M&D Deep Duck Soulless - It's a dog's life

[David Ewers]

Yes, I get this same sense from all Pynchon books.  And personally, I agree. 

The more paradox is contained within something, the more life and/or truth,maybe?  This exemplified by the L.E.Dog, practically animated by paradox?  Is this why he'll lose his job (cease to exist as L.E.D....) if he gets into speculative thinking, so paradoxically remaining wholly scientifick, when science can't permit (much less explain) his existence?

As an aside (speaking of "pair o' docs"...), for those looking for Pynchon cameos in Inherent Vice, the movie... what about that doctor that Doc says "Doctor" to, who replies "Doctor"?  Who was that doctor?

On Jan 15, 2015, at 7:07 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> I might go so far, since this is the second linking of suchlike
> experience with 'insanity'
> and because of his other books, esp Against the Day that P suggests
> that trying to get such 'ultimate
> meaning' is 'crazy'...that the paradox of a koan might be the ultimate
> understanding for us.
> 
> On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 9:31 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> "The Learned Dog tells of KOANS.....which drive one to insanity when
>> meditated on....
>> second time the word insanity is used about a mystical-like experience..."
>> 
>> Some say that enlightenment requires embracing paradox, and a koan is one
>> way to loosen the mind (mental yoga) to be able to do so.
>> 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paradoxes
>> 
>> http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/zenindex.html
>> 
>> David Morris
>> 
>> On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 6:06 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> The Learned Dog tells of KOANS.....which drive one to insanity when
>>> meditated on....
>>> second time the word insanity is used about a mystical-like experience...
>>> 
>>> Insanity is the social condition of mystical and religious belief in
>>> the Age of Reason?, once again
>>> MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION as a paradigm book.
>>> 
>>> From the wiki article on MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION "in the Renaissance
>>> the mad were portrayed in art as possessing a kind of wisdom - a
>>> knowledge of the limits of our world"...
>>> 
>>> which comes to my mind when I read The Learned Dog declare
>>> emphatically he is not supernatural, there is
>>> 'ever an Explanation"..
>>> and from that great leg-puller, ironist of irony, it is a talking dog
>>> doing the declaring.
>>> 
>>> Samuel Johnson on a badly-walking-on-two-legs dog: "it is not that he
>>> does it badly but that he does it at all'
>>> [paraphrase actually, so check out for perfection]
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 6:50 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> p. 22....Mason, from the ongoing grief of the loss of his wife, after
>>>> suggesting to Dixon that they
>>>> should investigate the Learned Dog for Metempsychosis reasons, at
>>>> least p.19....after asking why are there still not
>>>> Oracles...Gate--Ways to Futurity.....
>>>> 
>>>> must ask tLD if he has a soul...
>>>> 
>>>> I would say, off the top, Mason is sorta-obsessed with whether Death
>>>> is The End or there is an After, wouldn't you? [tangential: we might
>>>> remember the von Braun quote in GR. More heretically tangential: we
>>>> might remember TRP's lifelong remembering of his great pal, Richard
>>>> F.?]
>>>> 
>>>> The doubts of a religious man. There was a time in the West when no
>>>> (religious) person would even have such doubts. Dante's time did not,
>>>> right Monte? and TRP fave Henry Adams said about the same of the time
>>>> of building Mont-Saint Michel and Chartes.
>>>> Becker suggests that Acquinas's massive Summa came about as his and
>>>> his time's edifice against doubt...
>>>> 
>>>> But, doubtlessly, religious doubt at least was ushered in with the
>>>> Enlightenment.
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> 
>> 
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l