off the hero's mental agility. VanVogt popularized Korzybski's
doctrines in one of his more impressive
save-the-world-with-a-gimmick sagas, the
World of A -- Players of
A series [symbol A with
line above it read "null-A"], tho the chief null-A discipline practiced by
hero Gosseyn is not mentioned by Korzybski: the cortico-thalamic pause, in
which the rational cortex is "integrated" into control of the emotional
thalamus, whereat semantically clever words sound forth. (Wrai Ballard was
often disappointed when Gosseyn performed this maneuver; he kept expecting
somebody to clout G over the head in the middle of it. Nobody ever did.) As
you'd expect in a pulpyarn, however, the hero wins not by application of
philosophic principles but -- in this case -- by developing the double brain
(a group of nervelike cells, not a second thinking mind) he possesses to such
a point that it can be used to control matter and energy and goshwow (also).
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