Traveller’s Comments (group member since Sep 15, 2013)

Traveller’s comments from the Foucault's Pendulum group.

I think this book is so richly referential that 100 people could read it together and each one will notice different things about it; which makes it great to read it in a group.

Michelle, I don't know if you do/have done PC gaming where one can save your game at any interval that you wish; but being able to this has often made me wish that I could do this in real life; that I could erase what I just did and go back to a previous 'saved game' like one can do when you make a mistake in your game... :P

Causabon and Belbo's saving and then erasing and retrieving even 'erased' files made me think of this.

Like I mentioned earlier, I also love how Eco does a play on ideas regarding digital/human memory and references Proust in the process.

I'm starting to think I should have included the next thread's first few chapters with this one: I've been posting about the cretins and the fools there under the spoiler tags. :)

What the heck, let me post it here too, since it's being mentioned, under its little spoiler tags:
More pranks and riffery takes place with the cretins and the fools in chapter 10. (view spoiler)[ When Eco refers to St Anselm's argument in favor of the existence of God, he is sort of poking fun on more than one level, because part of St Anselm's argument goes:

"Then is there no such nature, since the fool has said in his heart: God is not? But certainly this same fool, when he hears this very thing that I am saying - something than which nothing greater can be imagined - understands what he hears; and what he understands is in his understanding, even if he does not understand that it is. For it is one thing for a thing to be in the understanding and another to understand that a thing is.

Gaunilo of Marmoutiers illustrated the apparent illogical aspects of some of the aspects of Anselm's argument in his analogy of The Lost Island, and his reply is often spoken of (in an ironic way) as "the reply from the fool"

Personally I find Gaunilo's argument a lot more convincing than that of St Anselm, the latter which rests totally on the assumption that God exists in the first place. So I had to giggle a bit when Belbo calls both their arguments 'fool's arguments'. But then, at the end of the chapter, Eco has Belbo close off with : "Everything I've said to you so far is false." *sigh* (hide spoiler)]

I'm starting to wish I hadn't lent that book I had on Chaos to a friend who moved and never gave my book back... :(

I found a few books on the subject here on GR:

Does God Play Dice?: The New Mathematics of Chaos
Fractals and Chaos: The Mandelbrot Set and Beyond
Newton's Clock: Chaos in the Solar System
In the Wake of Chaos: Unpredictable Order in Dynamical Systems

Aloha wrote: "Here's the translation of the quote that was in Hebrew:

"When the Light of the Endless was drawn in the form of a straight line in the Void...it was not drawn and extended immediately downwards, i..."

Thanks, Aloha! That sounds biblical, but more mathematical than the Bible; which seems to point to its more kabbalistic origin? Who would have thought that mystical sects would be so very pre-occupied with mathematics. But I suppose it does make a kind of sense once you think about about--the 'magic in numbers' train of thinking that seems to dovetail with the 'magic in language' train of thinking.

@ Jonfaith: I'm enjoying your commentary delivered in an almost stream of consciousness form, Jonfaith, making us a party to your thoughts and impressions as you re-embark on this journey from a different port as previously. :)

@ Dolors: I'm not sure exactly to where you have read by now, Dolors, but penis envy is mentioned a bit further on in the text (which made me wonder what Lit Bug is currently doing. We had a little chat re the subject not too long ago.)

But back to the Gnostic Gospels: I would have given Pagels' book a quick skim through again now if I wasn't also still struggling with getting two other books from the 'currently reading ' pile into the 'read' pile.

But this review of Chris' cropped up which I found strangely relevant to our reading here. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Dolors wrote: "The inscription behind Lorenza's photograph Casaubon finds in Belbo's apartment makes me wonder about the portrait of the feminine archetype Eco might be trying to paint:

"For I am the first and t..."

Oh yes, I remember reading about the Nag Hammadi scrolls long ago, and also about the Gnostic gospels. Have you read Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels ? I actually did read it long ago, but can't remember much of it.

Interesting connotations, Dolors! I love how you're picking up on Eco's clues.

I had always thought 'Sofia' stood for 'wisdom', but now that you mention the Demiurge, that is mentioned in Belbo's notes a bit further on in the book.

Btw, you guys can move on to thread no. 2 whenever you feel ready: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Aloha wrote: "My note on the chapters. I counted the grouping just in case there's a clue to that.

