M&D: Cowart article/ch.35

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

I don't understand the connection here, Paul. This may be due to the fact that I
don't take Heisenberg's use of  "the old concept of 'potentia'" as anything more
than a casual reference here.  In the passage quoted he states:

It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the
 actual event, a~~ strange kind of physical reality just in the middle
 between possibility and reality.

My guess is that  Heisenberg is only alluding to Aristotle here as
analogy--oversimplified no doubt, as evidenced by the use of the term "Potentia."

Also, what happens to cause and effect if we apply Heisenberg to P's History?

I rather think that Wicks--and I think it makes perfect sense for him to do so--is
following Aristotle. Interesting that Wicks in a way, plays Aristotle (not Socrates)
in what is at moments in this text, Platonic Dialogue.

TF

Paul Mackin wrote:

> So, is Heisenberg more widely applicable than might have been thought?
> Extending to history and p-novels--where, at best, we can only have
> wave-function knowledge of what actually went (is going) on?  In the
> order of knowledge there is never QUITE  a transitiion from potency to
> act. Not a very surprising conclusion I guess.
>
> What might have been is an abstraction
> Remaining a perpetual possibility
> Only in a world of speculation.
>
>         --T. S. Eliot
>
>          P.
>
> On Fri, 10 Dec 1999, jporter wrote:
>
> >
> >                                                                 {snip}
> >
> >
> > >Now, does Pynchon agree with Wicks who agrees with Aristotle?
> > >
> > >Terrance
> >
> >
> > Reality might be Gwenhiding, as Ari himself suggested, somewhere in between...
> >
> > Here's some Aristotle through the lens of Heisenberg:
> >
> >
> > "This concept of the probability wave was something entirely new in
> > theoretical physics since Newton. Probability in mathematics or in
> > statistical mechanics means a statement about our degree of knowledge of
> > the actual situation. In throwing dice we do not know the fine details of
> > the motion of our hands which determine the fall of the dice and therefore
> > we say that the probability for throwing a special number is just one in
> > six. The probability wave of Bohr, Kramers, Slater, however, meant more
> > than that; it meant a tendency for something. It was a quantitative version
> > of the old concept of 'potentia' in Aristotelian philosophy. It introduced
> > something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the
> > actual event, a~~ strange kind of physical reality just in the middle
> > between possibility and reality."
> >
> > Caught between a shadow and its doubt, once again. What 's a po' boy ta do?
> >
> > Get real, like Venus on the Sun...
> >
> > jody
> >
> >