The philosopher of Zen and the 1960s counterculture, whom Bob quotes for a single compressed line about the flatline and places as a node in the San Francisco circuit that fed the New Age. New to it — start with dialogue 12.
Across the dialogues
Enters through one compressed line — "total bang equals total void," Bob's gloss on the chart's flatline
Watts's formula becomes Bob's gloss on the chart's flatline — the entropic endpoint he calls "amazingly prophetic," arriving with 1945, television, then the satellite.
"total bang equals total void"Alan Watts, quoted by Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 12 (28 Jan 2021), 1:07:00
His standing gets audited — a claim to have given McLuhan the rearview mirror, a potshot returned in 1970, and Cameron's structural objection that 'there is only now' mistakes one now for all-at-onceness
A priority claim reaches the dialogue second-hand — Watts is said to have given McLuhan the rearview mirror.
"He makes a claim somewhere, someone sent it to me, that the phrase rearview mirror or rearview action, anyways, rearview, McLuhan got from him."Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 66 (2 Mar 2023), 16:55
Cameron neither grants nor denies the debt but dissolves it — in the 1940s the figure was ambient, so the question of who handed it to whom may not have an answer.
"it sounds possible. But I would think that probably in cybernetics that came up a lot."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 66 (2 Mar 2023), 17:09
The structural objection under the anecdotes — Watts's generosity toward everyone rests on a single now, and a single now is the one thing all-at-onceness is not.
"The problem with Watts is the reason that he was saying that is that he would say something like, There is only now."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 66 (2 Mar 2023), 1:29:58
The correction states the difference in one word — the plural is what separates McLuhan's simultaneity from the perennial present Watts popularized.
"As McLuhan is trying to think all-at-onceness, it's not just now, it's all nows, plural."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 66 (2 Mar 2023), 1:30:35
Connections
Bob borrows Watts's "total bang equals total void" to gloss the chart's flatline.