Back to AtD Reimann maths ain't life. p.891

[Paul Mackin]

On 6/3/2012 10:54 PM, Prashant Kumar wrote:
> "Y certainly had an inflated idea of what you can do with math. Still
> there's a lot you CAN do with it. Once she realized this she would have
> been very good."
>
> I'm not sure what you mean here. The idea she suggests to Riemann in his
> lecture was, for a while, the basis of many attempts to prove the
> Riemann hypothesis.

I didn't mean THAT idea. Should have made it more clear. I'll have to 
find what i was referring to.

>
> "Math is an advanced form of rationality. Rationality is an evolutionary
> adaptation. As such it is a practical tool, not some Platonic ideal. It
> doesn't have to make perfect sense. Goedel and all that. "
>
> The way mathematical ability evolved in humans doesn't necessarily imply
> anything about the extent of its utility. Mathematics is more than just
> rationality, it is logical abstraction as well. It does have to make
> perfect sense. Goedel's incompleteness theorems dictate the properties
> of certain formal logical systems, like predicate logic for example. It
> doesn't have much bearing on most of the rest of maths, despite popular
> assertions to the contrary.

Thanks. Interesting to know. Another view still is that Platonic idea 
that math is REAL, Godel-complete math that is, and that as it becomes 
self aware it perceives itself as physical reality.

P

>
> Prashant
>
> On 4 June 2012 00:56, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net
> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
>     On 6/3/2012 10:21 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
>         Paul Mackin writes:
>         The issue from the Cyprian/Yashmeen/Reef trio needs to have more
>         significance than merely perpetuating the species, as important
>         as that
>         is. Her snatching from the world of brilliance requires some higher
>         order purpose if this section of the book is to be saved.
>         The Holy Family thing obviously has big holes in it, but I can't
>         at the
>         moment think of anything better.
>         At one point, Ljubica puts flowers in a gun barrel.......part of
>         TRP's
>         sixties images and themes? ( a little groan-worthy by now?)
>
>
>     Maybe it was let a hundred flowers blossom. Naw.
>
>
>
>         And, re maths......I think that Yashmeen giving up higher math is
>         part of TRP's book-length general satirization of the uses of math
>         in the modern world.......
>
>
>     Y certainly had an inflated idea of what you can do with math. Still
>     there's a lot you CAN do with it. Once she realized this she would
>     have been very good.
>
>
>
>           From Plato thru "mad Dog' Russell, mathematicians talk of the
>         abstraction
>         that is mathematics and abstraction links with the daylit
>         fictions, the
>         balloon,
>         the bloviations of most in AtD, I would argue.
>         And, we don't live in the world of mathematics, we live in the
>         world of
>         children's sensations, I think TRP puts out there thematically---
>         & he also might have gotten related notions from McLuhan......
>
>
>     Math is an advanced form of rationality. Rationality is an
>     evolutionary adaptation. As such it is a practical tool, not some
>     Platonic ideal. It doesn't have to make perfect sense. Goedel and
>     all that.
>
>     P
>
>
>         *From:* Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net
>         <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>>
>         *To:* pynchon-l at waste.org <mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>
>         *Sent:* Sunday, June 3, 2012 9:49 AM
>         *Subject:* Re: Back to AtD Reimann maths ain't life. p.891
>
>
>         On 6/2/2012 11:46 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
>          > Paul Mackin wrote:
>          >
>          >> Alice knows. What we are witnessing in the foundation of the
>         Holy Family
>          >> Traverse in which Yashmeen is to become the mother of the
>         baby Jes .
>         . . .
>          >> And a good deal of purple prose is necessary get this
>         across, make it
>          >> sufficiently portentous.
>          >
>          > Yes, Paul, I tend to forget that there are more levels to
>         this than
>          > the feminist angle I was focusing on.
>          > The Holy Family stuff with Cyps and Reef and Yashmeen, I got
>         to admit,
>          > slides by me largely unappreciated.
>          >
>          > It reminds me of that prison family stuff that the
>         late-capitalist
>          > pearl girl in IV talks about...
>          >
>          > You go into the pages of history with the personnel you have,
>         not the
>          > personnel that you might want to have.
>          >
>          > The symbolism of the eagle is broader than just the "oh no,
>         Yashmeen's
>          > about to get predated into family life"
>          > The eagle's diet is the ground-dwelling vermin and compared
>         to making
>          > a family, I suppose that any commercial or intellectual
>         occupation
>          > makes of one by comparison a rat, a shrew, or a vole -- I guess
>          > that's why they play Mack the Knife at wedding receptions...
>          >
>          > This is where my viewpont re-converges with Mark's: yes,
>         ultimately
>          > the continuance of the species is more important than whatever
>          > individual accomplishments one might have wanted to see from
>         Yashmeen.
>          > She did, after, make that anonymous contribution in Professor
>          > Hilbert's class, and how many of us get to make even an anonymous
>          > contribution -- things are tough all over, we're all riding that
>          > Ferris Wheel and all you might be offered is a bite of
>         jellied eel...
>          >
>
>
>
>         The issue from the Cyprian/Yashmeen/Reef trio needs to have more
>         significance than merely perpetuating the species, as important
>         as that
>         is. Her snatching from the world of brilliance requires some higher
>         order purpose if this section of the book is to be saved.
>
>
>         The Holy Family thing obviously has big holes in it, but I can't
>         at the
>         moment think of anything better.
>
>         P
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>