BtZ42Read

Wed Mar 16 08:04:03 CDT 2016

...which is why Roger will come along to show you what rigorously
predictable outcomes emerge from chance.

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 8:32 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> "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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