Science, Narrative, and Agency in Gravity's Rainbow

[R. Fiero]

Dave Monroe wrote:
>Science, Narrative, and Agency in Gravity's Rainbow
>
>http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=111348

Early on in the article:
"What the novel suggests instead is that an adequate 
theorization of the subject-or at least of the subject who is 
capable of agency- depends in part on the premise that the 
world is so complex that an element of randomness, uncertainty, 
or unpredictability is always present (one version of Godel's 
theorem, as well as a tenet of chaos theory)."

That statement reveals an unfortunate bias of this kind of 
project which is inappropriate if not just wrong. It's a way of 
screaming "I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about!"

 From an article by Douglas Hofstadter in Time Magazine:
"By thinking of theorems as patterns of symbols, Godel 
discovered that it is possible for a statement in a formal 
system not only to talk about itself, but also to deny its own theoremhood. . .
"The upshot of all this is that the cherished goal of 
formalization is revealed as chimerical. All formal systems-at 
least ones that are powerful enough to be of interest-turn out 
to be incomplete because they are able to express statements 
that say of themselves that they are unprovable. And that, in a 
nutshell, is what is meant when it is said that Godel in 1931 
demonstrated the "incompleteness of mathematics."

That's quite different from what the article author wanted it to mean.
The treatment of themes in GR is very interesting.