Is Entropy Natural?

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          Mark Kohut: Whatever. As a metaphor, I suggest TRPjr 
          moved from entropy to self-organization in his published 
          career. As overarching metaphors, I repeat.

I think the younger TRP was more concerned with "looking smart," of 
dazzling the potential reader with an erudition had had not yet 
possessed. Thus all the errors in judgment that the author breaks 
down and exposes in the introduction to "Slow Learner":

          . . .Since I wrote this story I have kept trying to understand
          entropy, but my grasp becomes less sure the more I read.
          I've been able to follow the OED definitions, and the way 
          Isaac Asimov explains it, and even some of the math. But 
          the qualities and quantities will not come together to form a 
          unified notion in my head. It is cold comfort to find out that 
          Gibbs himself anticipated the problem, when he described 
          entropy in its written form as "far-fetched ... obscure and 
          difficult of comprehension." When I think about the property
           nowadays, it is more and more in connection with time, 
          that human one-way time we're all stuck with locally here, 
          and which terminates, it is said, in death. Certain processes, 
          not only thermodynamic ones but also those of a medical 
          nature, can often not be reversed. Sooner or later we all find 
          this out, from the inside. . .
          Slow Learer, pgs. 14/15

What happened to Pynchon, in that period of silence following "Gravity's
Rainbow" emerged in "Vineland" as a greater emphasis on unpredictable 
human behavior and a greater faith in our collective ability to continue. 
I know of at least one activist fan of the author who hated "Vineland" as
it demonstrated warped human desire trumping ideology. But I take that 
as an improvement in Pynchon's writing, away from the head and closer 
to the heart. This reached a peak in "Mason & Dixon," with a far greater
emphasis on character development. It's not that the science went away, 
it's that the humans finally occupy center stage.