Doubting Thomas and The Gospel of Alan Turing

[jporter]

Mark redux:

>Howdy
>
>I wrote, on the fly, re this ESP hooey: (snip) "Can the class name any
>other implausibilities put to good and sufficient use in the fiction of
>TRP??"

Didn't really seem to get airborne, there, Mark. But I've heard about this
guy, Schnorp, who might be able to give you a lift : )


>What does the inclusion of paranormal phenomena permit TRP to *do* with
>his fiction?  I for one don't give a tinker's cuss whether Turing or
>anyone else actually believed in ESP or not.  TRP makes *use* of the
>notion, just as he makes use of Plasticman comics, angels both tall and
>short, talking rats and dogs, Disneylands both light and dark,
>religious illuminations drug-assisted or not.  In GR he has
>organized/invented a data set so large that one can read almost
>anything into it up to and including, apparently, an intention that our
>hero Slothrop function as an "avatar" of Gnosticism -- it does seem
>that if Pynchon were to have a favorite among the apostles it would
>have to be Doubting Thomas, and we can certainly assume that he's read
>the Gospel of Thomas, and enjoyed its status as a repressed document.

I made no comments about whether I thought Pynchon believes in E.S.P., or
not. I believe I said something to the effect that "there are no
priviledged p.o.v.'s in GR, as the narrator repeatedly intones" 'It's up to
you.'" My comments were about the beliefs of Mexico, Pointsman and Turing.

>What's interesting to me is what he *does* with his data.  I don't
>think it follows that because he incorporates something into the text
>he somehow must *believe* in it.

Again, who said Pynchon believes in E.S.P.?  I was referring to Turing. Are
YOU hearing voices?

>Does he intend that his fiction be
>interpreted as a description of reality, or that having absorbed his
>fiction we might come to look at our reality differently?

"It's up to you."

> I think it
>is the latter, and that he uses paranormal phenomena in the fiction to
>permit his 'structures paranoiac', complete with the human
>intentionality necessary if he hopes to engage a reader, to extend
>through time and across the boundary isolating the quick from the dead.
> To demonstrate by analogy how the animate may "conspire" with the
>inanimate.  For me, these absurd structures are practice exercises for
>our perception of patterns of power throughout the living world.
>
>Regards,
>Mark


Thank you, Mark

jody