CoL49 (6) Either ... or ...

[Henry Musikar]

It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground
whatsoever for supposing it is true. - Bertrand Russell

To which Jeremy Osner replied: Even the denial of a true idea creates a
space which vibrates with possibility. -- James Hamilton-Paterson

Henry Mu
Sr. IT Consultant
http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20/ 

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Mackin

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 4:29 PM, Mark Kohut<markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> True or not true...either-or.....remember that a major character flaw in
> Frenesi was ACCEPTING that binariness.......
>
> Oedipa is a heroine because she does not accept binariness.......She
lives--the very end of the novella--in uncertainty.

I think we need to help Oedipa out a little.

The proposition that Tristero exists may NOT be true.

But does that necessarily have to mean it is false?

By a little bit of alchemical magic we can turn bad shit into good shit.

May the excluded middle reign!

P


>
> --- On Sat, 7/11/09, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: CoL49 (6) Either ... or ...
>> To: kelber at mindspring.com
>> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Date: Saturday, July 11, 2009, 1:12 PM
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 11 Jul 2009, kelber at mindspring.com
>> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> >> From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>> >
>> > She had heard all about excluded middles; they were
>> bad shit, to
>> >> be avoided." (ibid.)
>> >
>> >
>> > Clumsy wording or profundity?  How do you avoid
>> something that isn't there?  But maybe that's the
>> essence of paranoia.  Fallopian's explanation, that
>> Oedipa's whole quest had been set in motion as a prank on
>> Inverarity's part, is something that Oedipa had avoided
>> looking at.  It falls between the 0 (there's just
>> America out there) and the 1 (there IS a Tristero at
>> work).  Along with Oedipa, we don't want to believe
>> Fallopian.  In fact, I don't believe him.  Surely
>> it's a case of getting Oedipa to ask the wrong
>> questions.  So examining excluded middles can actually
>> be harmful, if it deters you from examining the stark
>> truth.
>> >
>> > Laura
>> >
>> Think it's just a hip way of saying a proposition is either
>> true or not
>> true.
>>
>> Not sure everyone believes that nowadays.
>>
>> P
>>
>
>
>
>
>