Subject
Re: THOUGHTS: Bobolinks and apophenia
From
Date
Body
From STAN KELLY-BOOTLE
Jerry: when a mathematical proof ends with Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstrandum =
³which was to be demonstrated²) both tradition and syntax demand that Q.E.D.
must follow a precise recap of what one has claimed to have just proved! It
is then up to one¹s peers to verify, find errors or suggest improvements in
the proof. Historically, the ³court may be out² for ages; indeed judgments
can be reversed and restored several times, as has happened with some of
Euclid¹s Theorems that he ended with a bold Q.E.D. Serious provers and
proof-checkers would shun phrases like ³proof beyond ultimate proof,²
although one hears such claims in the amateur, popular literature. You will
know that a faulty proof, or the absence of a valid proof, tells us nothing
about the truth of the target proposition. Some truths are provably
unprovable. Honest. (In passing, note the other terminating phrase
associated with Euclid: Q.E.F, quod erat faciendum (³which was to be
done/achieved²), more appropriate where one has promised to do or construct
something. Nabokovian precision rules, OK?)
Allowing for the obvious fact that the so-called Pale Fire Puzzle is not a
mathematical problem, we are still entitled to a clear statement (or list of
statements) before a Q.E.D. Is flourished as to ³what has been
demonstrated.² Here are some possibilities associated with your previous
postings (not that I can claim to have read or understood them all;
apologies offered and corrections expected.)
1. Pale Fire covers many topics but ³death/mortality,² ³other worlds,² ³the
after-world,² and ³diverse modes of survival² play a major role.
[Hard to deny]
2. Some of VN¹s characters claim a belief in, and ³reported events²
indicate, some form of ³physical life after death.²
[Reasonable statement]
3. ONE purpose of Pale Fire is to prove some form of ³physical life after
death,² and, taken together with VN¹s other works, that we attach some
factual, evidential support from (2). Also that VN himself generally shares
the beliefs of (2)
[Here, some doubts start a-peeping with regards to character honesty.¹
Which parts of PF are true-fiction¹ and which false-fiction?¹ World
fiction has many credible accounts of seances and other evidence of ghostly
survivals. Dante, Ulysses and Ezekiel wouldn¹t lie! But, non-fictional
reports of life after death¹ have, so far, failed to meet Humean¹
standards of evidence.¹ Statement 3 remains plausible, subject to one¹s
definition of literary-truth² and ³proof.¹ The big advantage of (3) is that
it doesn¹t necessarily contradict the many other readings of PF, apart
perhaps for the widely-held feeling that Nabokov¹s novels have no such
didactic intent!
4. THE sole purpose of Pale Fire is as in (3) and that sole purpose is
clearly indicated by VN¹s text (and other extra-textual clues). Furthermore,
that purpose has been achieved. Careful readers can be defined as those
convinced by Pale Fire that [I don¹t believe that Statement 4 has been
proved yet. I can envisage variations of 4 that increase its plausibility.
but it seems unconvincing that such a complex, multilayered novel should be
reduced to a re-statement of VN¹s putative views on time, survival, memory,
resurrection, transcendence (and other hand-waving terms ;=))
One character that needs more attention is the Gardner, the last person
named in Shade¹s final lines. I identify him with Gerald Gardner, the
founder of the modern ³Wicca² (or ³Wica²) pagan pantheist, Witchcraft
movement (1954). Its pentagram logo would satisfy the wildest Nabokovian
demand for symmetry (mirror-folding and rotational). Also, most Wiccans
believe in various forms of life-after-death and are active in spirit
communications. Hazel¹s Old Barn experience would not surprise my Gardner.
This link supports theory (3) above.
I also wonder if the link Wordsworth -> Wadsworth -> Longfellow -> Dante has
been explored? My Archive searches reveal only an inconsequential ref. in
2003 to Longfellow¹s plodding poem ³The Wreck of the Hesperus² which has no
real connection with the ³Hesperus² (planet/star Venus) of Canto 3, line
529. (Kinbote¹s commentry is silent whereas he is usually quick to locate
Shade¹s allusions to other poets) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was first
American to translate Dante¹s Comedy. (See Matthew Pearl¹s enthralling ³The
Dante Club,² a real Whodunit) Several Shade-Longfellow ³coincidences²: both
college professor/poets of great popularity and inferior quality (e.g.,
often unintentionally funny); both experiment with European verse-forms;
both lost loved ones through accident.
PS: In Kinbote¹s farewell at end of his final meandering commentary, ³ ... I
may ... cook up a stage play, an old fashioned melodrama with three
principles: ³
But he then lists three principals: the lunatic assassin, the lunatic king,
and ³a distinguished old poet who stumbles by chance into the line of fire,
and perishes in the clash between the two figments.²
Is this a typo in my Penguin Classics Pale Fire, reprinted 2000? Or some
intended subtlety throwing light on Kinbote¹s state-of-mind? I can¹t locate
any prior discussion. The principals seem unprincipled.
