BtZ42 Section 6: Roger Mexico

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

On 24.04.2016 13:15, Mark Kohut wrote:

> Within GR, I most see Roger the statistician as the marker of probabilities.
> Pointsman is the scientific determinist .

Math - think also the Quaternionists in AtD and VL's Weed Atman - is the 
non-determinist (and thus 'good') science in Pynchon's world, right?

With its southy aroma, the name "Mexico" stands in direct opposition to 
the name "Pointsman".

Then again, what's more determinist than --- an algorithm?

> Slothrop is the possibility ( or not) of freedom from.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 23, 2016, at 10:07 PM, Joseph Tracy<brook7 at sover.net>  wrote:
>
>> Good stuff.Statistics are weird in that they seem so scientific and are so easily ignored by just about everyone in favor of something like "gusts of emotion".
>>> On Apr 22, 2016, at 10:05 AM, Monte Davis<montedavis49 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Roger the statistician: "By the time one has pulled one’s nth victim or part of a victim free of one’s nth pile of rubble, he told her once, angry, weary, it has ceased to be that personal . . . the value of n may be different for each of us, but I’m sorry: sooner or later . . ." (p. 41).
>>>
>>> Still in a Dylan Thomas mood, I'm hearing here "After the first death, there is no other." 
>>> https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/refusal-mourn-death-fire-child-london 
>>> Seen from one angle (sometimes but not always Jessica's), Roger is 
>>> almost as inhuman(e)ly odd and chill as his colleagues. Seen from 
>>> another (sometimes but not always Pointsman's), he is a threatening 
>>> wild card, given to probabilities and the acceptance of random 
>>> fluctuations rather than on-off (flip-flop in V.?), mechanistic 
>>> certainties and strict causality. Statistics and probability theory 
>>> themselves have Janus faces. Yes, they strip experience to bare 
>>> chill manipulable numbers: that certainly seems bad. But yes, they 
>>> *also* strip away preconception and anecdotal impression and bias to 
>>> reveal what experience actually *is* over broader scales of time, 
>>> space, and number than any one of us can grasp -- which is kinda 
>>> good if you want to stop an epidemic (or a traditional but 
>>> ineffective/harmful therapy), forestall a famine, anticipate global 
>>> warming, etc. CF. my earlier remarks on P.M.S. Blackett, "running a war on gusts of emotion," and both the V-weapons and Allied area bombing as examples of the latter. From one angle, we can see both programs as embodiments of implacable science / technology / industry... but had they really been evaluated by chill statistics, rather than as "oboy, here's a new way to hurt the enemy," neither would have been pursued.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 6:33 AM, Mark Kohut<mark.kohut at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> Statistician. ( we will learn of his belief in the range between zero and one. Meanings here?)
>>> Works for The White Visitation. " The Dour Young Man of.."
>>> Doesn't get on with his colleagues
>>> Doesn't understand Pavlovians, but has to help Pointsman.
>>> Unappealing looks ( accepts jabs about) seemingly youthful looking.
>>> Pirate sez he's been euchred into a Byzantine exercise of psychological warfare conducted by The White Visitation. His " enthusiasm grows" with each film delivery from Bloat. (Section 5)
>>>
>>> " Never a prophetic dream, no telepathic messages, never touched The Other World directly"
>>> YET, he tells us of his first experience of " magic" : " data he can't argue away" ...." The feeling of actually being joined" w Jessica. IN love.
>>>
>>> Comments wanted.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad-
>>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
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