animals in M&D

[Spencer Thiel]

At 4:28 PM +0100 9/3/99, you wrote:

>Ok, maybe I got to this list too late and  you ahve alrady discussed 
>it but, any of you has a clue on the meaning of speaking animals in 
>Mason and Dixon?  Like the Learned Dog and the Loving Duck?

Me thinks it's Pynchon's having fun with Pavlovian conditioning. 
When animals perform 'human feats', it's often felt by psych's that 
the animal isn't doing anything voluntary, if you will, rather it is 
responding to conditioning.  This is proven with the horse Clever 
Hans, and is felt by skeptics to be the case with Koko the talking 
ape (http://www.koko.org/).  I don't ever think that Pynch takes a 
definitive side on this issue, but he likes to raise the question of 
conditioning vs. free will throughout his books.  The animals are 
just another example.


-
st.
-