On Pynchon's California Novels

[Prashant Kumar]

The endgame to this line of reasoning is called the Quine-Putnam thesis
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics#Indispensability_argument_for_realism>,
or the indispensability argument. There's some maths we know we need, like
the number concept and say differential equations, the formalism in which
we express the laws of motion, among other things. These tell you how
things vary with respect to each other; the textbook example is the rate of
flow of water out of a hole in a can --- differential equations let you
express how the water level varies in relation to the flow rate. What the
equation encodes is a continuously varying kind of causality, which we see
in the natural world.

That said, I don't think there's any necessary identity between a
mathematical model of a thing and the thing itself. The can's always
exceeds the model we could concoct for it, and even adding arbitrary
complexity, modelling the fluid flow over the random edged geometry of the
hole's rim, you're gonna be using equations that aren't exactly solvable.
Nature doesn't have this problem. I think maths is a pidgin we use in
congress with the universe.

You can take equations born of physics and build intricate abstract
castles. But things like patterns in the primes
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulam_spiral>? Are they real, could it be
otherwise? Terrence Tao <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtsrAw1LR3E> describes
the primes as the atomic elements of our concept of number, since when you
break down any multiplication operation the parts you get, 11 x 12 = 132 =
11 x 3 x 4 = 11 x 3 x 2 x 2, are prime. You want numbers, and quadratics
generating creepy diagonals is what you get. Abstract mathematics tells us
how our systems of quantitative thought are related, so it's almost a great
corpus full of answers to the ``how could things be otherwise?"-type
questions. Or as Feynman put it, physics is to maths as sex is to
masturbation.

On 21 June 2015 at 13:39, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> in some sense it can be both but in one old philosophical formulation the
> distinction
> Is expressed like this: Is Math the discovery of truths--reality,
> --eternally, non-accidently true, NOT like what mankind make build ala
> technics
> .....sorta like Platonic Forms or Kant's notions of space and time.
>
> Or did we human beings create maths truths contingently,  any or all--even
> number? In another version of our same universe, it could all be different
> maths?
>
>
> I will repeat that I think the difference between what we might call
> natural math--giving no real answer to the above because irrelevant--and
> the math that began with the concept of " imaginary" numbers in math
> history plays a key role in the meanings of Against the Day.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jun 21, 2015, at 6:09 AM, Erik Burns <eburns at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Is math invented by humans, or is it the language of the universe?"
>
> Why can't it be both?
>
> ------------------------------
> From: Jerome Park <jeromepark3141 at gmail.com>
> Sent: ‎6/‎21/‎2015 10:56
> To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Subject: Re: On Pynchon's California Novels
>
> If you've not read Hanjo Berressem’s “Life on the Beach", do give it a
> go. I love it for a bunch of reasons, most of all for its clarity. It's not
> easy reading, but the author does an excellent job of breaking down all the
> complexities.
>
> A Projected world? Math.
>
> The Great Math Mystery
>
> Is math invented by humans, or is it the language of the universe?
>
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/great-math-mystery.html
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2015/04/great-math-mystery/
>
>
>
> http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/does_math_objectively_exist_or_is_it_a_human_creation.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> http://www.berfrois.com/2015/06/on-pynchons-california-novels-sean-carswell/
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>
>
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