Fwd: Asimov and Pynchon

[Mark Kohut]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 5, 2026 at 10:54 AM
Subject: Re: Asimov and Pynchon
To: Joseph Tracy <coypoet at mailfence.com>


No, I saw that......I did not know what Asimov wrote since Corbeau Castrum
 next wrote that he searched around for "it'--the connection to Pynchon.
He did not summarize anything Asimov wrote

And I read what you wrote which did not give us Asimov on entropy
either.....

there are different ways to write about entropy.

Which is why I sent a summary of Asimov's explanations of entropy...(as a
Reply to Corbeau's email)

Pynchon musta got this info as summarized from Asimov's little mass market
paperbacks on physics and other topics. wonderful.

On Tue, May 5, 2026 at 10:41 AM Joseph Tracy <coypoet at mailfence.com> wrote:

> Appparently you did miss it in the start of this thread where Corbeau
> Castrum wrote this: "Pynchon for his part references Asimov in the
> introduction to Slow Learner as one of the people whom he read on the topic
> of entropy."
>
> And I agree with C.C. that there is a link between the presumed 'law' of
> entropy and Calvinism; and that both together inform GR profoundly.  Both
> Ideas may well trace back to Paul of the NT who majored on the idea of
> predestination. The logic is that God is omniscient( not a clear idea in
> the Bible), and therefor knows the future, therefor the future, being
> knowable , is predetermined. It is a machine-like logic where the premise
> determines the outcome, and  fundamentally the same as  sciencey thinking
> like no dice playing with a material universe in which everything is random
> and therefor predetermined or nothing is random and therefor all is
> predetermined. Of course this makes God, or in science the big bang.
> responsible for all evil.
>
>
> As far as my tennis match with Sir Isaac and my semi-brilliant come back
> on  our whole conversation about the entropy issue; that was  I. Newton,
> not I. Asimov. This is the very reason I called him Isaac N. so as to avoid
> confusion.  I am fairly certain that Sir Isaac N. wrote something down on
> the topic and it caught on big time.  Yuuge, in fact.
>
>
> On 5/4/26 8:54 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
> Did l miss where we learned what Asimov wrote about Entropy?
>
>
> Perhaps if Isaac N. had focused on biological life he would have seen
> the origin of cosmic  order differently, full of recyclying, self
> transformation, heritable traits encoded in biological memory,
> de-centered  interdependence  leading to  a complex mix of cooperation,
> predation and self defense  resulting in mutual benefit and multiple
> orders of being. A world shaped by the shapeless possibilities of water,
> air, plasma, time, minerals, salts, galactic spin   all sharing an
> animating consciousness without any need of supreme rulers.
>
>