GRGR (5) PK

[rj]

keith woodward wrote:
> 
> rj wrote:
> >Pointy isn't too worried about Mexico, because he can see the guy's all
> >caught up in lurv. But he is concerned about the idea/epistemology
> >Mexico stands for: true and total objectivity. Which, of course, is
> >unattainable. As Pynchon demonstrates.
> 
> But isn't the Pavlovian approach to mind/consciousness also an objectivist
> approach.  It seems to me that Pavlov's approach argues for not only an
> objective epistemology, but an objective ontology (in which stimulus and
> response can be not only discovered, but relied upon within the world (for
> Pavlov, stimulus and response, as it were, IS the way that the world works
> (it's all causality))).  Whereas Roger's statistical bent will allow for an
> epistemological approach to which predictability lends itself with regard
> to the real (if you follow me), but to which ontology remains nonetheless
> uncertain.  But nonetheless, it seems to me that it's not the objective
> epistemology that concerns Pointsman, but rather the removal of ontological
> certainty by the rejection of absolute causality within the real of the
> real ('cause that just gums up the whole on/off approach, yeh know?)


Probably quite a relevant and accurate clarification. Thanks Keith. I
gotta admit that I've never quite been able to succesfully separate my
notion of epistemology from my notion of ontology, or keep them apart
for long rather, but yes, it is the key breach which quite a few critics
have lighted on as the distinguishing characteristic between postmodern
fiction (ontological questions) and Modernist fiction (epistemological
questions). In this case I think Point-boy's concerned that Mexico's
form of objectivity reduces the scientist's role in the social realm (as
an oracle/God, i.e. Pavlov, whom he venerates in Biblical terms - what
was David Morris's great pun about that?) to that of a mere
number-crunching bookkeeper. So, yes, this vanity humanises Pointy (as
does the suggestion that he keeps a cat, 51.25), but it also highlights
a major flaw in his claim to empirical objectivity. Otoh I'm not sure
that probability theory frees you up from the determinist bind of
objectivism either in the long run. The numbers are still ones and
zeroes aren't they, but described rather than tested
for/conditioned/manipulated. Judgement and consequent action are taken
out of human hands: faith in and responsibility for these are
apportioned to the numbers alone, aren't they? But, even so, Roger
doesn't like to look (let alone move) "beyond the zero" (85.15-20),
which would be into the realm of ontology, I take it. The human and
personal outcome of his scientific model will be the loss of Jessica,
and he refuses to accept this. (I'm a bit out of my depth with the
science stuff, so this is probably a simpleminded precis.)

I don't think Pynchon is trying to assert that either worldview is *the*
one, though, but merely entertaining their contest.

best

btw, does that stylometry technique have anything to do with the
word-counting and Zipf Principle stuff we looked at back in grgr2?