The body in question

[Andrew Dinn]

I wrote:

> ... So, you could never have a `pleasure circuit' which was not also
> involved in `mediating' the effects of pleasurable stimuli.

To which Don:

> And yet--without sitting down to do an exact search--look at those
> passages in GR where the elements of the body seem to be independent
> of whatever consciousness inhabits it--the relationship of
> melanocytes (?) in skin color and the CNS, the fat molecules
> migrating around Slothrop's body, u.s.w.  If "human consciousness,
> that poor cripple" is an entity and not just a constuct, it seems to
> be only one entity within the body that constitutes the whole--which
> may or may not have something to do with dispersal of band- widths
> as well.

Well, I was merely pointing out that cause and effect seemed to have
been slapped onto the proffered account overlaying a simple
definitional relationship with a coat of explanatory gloss.

However, I would demur (wouldn't I just) by noting that in
acknowledging mediation as a concomitant of pleasure one does not
thereby identify mediation with totalitarianism. The idea that
pleasure and its behavioural correlates form an `Ur-consciousness' is
most objectionable for exactly this reason - that it takes the first
step down the garden path to a unified human consciousness. One aspect
of behaviour, whether or not it is subsumed under a particular
chemical mechanism, is merely an aspect. And although many cultural
constructs militate the hypothesis of a notional, or perhaps I might
say nominal, integrity of identity many other aspects of human
behaviour seems to require a disintegration of this unity (or rather
deny any such integration). Personal bandwidth has more dimensions
than just the time axis and limiting oneself to summation (or
integration) across one or even several of these dimensions is the
cheapest and meanest form of abstraction.

Which is all to say that I thought I was agreeing with you and your
reading of Pynchon all along.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.