TRP*GRSingularity?

Fri Jul 21 09:32:43 CDT 2017

Well, the web is a type of collective consciousness, after all.  It is a
reflection, a symbol, of this particular Earth matrix' collective
consciousness.

On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 6:35 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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/fea
>> tures/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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