A, B, +, A+B

the trick
when approaching the human sciences
is to discover combinatorial primitives
that generate (any) rich semantics
before they explode

and the tragicomedy
of pomo frenchy 'theory'
is that combinatorial explosions
are embraced as a virtue
so semantic primitives are
actively disparaged

so as we explore
discourse as lists
we need to tiptoe over
eggshell minefields
trusting primitives as steppingstones

and one such
primitive discourse-list
is the counterintuitively heterogeneous
A, B, +, A+B

because most story sequences
involve changing relationships
among compositions of simpler elements

and recounting relationships
stereotypically requires accounting first
for those simpler elements (A, B)
and then too
perhaps
for the the relationship '+' itself
(more often omitted as obvious)

and only then finally
the combination A+B

less stereotypically
these list-steps
can be freely permuted
(cf transformational grammar
and mathematical commutation)

as when Gravity's Rainbow
opens with Pirate (B)
followed by Pirate spying on Slothrop (B+A)
followed by Slothrop (B)
and perhaps spying-in-general (+)

but if our goal
semantic-web-like
is to tease out each text's
semantic understructure
we have to acknowledge every text's
infinite annotatability

A has an infinitely detailed
backstory timeline
debated finitely
within a subtimeline
of the Great Conversation

along with every topic
that might shed light on A

with our current author X
(with her own infinitely detailed
timeline backstory)
writing in style S
(with its own timeline backstory)
using words W (with their own etymological histories)

X possessing a finite knowledge
of the Great Conversation about A

identifying gaps in that knowledge
being a primary priority
of Conversational followups




and (A B + A+B)
is promiscuously associative as well
(A B + A+B C * C*A+B)
so imposing strict hierarchies
of stereotyped primitive lists
is probably beside the point

.

The bisociation machine

arthur koestler's 1964 "the act of creation"
argued that creativity
in the arts
in the sciences
and in humor too
depends on 'bisociation'
in which disparate parts
are (creatively) unified

pynchon's creative strategy
can be usefully analysed
in these terms

take any image and ask
what disparate parts
he's trying to unify
(often math
and/or mysticism
and/or conspiracy
and/or slapstick)

the simplest model of synesthesia
is that the coding scheme
of one sense modality
is rerouted thru another

so if a high pitch
is represented by a faster rhythm
of neural firing
in the pathways from the ear

and the color red
is similarly encoded
in the pathways from the eye

the synesthesic mapping
from eye to ear or back
should match high pitch to red color

if we generalise
this version of bisociation
we might imagine a
bisociation machine
that takes as input
any two encoding schemes
and systematically
(or even randomly)
explores the consequences
of all possible mappings between them

and mirror neurons
can be seen as such a mapping
between 'self view'
and 'other view'

while g spencer brown's
aggressine 'idiocy'
can be seen as a rejection
of some 'other view' as inefficient
in favor of an intuited
future efficient 'self view'

.

Autobiographical showtunes

bingeing on pynchon
it occurs to me
that complex autobiographical situations
can be effectively simplified
by picturing characters
singing-it-out as a showtune

foregrounding a minimalist emotional skeleton

even if your goal is
something far more serious
reclothing that 'showtune skeleton'
in more conventional prose

(a completely different heuristic:
how has each character
internalised the myth/con of original sin?
what chinks in their self-confidence
led them to sacrifice which freedoms?)

.

Proust on the novelist's art

"...none of the feelings
which the joys or misfortunes
of a 'real' person
awaken in us
can be awakened except through
a mental picture of those joys or misfortunes;
and the ingenuity of the first novelist
lay in his understanding that,
as the picture was the one essential element
in the complicated structure of our emotions,
so that simplification of it
which consisted in the suppression, pure and simple,
of 'real' people
would be a decided improvement.

A 'real' person,
profoundly as we may sympathise with him,
is in a great measure perceptible only
through our senses,
that is to say, he remains opaque,
offers a dead weight
which our sensibilities
have not the strength to lift.

If some misfortune comes to him,
it is only in one small section
of the complete idea we have of him
that we are capable of feeling any emotion;
indeed it is only in one small section
of the complete idea he has of himself
that he is capable of feeling any emotion either.

The novelist's happy discovery
was to think of substituting
for those opaque sections,
impenetrable by the human spirit,
their equivalent in
immaterial sections,
things, that is,
which the spirit can assimilate to itself."

One of Pynchon's girlfriends praised this quality in his company-- everything they did together seemed transformed into a movie.

And Joyce's method, after extracting an epiphany from its arbitrary context, was to re-clothe it in a "decor ideal".

.

Pynchon's defenses of socialism, of terrorism

Capitalist:
"...Merely to need a sum
is not to deserve it."

Socialist:
"...In these times,
'need' arises directly from
criminal acts of the rich,
so it 'deserves'
whatever amount of money
will atone for it."

(Against the Day page 32)

"If you are not devoting every breath
of every day
waking and sleeping
to destroying those
who slaughter the innocent
easy as signing a check,
then how innocent
are you willing to call yourself?"

(Against the Day page 87)

.

The Pynchonian historian

with 'Against the Day'
pynchon fans finally have
a large new body of
Gravity'sRainbow-like prose

allowing much better triangulation
of what th' heck TRP is up to
and how

now
if we want to explore
any period of history
via the old pynchonoscope

we first ask

what intoxicants were available?

what subversive groups
plotted against what power elites?

what superstitions
lingered at the fringes?

what new scientific theories
mathematical metaphors
metaphysical speculations
were about to stir up controversy?

which old ones
were fading from fashion?

what was the general state
of language and literature?

then take the standard
comic ethnic stereotypes

and contrast them against
anachronistic human hipsters
(who enter poetic fugue states
at the drop of a hat)

and glimpses of real love

find fitting names
for streets and bars

camouflage
your painstaking researches
by alluding to the worst obscurities
in the most offhand way

.

Reading on the Tree of Life

sort all words
in order of frequency

assign primary colors
to the commonest words

more subtle shades
to rarer words

and where a human branch
on the Tree of Life
thinks reads hears or speaks
a word
light a star of that word's color

at most 5 words per second
300,000 words per day




a given passage of text
becomes a pattern of colored stars

repeated wherever the passage is read

repeated with errors by poor readers
repeated with gaps by hasty readers
repeated in clumps by distracted readers




for a given piece of text
(book article poem quote)
light all the segments
of the Tree of Life
where it's being re/cited

(extreme case:
pedants debating the significance
of a single word)

light further
all future thoughts
on each given reader's branch
re/shaped by their memories
of that text

(did it add a word
to their active vocabulary?

toddlers gathering early vocabulary
mostly from speech

or are they reminded of a scene
whenever a similar scene arises?

does the influence quickly fade?

does it persist
while the source is forgotten?)




rank the most influential works
for a given reader

for all readers at a given time
(dr spock; harry potter)
for all readers ever (the bible)

rank the books with the most
separate influential patterns
(gravity's rainbow)

those whose influence
peaked quickly then faded
(nobody reads fulmerford anymore)




(how can we extend this visualisation to include
influential non-verbal works--
music, dance, painting?)

.