Kinbote also uses ³confusely² (p 149) ³ ... but [Shade] also made me regret
that I prevented him from getting to the point he was confusely and
self-consciously making (for as I have said in an earlier note, he never
cared to refer to his dead child) ...²
³Confusely² lies uneasily between the usual dictionary options: ³confusedly²
and ³confusingly.² Any ideas?
And surely Kinbote is the confused one, since by the time he wrote this
note, Shade had referred to Hazel often in the Cantos.
It does remind me, though, that Longfellow was silent: gaps between his
wife¹s and daughter¹s deaths and his writing poems about them.
Finally, for Jim Twiggs: O Lawd! That movie Pi! Such a mix of truths
(numbers are the language of nature; there are patterns in nature) and
UTTER, dangerous NONSENSE (the Bible encodes God-given gematrial truths via
the abitrary numeric values of Hebrew and Greek letters; the Stock Market
fluctuations have patterns that can lead to reliable predictions). In
addition to the helpful Skeptical Inquirer citations you posted, a book
called ³The Tiger that Isn¹t² (Michael Blastland [sic] & Andrew Dilnot [sic
again], Profile Books, 2007) is a readable layperson¹s warning against
statistical bamboozles.
skb
On 03/04/2009 16:29, "NABOKV-L" <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
> Jerry Friedman writes:
>
> Jim, thanks for the link to the Alexandrov essay. Before
> we decide whether Nabokov's characters can have free will
> and what that implies about ethics in hi sbooks, maybe
> we'd better settle the definition of free will first.
> Alexandrov mentions that the meanings of "awareness" and
> "consciousness" are problematic, but not this problem.
>
> A striking thing about both Alexandrov's and Don Johnson's
> books is that (as I recall) their essays on /Pale Fire/
> don't say what their essays on other Nabokov books say:
> that it's an example of his otherworlds theme. Yet I
> think it's a remarkable example of regression: Nabokov
> created Kinbote, who created Eystein and Hodinski, who
> created dubious kinds of art. In the /Cycnos/ essay,
> Alexandrov says in general that the flaunted "madeness"
> of Nabokov's novels can be seen as a "model" of the
> madeness of our world by God. I imagine he intends this
> to apply to /Pale Fire/ as much as to the others.
>
> Your reference to the movie /Pi/ (which I haven't seen)
> reminds me of a real sufferer from the same mania--I
> forget his name. When I was in college in the early '80s
> I saw a pamphlet he had written about the messages in
> stock-market numbers and the like. He would close his
> numerical demonstrations with phrases such as "Q.E.D.,
> Q.E.D., proof beyond ultimate proof!" I feel like
> closing my arguments about /Pale Fire/ the same way.
>
> Jerry Friedman
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Jerry: when a mathematical proof ends with Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstrandum =
³which was to be demonstrated²) both tradition and syntax demand that Q.E.D.
must follow a precise recap of what one has claimed to have just proved! It
is then up to one¹s peers to verify, find errors or suggest improvements in
the proof. Historically, the ³court may be out² for ages; indeed judgments
can be reversed and restored several times, as has happened with some of
Euclid¹s Theorems that he ended with a bold Q.E.D. Serious provers and
proof-checkers would shun phrases like ³proof beyond ultimate proof,²
although one hears such claims in the amateur, popular literature. You will
know that a faulty proof, or the absence of a valid proof, tells us nothing
about the truth of the target proposition. Some truths are provably
unprovable. Honest. (In passing, note the other terminating phrase
associated with Euclid: Q.E.F, quod erat faciendum (³which was to be
done/achieved²), more appropriate where one has promised to do or construct
something. Nabokovian precision rules, OK?)
Allowing for the obvious fact that the so-called Pale Fire Puzzle is not a
mathematical problem, we are still entitled to a clear statement (or list of
statements) before a Q.E.D. Is flourished as to ³what has been
demonstrated.² Here are some possibilities associated with your previous
postings (not that I can claim to have read or understood them all;
apologies offered and corrections expected.)
1. Pale Fire covers many topics but ³death/mortality,² ³other worlds,² ³the
after-world,² and ³diverse modes of survival² play a major role.
[Hard to deny]
2. Some of VN¹s characters claim a belief in, and ³reported events²
indicate, some form of ³physical life after death.²
[Reasonable statement]
3. ONE purpose of Pale Fire is to prove some form of ³physical life after
death,² and, taken together with VN¹s other works, that we attach some
factual, evidential support from (2). Also that VN himself generally shares
the beliefs of (2)
[Here, some doubts start a-peeping with regards to character honesty.¹
Which parts of PF are true-fiction¹ and which false-fiction?¹ World
fiction has many credible accounts of seances and other evidence of ghostly
survivals. Dante, Ulysses and Ezekiel wouldn¹t lie! But, non-fictional
reports of life after death¹ have, so far, failed to meet Humean¹
standards of evidence.¹ Statement 3 remains plausible, subject to one¹s
definition of literary-truth² and ³proof.¹ The big advantage of (3) is that
it doesn¹t necessarily contradict the many other readings of PF, apart
perhaps for the widely-held feeling that Nabokov¹s novels have no such
didactic intent!
