references to binary opposition in Pynchon's novels

[jbor]

>>>>>> [...] But in the domain of zero to one, not-something to something,
>>>>>> Pointsman can only possess the zero and the one. He cannot, like Mexico,
>>>>>> survive anyplace in between . Like his master I. P. Pavlov before him, he
>>>>>> imagines the cortex of the brain as a mosaic of tiny on/off elements.
>>>>>> Some
>>>>>> are always in bright excitation, others darkly inhibited. The contours,
>>>>>> bright and dark, keep changing. But each point is allowed only the two
>>>>>> states: waking or sleep. One or zero. "Summation," "transition,"
>>>>>> "irradiation," "concentration ," "reciprocal induction" -- all Pavlovian
>>>>>> brain-mechanics - assumes the presence of these bi-stable points. But to
>>>>>> Mexico belongs the domain *between* zero and one -- the middle Pointsman
>>>>>> has
>>>>>> excluded from his persuasion -- the probabilities. [...] (_GR_, p. 55)
>> 
>>>> The behaviourist believes that all human reactions conform to the principle
>>>> of biological determinism. In the behaviourist paradigm there is no
>>>> distinction made between physiological and psychological reactions.
>>> 
>>> Behaviorism as normally understood means that only the outward
>>> observable aspects of the psychological are studied. Inner,
>>> non-observable processes including consciousness are not dealt with.
>> 
>> This is inaccurate.
> 
> Actually, it's quite accurate enough for purposes of correcting your
> misrepresentation of what behaviorism means in the context of
> experimental science. I didn't have time to write a treatise.
>> 
>> E.g. "The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do."
>> (B.F. Skinner)
> 
> Is this supposed to relevant to what we are talking about?

Of course it is. Skinner is the archetypal behaviourist, and that's the
encapsulation of his theory about human psychology. Neither Pavlov or Watson
nor Skinner were operating at the level of "cellular behaviour", and nor did
any of them make any sort of distinction between "cellular behaviour" and
"animal experiments". The behaviourists saw all human actions (both
physiological and psychological) in terms of stimulus and response. That is
what behaviourism meant in the context of experimental science. If not that,
what else?

I can see why someone who believes in the behaviourist paradigm wouldn't
approve of it, however, Pynchon's parody of a behaviourist scientist of the
1940s in the shape of Pointsman is an accurate one.

best