TRP*GRSingularity?

Fri Jul 21 06:35:16 CDT 2017

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/

Yes -- even before / more broadly than the Internet and Silicon Valley,
Bush's essay influenced *everybody* working on electronic computers from
1945 on, although it couldn't really get going until transistors and disc
drives made GooglyMassEverything storage and retrieval a lot cheaper and
faster.

My own fave about that period is George Dyson's 'Turing's Cathedral,'
focusing on von Neumann's group at Princeton IAS... not least because (1)
Dyson was toddling around the hardware with his dad and (2) many traces
were still around when I was on campus 15 years later

https://www.amazon.com/Turings-Cathedral-Origins-Digital-Universe/dp/1400075998

On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 6:58 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> "As We May Think" Vannever Bush, Atlantic Mag, 1945, considered by
> many early Silicon Valley types THE foundational document re the
> Internet.
>
> If I have known of it since before the WWW, you can bet your first
> editions that anyone who read Norbert Weiner,  Marshall McLuhan, among
> others, surely knew of it in the fifties/ sixties.
>
> (Speaking of McLuhan, this appeared today...he is the Google Doodle)
> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/
> features/marshall-mcluhan-who-internet-predict-google-doodle-media-theory-
> philosopher-canada-a7852276.html
>
> And there is an echoing line in the GR section going around.
>
> And then DARPA while in California, yes.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Jul 20, 2017, at 6:53 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > There's got to be a reason the Pynchon List emerged within a year of
> > the World Wide Web going public, right?
> > I don't know if Pynchon knew about the internet before everyone else,
> > but you can see it as one part of a much bigger and longer interest
> > that he's maintained. The promise of a paradise of connectivity and
> > communication and the various corruptions that promise suffers.
> > Or even more macro - he's sometimes referred to as a systems novelist,
> > and the systems he returns to most regularly involve communications
> > networks.
> > Although these days I'm doing some dilettante studying of computer
> > networking for fun and once you look under the hood, the internet
> > seems like a really, really obvious eventuality. I can't imagine
> > people with Pynchon's engineering and info tech background weren't all
> > tossing similar ideas around in the 60s.
> >
> >> On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 4:20 AM, da kid <peterock86 at live.com> wrote:
> >> ________________________________
> >> From: da kid <peterock86 at live.com>
> >> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2017 2:54:18 PM
> >> To: miksaapja at gmail.com
> >> Subject: Re: TRP***GR**Singularity?
> >>
> >> That's funny, I just read that Bill Joy piece. I've been getting
> creeped out
> >> by Kurzweil and Elon Musk lately and been thinking alot about this
> virtual
> >> movement as an emerging form of life. Kevin Kelly founder of Wired talks
> >> about this. If I am not mistaken, the whole movement is a denial of
> entropy,
> >> an artificial attempt to increase order.
> >>
> >> I am convinced that P. either knew something about the early internet.
> His
> >> entire ouvre seems to be concerned with it: from W.A.S.T.E. to the
> Jesuit
> >> Telegraph and the American frontier as metaphor for the internet in M
> and D.
> >> At the end of ATD -spoiler- Miles refers to the emerging network of
> electric
> >> light as "Lucifer Son of the Morning." Then of course DARPA in IV and
> >> Bleeding Edge takes silicon alley as it's literal subject (haven't read
> that
> >> one yet).
> >>
> >> Someone recently posted about that LSD Unabomber and the internet
> >> documentary here which I also thought was an amazing coincidence
> because it
> >> is a perfect documentary for Pynchon fans! I sensed Pynchon hovering
> around
> >> every corner in that film. It is almost too conspiracy theory -y to be
> taken
> >> seriously but I that is unfortunate because I think it is on to the same
> >> trail that I'm interested in. Aaand it discusses that move from the
> >> freewheeling hippie California to the high-tech culture of today.
> Actually
> >> it was a direct evolution that the military was at least partially
> involved
> >> with.
> >>
> >> Sorry I know this is rambling but I just wanted to type this before I
> have
> >> to go to work.
> >> So to take it back to GR real quick and the question of how close was
> >> Pynchon to the beginnings of all this I just remembered the passage in
> part
> >> 2 or 3 when Slothrop goes to Switzerland. P. talks about the new
> currency
> >> being information which is true today right?
> >>
> >> ________________________________
> >> From: János Széky <miksaapja at gmail.com>
> >> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2017 4:36:02 AM
> >> To: Mark Kohut
> >> Cc: Paul Cray; da kid; pynchon -l
> >> Subject: Re: TRP***GR**Singularity?
> >>
> >> I think the "Heart-to-Heart, Man-to-Man" subchapter in GR, Pt4 (shooting
> >> "waves" into head) is crucial. It seems to describe the transition from
> the
> >> 60s drug culture to a digital culture that we happen to live in. If
> anyone,
> >> Pynchon could well have been aware of the first steps towards the
> Internet
> >> in California (as recalled in Inherent Vice).
> >>
> >> 2017-07-18 0:21 GMT+02:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
> >>>
> >>> My word "longer" was the wrong choice my meaning. I sorta meant longer
> >>> back in conceptual time ...which deeper-bred also
> >>> Meant to convey.
> >>> But who knows. My projection maybe.
> >>>
> >>> Sent from my iPhone
> >>>
> >>> On Jul 17, 2017, at 2:56 PM, Paul Cray <pmcray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> 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?
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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