What the gyros do

[Bill Burns]

I accidentally sent this directly to Andrew instead of the list.  Guess I
need to recheck my mail configuration.

Paul writes:

>Sorry to bore anybody with Heideggerian blather ... I'm relatively new 
>around here so I was unaware of prior expressions of exasperation and ennui 
>generated by the mention of continental philosophy.

Don't give up so easily, Paul. I'm enjoying the discussion of Heidegger and
Husserl, although I've looked more at the influence of Heidegger on
absurdist drama than on Pynchon's works.  (Especially liked that play in
which everyone gets pachydermatitis--messy case of groundlessness.  ;-)

>Andrew Dinn writes:
>
>>Jody's comments about Brennschluss as a death signal are right on the
>>mark. But don't forget that Brennschluss is not death but the moment
>>of preterition. The Rocket is a living corpse from that point onwards
>>because it has been betrayed to gravity - a judgement from which there
>>is no appeal. At Brennschluss all notions of guidance or control are
>>discarded and the rocket enters free fall, it's course indeterminable
>>and random (a prize to anyone who can insert a cigarette paper between
>>those two terms) with the only certainty being that final delta-t.
>>
>

Or another way to consider the Rocket as a metaphor for preterition is 
that its design at conception sets it on a route toward judgment with no
appeal. The gyro is merely the mechanism by which it falls (or fails) rather
than the original cause, which was in its construction plans.  This view
goes along more closely with the concept of double predestination--in which
the creation of an Elect necessitates the creation of a Preterite. An
interesting difference is that the final destination following Brennschluss
is indeterminable, whereas the concept of predestination determines the
final destiny and NOT the route (or trajectory) that an individual takes. In
this sense, the Rocket becomes a reversal, maybe even a perversion, of the
process, so those who are "passed over" are saved.
Bill Burns
WDBurns at micron.net
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             Champion of the Excluded Middle
              Scourge of Binary Opposition
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