Pynchon knows this, I say. Sorta always known.

[Markekohut]

Do we agree, disputes always reign, that there WAS a "scientific revolution" in the world, or in the Western World (largely)? .( I am abstractly aware of a scientific move ( of discovery, of understanding) in the Orient and the Arab world even earlier than when we usually date the West's).

If there was a scientific revolution, has it changed the way we understand our world; from modernism to modernity? ( Differently than foax understood themselves before the scientific 
Revolution?)

If Pynchon " gets" a lot of our modern world, part of the reason may/must be his perspective thru
Much science and math? If Pynchon savages much of this pendant world [Milton], is he also savaging ( in part) that scientific revolution? 



Sent from my iPad

On Jun 2, 2013, at 2:30 PM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:

> Through history our view of ourselves and of nature has changed.
>  
> In the last century and in the current one, science has been essential to our changed view of nature and of our place in it.
>  
> In these centuries, science has continually invented or discovered new ways to use nature and new ways to use humans to advance its ideas and its projects.
>  
> Science has extended the power and reach of science and thus the scientific view of nature and humanity.
>  
> Science has reconfigured nature and humanity to fit its view.
>  
> Science has, at times, set  nature, and human nature, against its scientific view of human civilization.
>  
> This is a fundamental idea in Pynchon's works. Not that P carries any great weight in this debate. Modernity without restraint, as Voegelin rightly called it, is civilization bereft of its spiritual foundations. The spirit is anathema to science. It is magic and mystery and so much primitive religious nonsense to science, but science itself is a cult, more powerful than any the Popes every preached to.   
> 
> 
> On Sun, Jun 2, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:
>> “science has been and is… an  essential element in holocaust, in genocide…”
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> (1)    Please clarify for me the role of science in encouraging or enabling Turks to slaughter Armenians, Stalin to starve Ukrainians, Mao to starve Chinese, Pol Pot to massacre Cambodians, Hutu to hack Tutsi, Efrain Rios Montt’s troops to gun down Mayans, etc. Even w/r/t the Third Reich’s “scientific” racism, rumor has it that the pedigree of murderous European Jew- and Gypsy- and Slav-hatred predates Hitler, predates Chamberlain and Gobineau, and predates Darwin.   
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> “the Sciences are defining the fundamental ways in which we experience the world by defining the world as we experience it.”
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> (2)    Please restate this in less tautological form.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> “Science can not abide… the man who makes a house of nature with an extension of his hand.”
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> (3)  Please explain to the carpenter working next door as I type what, if anything, this means. The poor ignorant fellow shows remarkably little concern that the National Academy of Sciences, MIT, IBM, or the laws of thermodynamics are bending their chill, pitiless gaze upon him.   
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> That will do for now. If you can clear up at least some of the sheer incoherent nonsense you spout on this topic, we can proceed to what’s merely ignorant or mistaken.
>> 
>> 
>> Perhaps we can proceFrom: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf Of alice wellintown
>> Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2013 11:34 AM
>> To: pynchon -l
>> 
>> 
>> Subject: Re: Pynchon knows this, I say. Sorta always known.
>>  
>> 
>> Science and thus the scientist is essential, is indispensable to the villainous acts, the evil we have seen in the 20th and 21st century.  
>> 
>> Of course there are connections. But when we define the connections, clearly, honestly, we see that science has been and is instrumental, has been an essential element, in holocaust, in genocide, in war, in evil. Science can't wash it hands of these crimes. While no one would attempt to defend generals, businessmen, politicians, scientists take exception, make excuses for the evil that science has been an integral part of, for the evil deeds of scientists. While it would anger nearly everyone in the USA, were they to learn that the government protected and defended, even supported, a Nazi politician or general or businessman, the Nazi Scientists are given special treatment. Von Braun is but one example. Why? Well, because the Sciences are defining the fundamental ways in which we experience the world by defining the world as we experience it. This is quite a powerful position to extend to any group in a society. As the saying goes, power corrupts. And, although science is quick to put on the cloak of theory, to shield itself from claims to absolutes, for they know that power and absolutes exposé them to claims of corruption, to claims that science is against life, to accusations of gnostic death dreams (the causal and causation is embodied in Blicero), it continues to divide nature from human endeavors and it refuses to accept the limits of its reach. Science smashes atoms and makes big data virtual tours of space for voyeurs, because it can not abide a mystery, magic, or the man who makes a house of nature with an extension of his hand. 
