The Crying of Lot 49 Group Read 2024

[Mark Kohut]

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 6:52 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, I too have heard from other scientists what you heard from Fuller.
> Scientists know that life itself is anti-entropic.
>
> Which can lead us to ask why the concept, a self allusion to his most
> famous story, right? shows up here again?
>
> Let's try this notion on: TRP has the time of Oedipa's time (so far in her
> life) now in America be linked to that dead world
> TRP wrote of in his story. .....
>
> But now the emphasis is on life breaking through the entropic tower which
> is everywhere....Oedipa's quest, unknown fully to herself yet.
>
> On Sun, Jun 23, 2024 at 8:47 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
>>  From Hesiod also, the people of the Golden Age
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age>were transformed into
>> *daimones* by the will of Zeus <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeus>, to
>> serve mortals benevolently as their guardian spirits; "good beings who
>> dispense riches…[nevertheless], they remain invisible, known only by their
>> acts".[8] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimon#cite_note-8> The
>> *daimones* of venerated heroes <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_hero> were
>> localized by the construction of shrines, so as not to wander restlessly,
>> and were believed to confer protection and good fortune on those offering
>> their respects.[6]
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimon#cite_note-Burkert1985-6>
>>
>> One tradition of Greek thought, which found agreement in the mind of
>> Plato <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato>, was of a daimon which
>> existed within a person from their birth, and that each individual was
>> obtained by a singular daimon prior to their birth by way of lot
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleromancy>.[6]
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimon#cite_note-Burkert1985-6>
>>
>> The evil demon was a transformation of the concept by Christianity
>> drawing on the idea of  the serpentine  deceiver spirit in Genesis , and a
>> couple other bible stories.
>>
>>
>> The most interesting idea I have heard on entropy was from Buckminster
>> Fuller, who suggested that life itself (which he also identified as
>> intelligence) is anti- entropic. Probably the greatest unresolved mystery
>> of science is the question of how non-life spreading  in entropic and
>> random motion guided by inherent physical restraints/habits/ becomes
>> self-reproducing life forms that have endured for millions of years and
>> transformed into various forms and degrees of consciousness which evolve to
>> fill various niches via genetic coding. Life defies the extinction of
>> intelligent consciousness but at the expense of individual mortality. And
>> humans have always suspected and now claim to scientifically establish a
>> beginning for everything, so how is that not an anti-entropic mystery;
>> everything from nothing.. The thing about life and physics is the constant
>> change which is a kind of constant death and rebirth moment by moment. Life
>> as we know it needs death, and every energetic system we can prove or
>> manipulate runs down. But something wound it up.  So  universes may come
>> and go but why not enjoy the ride rather than fight a losing  and
>> frequently vicious battle for control.
>>
>> Pre-monotheist cultures seem to be much more comfortable and interactive
>> with non-human intelligences.  Pynchon summons them regularly(
>> conversational ball lightning, an ice monster with X-ray eyes, conscious
>> light bulbs, talking dogs, underground worlds)   but not in COL 49, Oedipa
>> wants that contact but it seems to flit by like  a "nightmare about
>> something in the mirror, across from her bed. Nothing specific, only a
>> possibility, nothing she could see.” or like Maxwell's momentary smile, or
>> the visionary tears from Varo’s painting. The only solid form of such
>> contact  focuses her attention on the  Tristero " in magic, anonymous and
>> malignant, visited on her ( and not just her) from outside and for no
>> reason at all".  But Pynchon is about to break that spell, if only for  a
>> few days through OM’s compassion arising from her contact with the
>> preterite, the non-owners.
>>
>>
>> On Jun 23, 2024, at 4:48 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Why do we not explore the word 'demon' n Maxwell's Demon"...that was Lord
>> Kelvin's naming and it comes from the Greek
>> Daemon, with only positive life force meanings in Greek my greek scholars
>> tell me,,,,so it is, as we can sorta read and see
>> a force against entropy......and here is another implication, meaning...
>>
>>   - In aphorism 341 of *The Gay Science
>>   <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gay_Science>*, Nietzsche
>>   <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzsche> puts forth his eternal
>>   recurrence <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_recurrence> concept.
>>   In it, he employs a demon with special metaphysical knowledge as an
>> agent
>>   for forcing reevaluation of perspective on one's own life.
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>>
>>