pynchon agnostic? II

[jbor]

on 5/3/03 7:20 AM, thomas kyhn rovsing hjoernet at tkrh at worldonline.dk
wrote:

> How would you distinguish and define 'cantaloupe,'
> 'rockmelon,' and 'god,' if not by means of language?

Interactively. One you eat. Even worms know that.

> I do not claim that
> there is no difference, that all is the same.

I'm glad to hear you admit it finally. That was all my point was.

> What I'm saying is that
> differentiation depends on categories that do not exist prior to language.

And I'm disagreeing with you. What I'm saying is that a cantaloupe/rockmelon
(same thing, different word) and "God" are different, and are in different
categories, prior to, and regardless of, language. In many, if not most,
instances, language assists in differentiating between different phenomena,
events, experiences etc., and different types of phenomenon, event,
experience etc.

    "Tell a girl: 'I love you'. No trouble with two-thirds of that,
    it's a closed circuit. Just you and she. But that nasty
    four-letter word in the middle, *that's* the one you have to
    look out for. Ambiguity. Redundance. Irrelevance, even. Leakage.
    All this is noise. Noise screws up your signal, makes for
    disorganization in the circuit." (Saul in Pynchon's 'Entropy', 1960)

The "I" and the "you" aren't a problem here, and are differentiated prior to
language.

best