Pynchon, Pavlov, and Wittgenstein

[cj hurtt]

in my opinion, it's always a good idea to take things like
"ultraparadoxical" and "the world is the totality of fact, not things" with
a grain of salt. academics have a way of rambling with jargon, talking a lot
saying next to nothing. but then i just may be too dense.

>Hey...I just finished Gravity's Rainbow and I'm skimming through
>Weisenburger's guide and found a few concepts that I couldn't quite grasp.
>Since most of them deal with the Pavlovian aspect of the novel I thought
I'd
>see if any of you budding Pointsmen could help me. Weisenburger quotes
>Horsley Gantt (Pavlov's translator) as writing
>
>"Beyond a certain maximal intensity, variations may lead to certain
phases -
>the equivalent (in which strong and weak stimuli produce the same effect),
>the paradoxical (in which the weak stimuli give a greater response than the
>strong), the ultraparadoxical (in which the excitatory conditioned stimuli
>become inhibitory, and vice-versa). Such...stimuli, too strong to give the
>maximal conditioned reflex, Pavlov terms 'transmarginal'."
>
>Right...so, obviously Pynchon intends the reader to see Slothrop's reaction
>to the rocket as ultraparadoxical (its basically the freakin' title of the
>section), but I can't understand how this reaction in any different from
the
>paradoxical. As I understand it, the rocket is inhibitory and causes and
>excitatory state (to say the least of Slothrop's "stout rainbow cock" and
>the huge explosions plauging Europe). This fits in with the whole "hysteron
>proteron" I think. But this seems to be a weak stimuli (the static rocket)
>to a strong (the explosion). Any help on this would be greatly appreciated
>as I think Pavlov must have lost something in the translation.
>
>
>Also, after reading Weissmann's Tarot, I picked up Wittgenstein's
>"Tractatus" and was immediately confused with:
>
>"The world is the totality of facts, not of things."
>
>What? OK, a chair's not a fact and "There is a chair in the room" is a
fact,
>but does this mean that the world, in so much as "verdicality", can never
be
>sensed, only guesses as to what that world actually is (i.e. the truth).
OK,
>I'm done now. I'm sure these questions have been asked before, but I'm a
>fairly new Pynchonite and feel I can be permitted a little arrogance here.
>Thanks.
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