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Today, I worship the hammer. 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sunday, June 2, 2013, Monte Davis wrote:
>> 
>> "taking responsibility for both the good stuff and bad stuff you do" -- I'm
>> down with that.
>> 
>> It's what you mean from moment to moment by "you" that I can't get my head
>> around. Sometimes the villainous agent or agency is science, sometimes it's
>> technology (not the same, and much older than science), sometimes it's
>> industrialization per se, sometimes it's industrial capitalism, sometimes
>> it's the global scaling-up with population of our species' ecological
>> footprint.
>> 
>> Are there many connections -- both causal and corollary -- among all these?
>> Yes.  Are they one and the same Big Bad Thing? No. I'm well aware that I'm
>> doing that analytical/dissective approach you reject... but if yours is as
>> coherent as holism gets, I think I'll pass.
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
>> Of Joseph Tracy
>> Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2013 2:20 PM
>> To: P-list List
>> Subject: Re: Pynchon knows this, I say. Sorta always known.
>> 
>> Bullshit. I don't support, believe in or advocate Luddism though I don't
>> particularly despise those with  true and sincere distrust of technology or
>> tribal peoples who don't want to adopt the technologies and science of the
>> modern world. I do advocate taking responsibility for both the good stuff
>> and bad stuff you do.  I advocate technologies  and science that don't
>> require theft and destruction. I advocate methods that are bio-spherically
>> respectful and sustainable.
>> On Jun 1, 2013, at 12:16 AM, David Morris wrote:
>> 
>> > You essentially advocate Luddism.  I think Tea Party, stupid party,
>> fearful and reactionary.  I really hope TRP isn't that dumb.
>> >
>> > Dr. Mengele looks a lot like TRP:
>> > http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele
>> >
>> > Maybe he feels the Dr's guilt.
>> >
>> > David Morris
>> >
>> > On Friday, May 31, 2013, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>> >  But scientists and technologists are not merely adjuncts to bad political
>> pressures, they sometimes lead the way into ethically abusive terrain, atom
>> & then hydrogen bombs, nuclear power plants sited on unstable terrain(
>> Fukushima) with approval of scientists, medical scientists came up with the
>> things like the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments, US military experiments
>> exposing people to radioactive materials, MK Ultra's experiments using
>> drugs, sensory deprivation and torture on unwitting Canadians. The Nazi
>> "medical" experiments were often as "scientific" as current experiments on
>> rats.  The  pragmatic, for some more than others, philosophy  of "Scientific
>> advancement " demands that materials be mined and provided cheaply no matter
>> the human and eco costs. Science and the products generated by science
>> demand access to the materials and cannot ask for a free pass.
>> >
>> > Sometimes scientists provide the disease and then the cure as in DDT,
>> > HFCs ,phthalates, and Thalidimide. With global warming there may be no
>> > cure
>> >
>> >  You want to say these things are entirely political, but politicians do
>> not make dioxins or PCBs, do not figure out how to mine with mercury, are
>> not the inventors of fossil fuel technologies or new plastics and other
>> products  and techniques that poison the waters and soils.. The presumption
>> that all the questions and difficulties we face are neatly divisible in such
>> a way as to absolve  scientists and the  scientific method is not an idea to
>> which I will be genuflecting.  The science we inherit  has relied heavily on
>> analysis through dissection, dissolution, explosion and the reduction of all
>> things to the observable component parts. This has been a mindset with some
>> very dark consequences because life, and the only reality humans can
>> actually experience is interactive, conscious, interdependent and more than
>> the sum of parts or rules. There is no rule by which things desire to live,
>> and no methodology of science has ever produced a living reproductive
>> organism. Once again as in the original article there is a large gap between
>> what  science claims  to know and what can be demonstrated by experiment.
>> Scientific practice is not  able to be isolated as some pure and benign
>> pursuit. It has been heavily fueled throughout history by war and greed and
>> has itself fueled war, injustice and avarice.  Some of this comes out with
>> heart-rending intensity in Mason and Dixon, Gravity's Rainbow, and Against
>> the Day.. Equally so in The Metaphysical Club, Frankenstein, A Brave New
>> World.
>> >
>> >
>> > On May 30, 2013, at 10:44 PM, David Morris wrote:
>> >
>> > > Good point.
>> > > But your beef is entirely political.  It has nothing to do with science
>> or philosophy, except beyond their application in politics.
>> > > In the US 3rd parties are almost lays losers.  You seem to be advocating
>> a allegiance of scientist as a political voice.  And Amen!
>> > > But that goal isn't about science or philosophy.  It's about pragmatics.
>> > >
>> > > David Morris
>> > >
>> > > On Thursday, May 30, 2013, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>> > > No.  I
>> 
> 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130602/02bf3b12/attachment.html>