The calculus of cloning

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Nice post, jody p.  I'm w/ you on Oedipa's babeness and on the Slothrop anitmatter 
connectioon (maybe the metaphor is you and your (ex?) girl?).  Your cloning  comments 
raise some scary thoughts about the old inviolable romanticised simonized self.  Please 
continue your thread as the, er, spirit moves you.

john m

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quoting jody porter's long post:
>I'm back....but only because my girlfriend thinks she's broken up with me.
>(Get back, Jo...).
>
>And, as far as acid on yer cornflakes?  Well...We're all just waiting- even
>Emily, despite denials to the contrary- for the Van to come...Aren't we?
>
>The deal with Oedipa is a little more visceral than anybody's yet admitted.
>It's Oedipa, dig? Not T. Rex. It seems that sister of Ophelia and
>Clementine has a little agenda of her own...Yup. Trystero. She WANTS it.
>Dead or alive. It seems the best metaphor (god, I never thought I'd stoop
>to such terms) for the trystero is the OTHER strand of the double helix,
>the one that doesn't get messengerized. It's that BASIC/DEEP...like, from
>the very outset. The opposite of, well, what we're doing now...you
>tell/spell me. Simply put: no death, no life.
>
>But seriously, or, whatever...Oedipa is soooo immediate, so sexy. No one in
>GR can compare. Like, I want her. (Maybe I miss my girlfriend?). A nod, one
>little wink over a turned shoulder, a crook'd finger, and hubba-hubba, the
>chase is on. Granted, most of the paisley flesh on that skeleton is our
>own, but isn't that the source of most of the novel's meaning? Oh yeah,
>Slothrope (he's using an English spelling of his name now) and Oedipa, are
>really TIGHT. I mean, she might tumble for him, but she doesn't buy any of
>that rocket shit, ya know? What I'm trying to say is this: Wherever Oedipa
>finds some info about trystero, it's like the same place that The Slothster
>gets laid- ya know what I'm sayin?...KABOOM. Think of it this way: if
>Oedipa and Slothrope ever got it on, it would be, like, the antimatter
>engine of the Enterprise....Ay? cap'n?
>
>So much for the prolegomenon (Thank you, Mr. Roget). Now, for Today's
>Topic: The Calculus of Cloning....
>
>With recent astonishing developements in Scotland having caught ALL of us
>flatfooted, the search is on for the appropriate LANGUAGE with which to get
>a handle on this latest cultural bombshell, and its detonation, as it
>ripples across our collective mind(s).
>
>The specifics seem as mundane as Dr. Wilmut, while the Metaview is obscured
>by our heretofore hazy notion of just what a self is, and where to draw
>THAT line separating self from everything unself. Mason and Dixon indeed.
>
>But toward the end of David Berlinki's, A TOUR OF THE CALCULUS, in chapter 25:
>"Between the Living and the Dead," Mr. Berlinski lays bare the the cultural
>significance of that flower of the 17th century- The Fundamental Theorem of
>Calculus. Wafting one of the telltale fragrances of its greatness, he says,
>"No less than any of the other arts of civilization, a great theorem is an
>act of affiliation between the living and the dead." (Oedipa would be very,
>ahem, damp.)
>
>He goes on to illuminate the two parts of the theorem. Part one, he
>asserts, establishes between the LOCAL or instantaneous (i.e., the derivative)
>and the aggregate or GLOBAL (i.e., the indefinite integral), a connection.
>
>The details of Berlinski's astounding book aside, suffice it to say, in my
>language here, that the awful truth of the calculus is the proof (the
>guarantee as Berlinski would have it) that any particular, isolated,
>single, very local, instantaneous even, reality, ensures, SIMULTANEOUSLY
>the existence of an aggregation, or, WHOLE; the members of which are
>separated from each other by a lottery of constants. Each member
>guaranteeing the POSSIBILITY of all the rest, by the metempsychosis of
>integration.
>
>Part two of the Fundamental Theorem deals with the Definite Integral:
>definite beginning, definite end; a definite interval of space/time- from
>one number to another. These known, given an interval, a continuous
>function (any continuous function) that descibes the journey from here to
>there- the speed, the distance, the work, or some other relevant REDUCTION
>of the journey's  meaning can be calculated, precisely.
>
>To such a scaffolding, which underlies the reductive power of all the
>modern mathematical sciences, add the irreducible REALITY of a clone. Of
>what is this a function? Forget Blake, what symmetry connects what
>beginning with what end? What, what?
>
>What is the meaning of a self created solely from another self and
>differing from its parent only by experience- the lottery of experience?
>
>Forget Wordsworth: The man is the father of the child is the father of the
>man- Chance its only mother. The line between nature and nurture becomes
>razor thin: E.g., A clone in THIS environment exhibits THAT behavior, but in
>THAT environment, THIS behavior. Such an experiment can now be done. (All
>along the watchtower, it's the Romantics beginning to HOWL.)
>
> And look, what here: in this dark and dank room on a drizzly London night,
>a young Pointsman, salivating and erect, thinking NOW of the possibilities
>for CONTROL!
>
>[Tyrone, poor boy, got to keep moving. The hunt, shlocky as it seems, is
>still on...]
>
>"...This little clone gets hardons only before West End strikes; while this
>little clone..."
>
>
>Jody
>
>
>