Gnossos from a Quantum Perspective

Bandwraith at aol.com Bandwraith at aol.com
Mon Jun 27 23:04:06 CDT 2005


 

The best part of this speculation is that it's not possible, because
of the timing of the discovery of the electroweak force- about a year
after Farina passed.

I think that Farina's influence on Pynchon has been massive,
and, for various reasons, woefully ignored.

Recently, while skimming through Penrose's latest: The Road to
Reality, I noticed a paragraph in the section called "Miracles" 
(I think that's the heading) noting that the cause of earthly volcanic
activity is the geothermal effect of the weak force. Penrose, an 
invetorate platonist, then goes on to speculate about how the weak 
force through the violent eruption and earthquake of Thera/Santorini
circa 1600 BC, took out Knossos, spelled the end of Minoan
culture- and, one assumes, the reign of their Mother Goddess-
more or less clearing the way for the rise of the mainland Greeks,
including Plato.

It set me thinking, and eventually it hit me. It was not as dramatic
as sipping a birdbath martini in the desert, basking in the glow of
an atomic bomb test- also intimately related to the weak force- but
a minor epiphany, nonetheless. 

I thought about it- the details I mean- which I'm sure you're not
really interested in hearing about- somewhat technical- and realized
that it all fits. But how could Farina have used elements of the
Weinberg-Salam electroweak interaction as a symbolic backdrop
for BDSL if that aspect of the standard model wasn't published
until about a year after he died?

Impossible, yes? Yes. Which is, of course, the beauty of the idea.
Especially when you realize that there is no such thing as impossible
in the quantum world, only probabilites, and where effects can precede
themselves.

Bandwraith
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