Lacey: old and new questions.

[alice wellintown]

Ia gree that since both are partly right we need to look elsewhere for
P's norms or the norms of the novel, that is, to determine who it is
the novel favor and why.

This isn't hard to do because the novel makes it difficult to side
with Pointsman. Statistics have their limitations and blind spots, but
Mexico is not so bad. Pointsman is as a guy we can't like.

There are, as you say, dozens of other complications, still, it is
Mexico who is favored and Pointsman who is not. We needn't think to
deeply about this to see what P has done; he has done what novelist
before him have. In fact, in several reviews of the novel Pointsman is
compared with Ahab while Mexison is compared with Ishmael.

> The problem of choosing among hypotheses comes up in the dialogue between
> Pointsman and Mexico over the predictability of the rockets.  Beside these 2
> main competing hypotheses, there are further complications- what to do with
> information from ghosts of the White visitation, and what about the long
> term ethical implications of rocket delivered weapons. But in the argument
> between Pointsman and Mexico both are partly right , the rockets  go where
> you Point.. them  but the exact point of impact and  general distribution
> is a function of probability and randomness.   How and why bombs in rocket
> are used gets dicier. and in the novel are  a function of planetary
> hard-ons, blowback,  religious fantasies, capital investments. These
> factors, taken together with all the other millions of factors  make
> predictability, guidance, and probability  seem inadequate to the dangers we
> talking monkeys are facing with our current array of thermonuclear devices,
> space based weapons, drones, rockets, and flouridated water and the novel
> clearly addresses the danger.