Double Slit in the Western Wall

[jporter]

Very interesting insights and comments by A. Rounce, regarding Dixon's
"entanglement of ideas," re-posted by Brian today.

I had also noted Dixon's tendency to entangle the religious with the
scientific, as in: "Newton is my Diety" which in itself is an entanglement
of sorts, but Adam enlightens further by making me aware of Smart's
anti-Newtonian, anti-science attitudes, sifting the meaning of the
"awkward" scene in "The Moon;" subtle Pynchon at his best.

Dixon's tendency to entangle was also hinted at earlier, during the transit
of Venus ob, on p.98

        This Dixon understands, is what Galileo was risking so much for,--
        this majestick Dawn Heresy. "Twas seeing not only our Creator about
        his Work...but Newton and Kepler, too, confirm'd in theirs..."

So what is this tendency to entangle ideas of the mutually exclusive, in
which Dixon seems to engage? Is this just another example of "observational
impatience" as Mason would describe it, or is their something more to
Dixon's view of the world?

I would say so. Dixon, in his own way is a hero of this tale, certainly in
a moral sense. It is Dixon's honesty and openness that allows him to
"entangle" what seem like opposites. He senses a larger truth, and is not
afraid of the consequences of expressing what others might not, because of
an inability to suspend judgement, or, for the fear of appearing, well,
like Dixon.

It is Dixon who was so quickly judged as Simply Not Suitable by Cape Town
society, because of his own refusal to judge, or to value white over black,
or one culture over another. He simply perceived people as equal, a
dangerous idea to a status quo defined by race and maintained by the threat
of swift and severe punishment.

The symbollic use of 11 might be reinterpreted in light of this
entanglement of ideas. In quantum mechanics, entanglement is referred to as
coherence. It is the phenonmen exemplified by the famous double slit
experiment, which I won't go into, save to say, unless measured in the act
and reduced to certainty, both slits contribute equally to the resulting
pattern of dark and light.

Such an interpretation may not be so farfetched considering that several
chapters on, Mason,  "suspects that the Island enjoys a Dispensation not
perhaps as relentlessly Newtonian as Southern England's,--"

The key trope in chapter 11:

        Out on Munden's Point stand a pair of Gallows, simplified to Pen-
        strokes in the glare of this Ocean sky....as a Visitor to London
        might gaze at St. Paul's, regard these more sinister forms in the
        failing North Light,-- perhaps to meditate upon Punishment,-- or
        upon Commerce...for Commerce without Slavery is unthinkable, whilst
        Slavery without the Gallows being as hallow and Waste a Proceeding,
        as a Crusade without the Cross. (p.108)

The Western Wall, the light of history, and the old dichotomies of mutually
exclusive choices, or maybe not so mutually exclusive, if like Dixon, one
could resist the imperative to choose one or the other. Maybe commerce is
not unthinkable without slavery or its gallows, maybe the Cross need not
lead inevitably to Crusade. The unthinkability, the inevitability may stem
more from a habit of mind, an inability to live with uncertainty: the need
to reduce complexity to a simple choice between opposites, rather than some
unbreakable law of nature, or religion. Maybe Dixon is our example here.

jody