Habitual morning cup

[Paul Mackin]

On 6/18/2011 10:15 AM, alice wellintown wrote:
> Pynchon employs a common technique to expound on several early themes
> here and to develop his characters; he characterizes Mexico as the
> nail biting statistician who knows that he has done only what any
> intelligent person willing to open a book and read it can also do.
> Mexico grows impatient with those who fail to see or understand of
> accept the a simple law of statistics. Why the others fail or refuse
> to see or accept Mexico's equation and map, or why they insist on
> making him a prophet, his method a mystery, is the major point here.
> While Mexico is smart enough to grasp, with no trouble, what the
> others are doing, his blind spot is the mysterious or magical or
> religious elements they mix into their equations. He wants no part of
> being a freak or a guru or a person with special qualities or gifts.
> In this, he is defending himself by claiming there is no defense,
> everyone is equal in the eyes of the rocket. And so on....Pynchon
> developing themes and characters with ideas and opposites, foils and
> antagonists...it may read a bit heavy handed, as we may not accept
> that Pointsman&  Co. would have so much trouble with the P-Equation,
> but it works here and Pynchon infuses the otherwise heavy handed
> mouthpieced dialogue with poetry and allusions to keep the children
> entertained.
>
Pointsman couldn't have had much appreciation of the information 
processing properties of the structures that make up the nervous system. 
(information theory was only in the early stages of development)

If only Pointsman had realized that the next occurrence of his beloved 
zero or one was not random but could be expressed as  a probability 
BETWEEN zero and one.

Pointsman wouldn't have had to be such an antiMexico.

But that would have detracted from the story.

Or maybe not.

P.


> On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>  wrote:
>> On 6/16/2011 10:53 PM, Mike Jing wrote:
>>
>>> Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:28:23 -0400
>>> Subject: Re: Habitual morning cup
>>> From:alicewellintown at gmail.com
>>> To:pynchon-l at waste.org
>>>
>> *snip*
>>> morning. The flask belongs to the pavlovian, Pointsman. Pavlov
>>> allusion. Pavlov used such a flask with seeds in it.
>> Are you sure?  To me it appears to be a description of Mexico's office, with
>> his textbooks and Jessica's snapshot and whatnot.  Am I mistaken?
>>
>>
>> Somehow Roger has obtained the Erlenmeyer from Pointsman's lab down the
>> corridor.  Or. the flask might be the same one Roger was carrying the ether
>> in earlier  (through that one would be probably have been smaller that the
>> coffee brewing size).
>>
>> Pointsman goes in to talk to Roger about statistics, which, if Pointsman
>> only knew it, were as important to ones and zeros as they are to  locations
>> of bomb strikes.
>>
>> In the forties many experimentalists were not as statistically sophisticated
>> as they are today.
>>
>> P
>>
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