TRP***GR**Singularity?

[Paul Cray]

It is much more likely that Vinge got it from GR and P could easily have
come up with the AI/biotech juxtaposition for himself. There's a lot more
to the Luddite essay than that, natch, although the novelette version of
"Blood Music" is a strong story. Curiously, Doris Lessing was a big Greg
Bear fan.

On 17 July 2017 at 19:51, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> I know a little about Vinge and his work and  I doubt the social circles
> speculation ...or we would have heard something?
>
> We know he has read SF but still? Luddite essay seems  longer and
> deeper-bred to me.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jul 17, 2017, at 2:37 PM, Paul Cray <pmcray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I was very struck by the constant use of the term when I read GR in 2009.
> I have often wondered whether Pynchon knew Vinge in SoCal. As far as I
> know, Vinge first uses the S-word in "Marooned in Realtime" (1986), but
> it's entirely possible that either Vinge got the word from Pynchon (via GR
> or personal contact) or P got it from V in sf circles in SoCal in the late
> 1960s/early 1970s. I suppose it is more likely V got it from P, but it is
> interesting that they were both in SoCal at the same time and might well
> have had overlapping social circles.
>
> The famous statement about AI and biotech in the Luddism article always
> make me think that P might just have read Greg Bear's "Blood Music" in its
> original novelette form, which is a seminal Singularitarian text, although
> the S-word is not used. There's also plenty of Singularitarian subtext in
> AtD, although I don't recall the S-word itself being used much if at all.
>
> On 17 July 2017 at 19:36, Paul Cray <pmcray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I was very struck by the constant use of the term when I read GR in 2009.
>> I have often wondered whether Pynchon knew Vinge in SoCal. As far as I
>> know, Vinge first uses the S-word in "Marooned in Realtime" (1986), but
>> it's entirely possible that either Vinge got the word from Pynchon (via GR
>> or personal contact) or P got it from V in sf circles in SoCal in the late
>> 1960s/early 1970s. I suppose it is more likely V got it from P, but it is
>> interesting that they were both in SoCal at the same time and might well
>> have had overlapping social circles.
>>
>> The famous statement about AI and biotech in the Luddism article always
>> make me think that P might just have read Greg Bear's "Blood Music" in its
>> original novelette form, which is a seminal Singularitarian text, although
>> the S-word is not used. There's also plenty of Singularitarian subtext in
>> AtD, although I don't recall the S-word itself being used much if at all.
>>
>> On 16 July 2017 at 13:00, da kid <peterock86 at live.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Was Pynchon aware of the technological singularity back in the early
>>> 70s? I know there are gravitational singularities and others, not just the
>>> Kurzweil one and it has been awhile since I finished GR. However, with all
>>> it's concerns with predestination, the end of history(?) and so forth it
>>> makes me wonder. Also, I recall two scenes in particular that are towards
>>> the end of the book. One is the scene about the rich guy practicing the
>>> Masonic ritual stuff to try to transcend to a higher dimension. The other
>>> is the lecture by is it Kekule? about the move from organic to inorganic
>>> chemistry. From Carbon to silicon. Not to mention all the times P talks
>>> about "singularities." Has this already been discussed to death here?
>>>
>>
>>
>
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