Chaos, Fractals & GR

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

On Sat, 20 May 1995, Tim Ware wrote:

> BUT, if we don't bring systems to GR, what DO we bring?  I think bringing 
> systems is better than nothing at all.  Really.
> 
> Tim
We really don't have to worry about bringing anything or not.  Systems 
organize, evolve, change, deconstruct, etc.  It's a foregone conclusion 
that some system (don't we mean ideology?) influences our reading.  
and there's no getting outside of ideology.  It's not a matter of choice.

Jeffrey--I was also wild about _The Dancing Wu Li Masters_ but was never 
tempted to say, or to believe I'd found "the" key to GR.  But it is hard 
to avoid making such inferences.  I don't think this means that we can't 
claim, however personally, to've found some manner of negotiating 
meaning.  What does Gaddis' Jack Gibbs say?  "Don't bring a god damned 
thing to it, can't take a god damned thing away."  (prob not verbatim)

Bonnie> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ timware at crl.com
> If you are dealt a lemon ... play lemonade - CD-ROM DOS
> 
> 
> On Sat, 20 May 1995 WildForest at aol.com wrote:
> 
> > Ok.  Now we get down to it. 
> > 
> > The old Nature (assuming there is an organizing principle at work there,
> > which is probably so much wishful thinking on the part of the neo-paganists)
> > vs. Chaos dilemma.  Of course, this discussion is as old as the
> > Hashish-induced sandstone scribblings along the Euphrates, lately smashed to
> > bits by Tomahawk missile raining down on these ancient artifacts in GWH
> > Bush's little alley fight with Saddam. 
> > 
> > And it is a debate, which for my money, reached its zenith with the
> > pre-Socratics, particularly the bizarre stuff of Heraclitus, which, by the
> > way, figures prominently in any structuralist interpretation of Gaddis's
> > JR...where things are always breaking down and being rearranged in the most
> > amusing and paradoxical fashions.  Naturally, this is just so much
> > philosophy, which, when paired against neo-mathemical determinism, no one
> > takes seriously any more.
> > 
> > When I was studying GR in the hothouse of the academy in the late 1970s, we
> > were frantically underlining passages out of The Dancing Wu Li Masters and
> > the Tao of Physics--certain that we had found the hidden key to unlock the
> > secret structure of GR.  Now the New Physics is Old Hat, but GR has survived
> > to be assailed from so many new critical fronts, like rockets from the
> > heavens.  Lets hope it remains impervious to them all.
> > 
> > I agree w/ you and Ware about the "magical interface between text and
> > reader."  But it must be the anarchist-in-exile in me that cringes at any
> > "systematic" approach to Pynchon.  Systems exclude or extinguish that which
> > is odd, that which doesn't fit, that which is counter.  I take GR to be a
> > profoundly moral and political book.  One of the lessons:  don't discriminate
> > and don't exclude anything.
> > 
> > Despite these reservations, I am quite anxious to navigate your essay on
> > Vineland.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > JSC
> > 
> > "Light one up before you mosey out that door
> > Once you cuddled 'em and kissed 'em,
> > But we're bring down Their system
> > And it isn't a resistance, it's a war."
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
>