4. THE sole purpose of Pale Fire is as in (3) and that sole purpose is
clearly indicated by VN¹s text (and other extra-textual clues). Furthermore,
that purpose has been achieved. Careful readers can be defined as those
convinced by Pale Fire that [I don¹t believe that Statement 4 has been
proved yet. I can envisage variations of 4 that increase its plausibility.
but it seems unconvincing that such a complex, multilayered novel should be
reduced to a re-statement of VN¹s putative views on time, survival, memory,
resurrection, transcendence (and other hand-waving terms ;=))
One character that needs more attention is the Gardner, the last person
named in Shade¹s final lines. I identify him with Gerald Gardner, the
founder of the modern ³Wicca² (or ³Wica²) pagan pantheist, Witchcraft
movement (1954). Its pentagram logo would satisfy the wildest Nabokovian
demand for symmetry (mirror-folding and rotational). Also, most Wiccans
believe in various forms of life-after-death and are active in spirit
communications. Hazel¹s Old Barn experience would not surprise my Gardner.
This link supports theory (3) above.
I also wonder if the link Wordsworth -> Wadsworth -> Longfellow -> Dante has
been explored? My Archive searches reveal only an inconsequential ref. in
2003 to Longfellow¹s plodding poem ³The Wreck of the Hesperus² which has no
real connection with the ³Hesperus² (planet/star Venus) of Canto 3, line
529. (Kinbote¹s commentry is silent whereas he is usually quick to locate
Shade¹s allusions to other poets) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was first
American to translate Dante¹s Comedy. (See Matthew Pearl¹s enthralling ³The
Dante Club,² a real Whodunit) Several Shade-Longfellow ³coincidences²: both
college professor/poets of great popularity and inferior quality (e.g.,
often unintentionally funny); both experiment with European verse-forms;
both lost loved ones through accident.
PS: In Kinbote¹s farewell at end of his final meandering commentary, ³ ... I
may ... cook up a stage play, an old fashioned melodrama with three
principles: ³
But he then lists three principals: the lunatic assassin, the lunatic king,
and ³a distinguished old poet who stumbles by chance into the line of fire,
and perishes in the clash between the two figments.²
Is this a typo in my Penguin Classics Pale Fire, reprinted 2000? Or some
intended subtlety throwing light on Kinbote¹s state-of-mind? I can¹t locate
any prior discussion. The principals seem unprincipled.
Kinbote also uses ³confusely² (p 149) ³ ... but [Shade] also made me regret
that I prevented him from getting to the point he was confusely and
self-consciously making (for as I have said in an earlier note, he never
cared to refer to his dead child) ...²
³Confusely² lies uneasily between the usual dictionary options: ³confusedly²
and ³confusingly.² Any ideas?
And surely Kinbote is the confused one, since by the time he wrote this
note, Shade had referred to Hazel often in the Cantos.
It does remind me, though, that Longfellow was silent: gaps between his
wife¹s and daughter¹s deaths and his writing poems about them.
Finally, for Jim Twiggs: O Lawd! That movie Pi! Such a mix of truths
(numbers are the language of nature; there are patterns in nature) and
UTTER, dangerous NONSENSE (the Bible encodes God-given gematrial truths via
the abitrary numeric values of Hebrew and Greek letters; the Stock Market
fluctuations have patterns that can lead to reliable predictions). In
addition to the helpful Skeptical Inquirer citations you posted, a book
called ³The Tiger that Isn¹t² (Michael Blastland [sic] & Andrew Dilnot [sic
again], Profile Books, 2007) is a readable layperson¹s warning against
statistical bamboozles.
skb
On 03/04/2009 16:29, "NABOKV-L" <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
> Jerry Friedman writes:
>
> Jim, thanks for the link to the Alexandrov essay. Before
> we decide whether Nabokov's characters can have free will
> and what that implies about ethics in hi sbooks, maybe
> we'd better settle the definition of free will first.
> Alexandrov mentions that the meanings of "awareness" and
> "consciousness" are problematic, but not this problem.
>
> A striking thing about both Alexandrov's and Don Johnson's
> books is that (as I recall) their essays on /Pale Fire/
> don't say what their essays on other Nabokov books say:
> that it's an example of his otherworlds theme. Yet I
> think it's a remarkable example of regression: Nabokov
> created Kinbote, who created Eystein and Hodinski, who
> created dubious kinds of art. In the /Cycnos/ essay,
> Alexandrov says in general that the flaunted "madeness"
> of Nabokov's novels can be seen as a "model" of the
> madeness of our world by God. I imagine he intends this
> to apply to /Pale Fire/ as much as to the others.
>
> Your reference to the movie /Pi/ (which I haven't seen)
> reminds me of a real sufferer from the same mania--I
> forget his name. When I was in college in the early '80s
> I saw a pamphlet he had written about the messages in
> stock-market numbers and the like. He would close his
> numerical demonstrations with phrases such as "Q.E.D.,
> Q.E.D., proof beyond ultimate proof!" I feel like
> closing my arguments about /Pale Fire/ the same way.
>
> Jerry Friedman
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/