Re: Pynchon & paranoia

From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 09 1997 - 09:34:48 MDT


At 06:08 PM 9/9/97 -0700, you wrote:
>I've been wondering whether paranoia can be defined, at least
>in part, as abnormally high sensitivity of the pattern-detecting
>faculty; and if so, whether it can be detected by asking the
>subject to find patterns in random dots.

On a non-related note, but very interesting nonetheless, Thomas Pynchon
covers this idea quite a bit in his novels, _Gravity's Rainbow_ being my
personal favorite.

"About the paranoia often noted under the drug, there is nothing
remarkable. Like other sorts of paranoia, it is nothing less than the
onset, the leading edge, of the discovery that everything is connected,
everything in Creation, a secondary illumination—not yet blindingly One,
but at least connected... ."

On a somewhat more topical note... Have a lot of people here read Pynchon?
 Do you think that he might be an extropian? Especially note references to
the "counterforce" in the context of entropy in _GR_.

        -SAVE THE WHALES-
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