M&D: Cowart article/ch.35

[Paul Mackin]

The only connection might be that language has a feel of indeterminacy
about it (which P likes to underscore) that is analogous to the feel of
modern physics. Yes, I was being playful and analogical in applying
Heisenberg to history and other writing--as I assume (like Terrance)
Heisenberg was being in applying Aristotle to physics, which is nothing
against Aristotle, an early analogizer and manipulator of available
concepts found lying around the house and/or Academy.

Don't know if it's being too Panglossian, but I've never really minded that
a certain amount of so-called indeterminacy seems to persist in the way
we describe and  understand the modern world. Where's the problem in that?  
Just another manifestation of mortal existence and a rather minor one 
to boot. Like St. Augustine I tend to identify it all with Original
Sin--another early analogy popularized by that African genius.
				
                P.

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:

> 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
> > >
> > >
>