TP or NP? Trial ballon goes up

[Alex Colter]

Keith, I did that all the time! I would sit there reading Orwell or
Heinlein or Bradbury while the teacher was giving whatever lecture for the
day... still surprised I graduated... but hell, at least I got a good
amount of reading done


On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 1:31 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Same thing. I was a straight A student until I got to High School Math.
> Probably didn't help that I was constantly hiding a book behind the kid in
> front of me and reading during class...
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 2:02 PM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I wonder if there is a formula to explain why it is that I failed basic
>> algebra 1 twice, once in h.s., and once in college, yet performed at the
>> top of the class in every other subject I studied?
>>
>> Arguments that mathematics is just another language for talking in a sort
>> of shorthand about observations made in the real world doesn't make it any
>> more accessible. French, Spanish, and Greek have the same qualification,
>> but they are relatively easy to pick up. Algebra just makes no sense. I
>> stand with Laurie Anderson on the principle that x=x, not y base 8 times z
>> to the minus fourth power. Efforts to crystallize experience, which is
>> fluid and non-repeating, are purely mystical and have little real meaning.
>> The results of "progress" based on changing reality into something else
>> have been, well, catastrophic, to euphemize the result.
>>
>> Yes, I feel quite justified writhing that last sentence out of a computer
>> keyboard and broadcasting it online.
>>
>> As for P, well, both Kit and Yashmeen leave behind potentially brilliant
>> careers in math to pursue lives of experience.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:22 AM, Alex Colter <recoignishon at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> In all honesty I'm surprised I made it through Algebra 2...  I often
>>> feel, for lack of a better Mathematical Knowledge perhaps, that Pynchon
>>> uses Mathematics and Physics (& metaphysics among others) as a Trope.
>>> Those of us who look inward, whether reading deeply Formulas or Poetry,
>>> run the very real risk of Abstraction... remember Slothrop's terrible fate,
>>> not allowed to die but be scattered... I think this sort of abstraction, I
>>> think of Mason's Melancholy, is certainly a lively topic among the Great
>>> Writers & Thinkers, all who walk along very tangible Precipice, whether
>>> Gnostic or  Mathematical....?
>>> Still working through AtD, I had the same problem with M&D, I've read
>>> the first 3/4s of it several times but simply don't want it to end, Pynchon
>>> is such a delight to read.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ready for your next dose of ROFL at a plister? Feel an itch to flame
>>>> and ridicule for downright
>>>> absurd arguments drawn from my Back to AtD reading, that great, great
>>>> book?
>>>>  Me, you talkin' about me? yes, I am.....
>>>>
>>>> As I've too-oft stated, I believe a great book comments on life
>>>> ultimately and life opens out in unexpected ways because
>>>> of such books, the great authors. The associations are almost endlessly
>>>> rich---see Shakespeare if Pynchon isn't him. But
>>>>
>>>> Below is a NYTimes essay that is getting lots of comment, lots of
>>>> controversy, lots of the equivalent of flaming by many,many.
>>>> Seems that, in itself, it is a good plist conversation topic.
>>>>
>>>> BUT, my outlier comic--to most of you, I bet---annotative skit is to
>>>> say: as a kind of oblique, real world footnote --an associative annotation
>>>> so to speak--
>>>>  this guy's argument against algebra and higher level math (except if
>>>> interested or needed for other intellectual pursuits) but FOR
>>>>  the necessity of MORE math (statistics, measurement--see Wa Po on
>>>> Quantitative movement---)
>>>>  dovetails with my reading of a theme in AtD: mathematics beyond what
>>>> we use in everyday living abstracts us from this pendant world and is
>>>> useless
>>>>  (or in P's vision, too often leads to actual harm). Abstraction
>>>> from the physical, tangible world is BAD SHIT in AtD, I say, and is a
>>>> through-theme from the personal life of the characters to the abstract
>>>> notions
>>>> that lead to war.
>>>>
>>>> C'mon lurkers and those who haven't yet commented on my 'radical' [read
>>>> Stupid?] notions. Let me have it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In the Opinion Pages Andrew Hacker writes, “Making mathematics
>>>> mandatory prevents us from discovering and developing young talent.
>>>> Is Algebra Necessary?
>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/
>>>> As American students wrestle with algebra, geometry and calculus often
>>>> losing that contest the requirement of higher mathematics comes into
>>>> question.” — —
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
>> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust
>> in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness
>> groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest
>> urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>>
>
>
>
> --
> www.innergroovemusic.com
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120730/e57a3a58/attachment.html>