Astrology

Sun Aug 2 23:17:54 UTC 2020

Related: I've been trying to get my head around this relevant article
on a physicist who is positing a shocking and radical departure from
classical mathematics.
For the past century+ we've had a model of reality that rests on the
'block universe', ie if time is just another dimension, the universe
is like an expanding 3-dimensional block (the expansion is time). If
you had enough information, you could predict any future event since
it necessarily unfolds from a determined past. Step out of time and
everything that has been and will be has in a sense already happened.
This scientist has a controversial counter-proposition in which the
future hasn't happened yet:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/04/passage-of-time-relativity-physics/609841/

On Mon, Aug 3, 2020 at 6:40 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Somehow, and this will seem like a self-justifying cop-out but I agree with
> what you say and I see it as
> your better statement of what I wanted to mean.....
>
> Anyway, I have recently reread Oedipus and some commentary from Greek
> scholars
> and an American historian because of the class i am teaching on *The Human
> Stain*....
>
> Best line from the classicist (related to conceptions of time): For the
> Greeks, Oedipus was "timeless" because they saw
> the action as "always true" of Oedius. (Since college I have felt Oedipus
> at Colonus to be the more horrible play.)
>
> Bit of Americana: the earliest productions of Oedipus in America in the
> 1800's, by the best troupes, failed.
> No traction, unlike Shakespeare say. This historian, aware of records sez:
> Americans, willing themselves into being (my paraphrase),
> that frontier always ahead as the clock ticks, could not like the
> determinism as theme at all.
>
> And Seneca was a bestseller I know from publishing history and as that
> scholar says, Seneca was on the cusp of the change from
> timelessness to caught in time. like Americans.
>
> On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 3:10 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I don’t think there is a moving between fate and free will, whether we
> > believe or not.  Most people believe in free will, even if born into severe
> > disadvantage.  Believing in fate is called fatalism.  Did Oedipus have a
> > choice, even if forewarned?  We act as we will either way.
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 6:36 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Yes. Let me ask if this 'reading' of mine  re your use  in that line is
> >> acceptable. (Gary's is another mountain to climb and fal back down)
> >>
> >> We humans will forever move between Fate & Free will.....believing in or
> >> not, etc.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 6:56 AM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Yes. But Sisyphus is about eternal burden.  What everyone must bear upon
> >>> birth, our inescapable being until death’s release.
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 4:10 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> That last line wins the day!
> >>>>
> >>>> Sent from my iPhone
> >>>>
> >>>> > On Aug 1, 2020, at 7:49 PM, gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Yes, Sisyphus... the eternal recurrence phenomena, is this the true
> >>>> way of
> >>>> > the world? Was the lama right, is it all an illusion? the samsara, or
> >>>> > whatever you call it, i don't know...we do live in a vapid age, the
> >>>> kind
> >>>> > where Maxine goes to her Buddhist psychologist, Buddhist by way of
> >>>> > California btw, to talk about the Brady Bunch. The illusions are
> >>>> powerful
> >>>> > these days, a metric called virality, that can simultaneously coexist
> >>>> in
> >>>> > both the digital and biological worlds, and the madman's final
> >>>> > question...did we make them or did they make us? Then there's that
> >>>> paranoia
> >>>> > added into the equation too, the hidden variable buried deep in the
> >>>> > equation, or the dungeon rather, like why are the days of the week
> >>>> named
> >>>> > after Teutonic pagan gods? A-and like, the days of the week in French
> >>>> are
> >>>> > named after celestial bodies, seem to anyone like one of those
> >>>> > Conspiracies, the ones that we'd choose to ignore... An ancient cult
> >>>> of
> >>>> > Babylon...
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Maybe, there is just the eternal Will, the Will of Schopenhauer...
> >>>> and that
> >>>> > once the veil of illusion is removed you see the true face of it, the
> >>>> death
> >>>> > cults of Kali, then the path to Nirvana awaits to the true initiate,
> >>>> and it
> >>>> > is only through art that it is possible to transcend to the immaculate
> >>>> > cosmic forms of Plato, or descend the stairs in final madness, or to
> >>>> be
> >>>> > reincarnated as an alchemist, whose suddenly discovered *Livre des
> >>>> figures
> >>>> > hieroglyphiques* by Flamel... the one who has finally summoned the
> >>>> > Godhead...
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Maybe one day we primates will understand the phallacy (Priapism (
> >>>> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapus) anyone?) fallacy of our
> >>>> > logocentrism... or the drugs will finally just wear off...
> >>>> >
> >>>> >> On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 6:41 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>> >>
> >>>> >> So much fun!  Do our stars rule us?  Isn’t this a question about
> >>>> Fate,
> >>>> >> and/or Free Will?  This is both an individual and a collective
> >>>> question.
> >>>> >> Maybe also about Sisyphus.
> >>>> >>
> >>>> >>
> >>>> >>
> >>>> https://www.google.com/search?q=sisyphus&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS777US778&oq=sysi&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l3.5813j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=C_7hiDNrby23MM
> >>>> >>
> >>>> >> David Morris
> >>>> >>
> >>>> >> On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 4:10 PM Keith McMullen via Pynchon-l <
> >>>> >> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
> >>>> >>
> >>>> >>> “Oh, don’t I remember those, Lens-brother,— ’tis our Burden. Kepler
> >>>> said
> >>>> >>> that Astrology is Astronomy’s wanton little sister, who goes out and
> >>>> >> sells
> >>>> >>> herself that Astronomy may keep her Virtue,— surely we have all
> >>>> done the
> >>>> >>> Covent Garden turn. As to the older Sister, how many Steps may she
> >>>> >> herself
> >>>> >>> indeed already have taken into Compromise? for,
> >>>> >>>
> >>>> >>> Be the Instrument brazen, or be it Fleshen, [Maskelyne sings, in a
> >>>> >>> competent Tenor]
> >>>> >>>
> >>>> >>> Star-Gazing’s ever a Whore’s profession,— (Isn’t it?)
> >>>> >>>
> >>>> >>> Some in a Palace, all Marble and Brick,
> >>>> >>>
> >>>> >>> Some behind Hedges for less than a kick, tell me
> >>>> >>>
> >>>> >>> What’s it matter, The Stars will say, We’ve been ga-zing, back at
> >>>> ye,
> >>>> >> Many
> >>>> >>> a Day,
> >>>> >>>
> >>>> >>> And there’s nothing we haven’t seen
> >>>> >>>
> >>>> >>> More than one way,
> >>>> >>>
> >>>> >>> Sing Deny o deny o day . . . [Recitative]
> >>>> >>>
> >>>> >>>> On Aug 1, 2020, at 1:43 PM, gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> >>>>
> >>>> >>>> Reading C.V. Wedgwood's Thirty Years War, and came across this
> >>>> line
> >>>> >>> which
> >>>> >>>> Pynchon mentions in Mason & Dixon, the part where Maskelyne and
> >>>> Mason
> >>>> >> are
> >>>> >>>> casting each other's horoscope
> >>>> >>>>
> >>>> >>>> "A pseudo-scientific interest in Astrology was the fashion. Kepler
> >>>> >>> himself,
> >>>> >>>> half humorously, half indignantly, averred that the astronomer
> >>>> could
> >>>> >> only
> >>>> >>>> support himself by ministering to the follies of astronomy's "silly
> >>>> >>> little
> >>>> >>>> daughter, astrology""
> >>>> >>>> --
> >>>> >>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>>> >>> --
> >>>> >>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>>> >>>
> >>>> >> --
> >>>> >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>>> >>
> >>>> > --
> >>>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>>>
> >>>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l