BtZ42Read

Wed Mar 16 07:32:26 CDT 2016

"free" being just another name for chance by me.

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 8:28 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I wouldn't identify the vertex of the parabola with a zero point -- or at
> any rate, have never heard the latter term used in either ballistics or
> analytic geometry. The section title "BtZ" will be tied richly and
> explicitly to Pavlovian conditioning, while nearly all the rocket
> trajectory details (and metaphorical development of same) are later in the
> book. Sure, everything connects to everything, but...
>
> I was using "control" for human agency, direct or embedded in a system:
> the period when the rocket engine is firing and the guidance accelerometer,
> gyros, and vanes are active, programmed (albeit not digitally) to provide
> thrust X for Y seconds, gradually tipping the trajectory from vertical
> toward compass bearing Z. From brennschluss on, the rocket follows the same
> path that a dumb old artillery shell or a rock would follow: what people on
> the ground intended, did, or do has no further effect. Yes, it's
> "controlled by" physical law from beginning to end, but I still find the
> distinction between that and human control useful.
>
> "Free"? That doesn't enter into it at all, Jackson. :-)
>
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 7:27 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Gotta question some of this a little from my pov: Seems to me that once
>> launched the rocket is all Control, it carries out its trajectory--unless
>> interfered with--- by necessity, even beyond the zero point and gravity is
>> that deterministic metaphor for not being "free" at all.
>> I think chance and necessity per Monte is a real theme too (but perhaps
>> even more so in ATD) but I'm having trouble seeing it starting here per
>> Monte. (But, as with Pirates' dream, Monte might be right on here too).
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 1:09 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Pynchon's writing sends each reader off on their own tangents (sometimes
>>> multiple ones, in a single sentence). But I prefer to read a little closer
>>> to the text. "The white line, abruptly, has stopped its climb. That would
>>> be fuel cutoff, end of burning, what's their word … Brennschluss. We don't
>>> have one. Or else its classified." The zero point is the top of the
>>> parabola, the rocket-arc that Pirate sees from his rooftop. At the top of
>>> the parabola (symmetrical in theory, at any rate), the slope is zero.
>>>
>>> So there are two "beyond the zero" points. "Their" side - the Nazi
>>> rocket-launchers and "our" side (too classified to even name the zero
>>> point?). An interesting thing happens at the zero point. The first half
>>> (rising) is engineered, man-made; but in the descent, gravity (Nature)
>>> takes over. Von Braun: "Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is
>>> transformation." Or, as per the Tom Lehrer song: "'Once the rocket goes up,
>>> who cares where it comes down? That's not my department,' says Wernher von
>>> Braun.
>>>
>>> Laura
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>
>>> From: Keith Davis
>>>
>>> Sent: Mar 15, 2016 12:21 PM
>>>
>>> To: Joseph Tracy
>>>
>>>
>>> Cc: P-list List
>>>
>>> Subject: Re: BtZ42Read
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This could link to Slothrop's final scene, or state, as well.
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 12:20 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Beyond the Zero...beyond nothing, to everything?
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 12:19 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I was thinking of it as beyond this life, as well. The behaviorism angle
>>> is also very insightful. Why not both, and possibly more?
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 11:55 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>> I think so. Behaviorism is such a central theme. The screaming also has
>>> an echo later in the screaming children in the secret behaviorist
>>> experiments, which reinforces this thinking.  There is also a sense in
>>> which Beyond the Zero refers to crossing the boundary between life and
>>> death. Von Braun describes ’the continuity of “our spiritual
>>> existence”after death'. Pynchon seems to me to be asking what kind of
>>> spiritual existence comes out of Von Braun’s choices. Is there a sense in
>>> which this kind of thinking leads to a lust for self annihilation as a mad
>>> alchemical experiment. Bliss Zero.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It is going to be very hard not to leap around here in the text.
>>>
>>> > On Mar 15, 2016, at 5:46 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
>>> lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>> > On 15.03.2016 09:39, Ian Livingston wrote:
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>> >> Then there is this pe-orgasmic pause:
>>>
>>> >>
>>>
>>> >> “There is no way out. Lie and wait, lie still and be quiet. Screaming
>>> holds across the sky. When it comes, will it come in darkness, or will it
>>> bring its own light? Will the light come before ar after?
>>>
>>> >>
>>>
>>> >> But it is already light," GR 5.
>>>
>>> >>
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>> >>
>>>
>>> >> Are we beyond the zero at this point? What, exactly, is the zero?
>>>
>>> >>
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>> > Could it be that the zero refers to behaviorism? Pavlovian thought is
>>> via Pointsman very present in this first part of the novel. In this
>>> context, - please correct me if I'm wrong! - the one (1) refers to the
>>> successful conditioning, manifest in a concrete behavior. The zero (0)
>>> refers to the state where the conditioning is extinguished and the behavior
>>> is not shown by the test subject anymore.  The formulation "beyond the
>>> zero" then, perhaps, indicates a new phase in human history where the
>>> thanatoid forces of society start, metaphorically speaking, to go beneath
>>> our skin. Where science becomes "big science" (and data "big data"), and
>>> even political mass murder, so very common to history, enters a
>>> qualitatively new level with the Holocaust, as well as with Hiroshima.
>>> Sentences like "It is too late", or "It has happened before, but there is
>>> nothing to compare it to now", would fit such a reading. What do you think?
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>> >>
>>>
>>> >> “Astrologically the beginning of the next aeon, according to the
>>> starting-point you select, falls between A.D. 2000 and  2200. Starting from
>>> the star “0“ and assuming a Platonic month of 2,145 years, one would arrive
>>> at A.D. 2154 for the beginning of the Aquarian Age, and at A.D. 1997 if you
>>> start from star “a 113.“ The latter date agrees with the longitude of the
>>> stars in Ptolemy’s Almagest“ CGJ, Aion, 1959, 94n.
>>>
>>> >>
>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -
>>>
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> www.innergroovemusic.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> www.innergroovemusic.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> www.innergroovemusic.com
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>
>>
>>
>
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