Pynchon knows this, I say. Sorta always known.

[malignd at aol.com]

So Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Newton, et al are to be held responsible for AIDS, ebola virus, Lyme disease, etc.  I admit, I hadn't considered that.



-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
To: P-list List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, May 29, 2013 11:45 pm
Subject: Re: Pynchon knows this, I say. Sorta always known.


I think part of the point though is that there is growing evidence that science 
is up against the limits of empiricism and has moved it's brightest physicists 
toward spewing out untestable multidimensional string theory and spending 
billions to collide beams in  search of Higgs's God particle. Is this not some 
kind of pseudo scientific holy grail that is as much philosophy as physics? Will 
a unified interpretation follow? How real is the thing they may or may not have 
found and what exactly is the question being answered? Cuz it's getting mighty 
hot around here, lots of people with malaria, aids, Lymes, Ebola Lots of 
children starving, species disappearing,  fibers in the web of life breaking,  
lot's of carbon and methane in the wind, toxic shit floating  down the 
river,arsenic in the rice, radioactive towns, a great deal of it thanks to the 
scientific revolution.
On May 29, 2013, at 6:31 PM, MalignD at aol.com wrote:

> Must disagree.  Shallow, strawman arguments that seem ignorant of the fact 
that disagreement, challenge, sometimes piecemeal answers are part of science 
and a large part of what makes it powerful.
> 
> The questions he mentions are tough, and certainly there are no easy answers. 
But to suggest we're going to philosophize our way to them is ... well:  good 
luck.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com>
> To: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> Cc: P-list List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wed, May 29, 2013 3:24 pm
> Subject: Re: Pynchon knows this, I say. Sorta always known.
> 
> Amen
> 
> 
> On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 10:31 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> This is an excellent, brief but substantial rebuttal to the tidy mathematical 
models of Hawking and his presumptions about the meaning and explanatory power 
of those models. Hawking sees himself as part of the clear-headed data-based 
scientific revolution, when he is largely a conservative voice defending a 
particular POV that has been around with variations since the Enlightenment. I 
often feel that science has been politicized into the same name-calling and two 
party divisions which dominate political thought. It's a matter of survival,  
allies in a tough market place rather than truly independent thinking .  All of 
this is discussed in Pynchon's essay( Is it O.K. to be a Luddite?) referring to 
CP Snow's lecture- "The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution" .
> 
> Mostly it looks a lot like talking monkeys heaving shit at each other when 
they/we reach the limits of their/our ability to  explain, know or understand. 
To me part of the mindset I have imperfectly come to ( I still throw shit from 
time to time), is a willingness to live with many unanswered questions. I feel 
less hardened in this space, and I feel Pynchon and many artists occupy this 
space and ask us to try it out.  It allows for the deepest kind of curiosity 
without promising answers. I think it allows for taking philosophic , spiritual, 
or moral positions without being self -righteously blind to the inconsistencies 
or problems in our model.
> 
> 
> On May 27, 2013, at 5:31 AM, Markekohut wrote:
> 
> >
> >>
> >> www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/27/physics-philosophy-quantum-relativity-einstein?CMP=twt_fd
> >>
> >> Download the official Twitter app here
> >>
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPad
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> www.innergroovemusic.com


 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130530/fef98ee3/attachment.html>