The chapters are in groupings of the ten Sephirot. Keter (will), 2 chapters. Hokhmah (wisdom), 4 ch. Binah (un..."

Ah, okay, good idea to count the groupings. I get a sort of pattern with 2, 4, 16, but after that doesn't seem an obvious pattern, unless we drew a graph of it? I'm curious now of what shape it will make in graph form. I used to have software that does it for you, but I think one can do it with Powerpoint and possibly Excel as well.

(Btw, have you seen my message 21 above, and also https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... ? ) for physical interpretations and representations of the "tree of life?". Also for how the Hebrew letters look for each Sepiroth.

So you are soon to attain some wisdom, apparently. :)

Jonfaith wrote: "RE: Msg 23
Well, now, that was definitive Holy Shit Moment, had to refer to the terms of service for the proper classification."

Sorry, did Kitty give you a fright? But did it work at at least? :D

ROFL

Oh! I still wanted to ask if anyone knows what "Metacyclosynchrotron " means, and while trying to find an answer on the internet, lookee what I found!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sha...

Hmm, I wonder how important those quotes at the beginning of each chapter are? (To the plot and to unravel Eco's puzzles, I mean)

Oh, and I've been wanting to say that I quite enjoy Eco's sense of humor... :P

For your convenience, the qualities represented by the 10 sephira, are:

1. Keter-"Crown" (Chapters 1 & 2)
2. Chokhmah/Hohkmah-"Wisdom" (Chapters 3 - 6)
3. Binah-"Understanding" (Chapters 7 - 22)
4. Chesed/Hesed-"Kindness"
5. Gevurah-"Severity"
6. Tiferet-"Beauty"
7. Netzach-"Eternity"
8. Hod-"Splendour"
9. Yesod-"Foundation"
10. Malkuth-"Kingship"

Jan-Maat wrote: "Talking of jokes I like that the hero is called Causabon - who is the Anglican Priest from Middlemarch who wastes his life on Biblical studies not realising that that German scholarshi..."

Yes! I was going to mention his name in the second thread, but you've put it very nicely in context there, Jan-maat.
(" about Dagon the Fish God and co." <<< that was your own little joke, wasn't it? ;P )

But anyway, yes, in the case of Middlemarch's Casaubon, the stodgy old guy never got around to publishing his work before he died, so I was wondering if that somehow characterized the Casaubon in FP.

Dolors wrote: "Will Eco be playing a game of mirrors to the reader? Starting at "Keter" the beginning of the universe, which might turn out to be the end? "

Eco makes numerous literary and cultural jokes. I vote we all make mention of them in the relevant threads as we go along. I found lots of them in the next section. I feel like posting them now already before I forget them. I'll just cover them (in the next thread) with spoiler tags in case people feel tempted to peep early.

One of the jokes is pretty obvious. As the joke dawns on you, you realize that Eco is playing with the reader with a straight face for most of the time. :)

Jonfaith wrote: "I really enjoyed the technological nostalga discussion this a.m. I had hoped to wait until Turkey Day to begin FP but the pull from the excelelnt comments has rendered that impossible."

(view spoiler)[

Yooou shallll read Foucault's Pendulum NOOOOOWWWW!!!! (hide spoiler)]

Per Wikipedia, Temurah is one of the three ancient methods used by Kabbalists to rearrange words and sentences in the Bible, in the belief that by this method they can derive the esoteric substratum and deeper spiritual meaning of the words.

Sidebar:(view spoiler)[(The others are Gematria and Notarikon.) Temurah may be used to change letters in certain words to create a new meaning for a Biblical statement. The Hebrew alphabet is an Abjad or consonantary alphabet. Techniques that applied to English will mostly transform sense into a nonsensical series of letters are more feasible in Hebrew.

There are three simple forms of Temurah:

Atbash: Replacing the first letter with the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second with the next-to-last, and so on.

a=z, b=y, c=x, etc.

Avgad: Replacing each letter with the preceding letter.

a=b, b=c, c=d

Albam: Replacing the first letter of the alphabet with the twelfth, the second with the thirteenth, and so on.

a=l, b=m, c=n, etc. (hide spoiler)]

Gematria is a traditional Jewish system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person's age, the calendar year, or the like.
Sidebar:(view spoiler)[
Although the term is Hebrew, it most likely derives from Greek geōmetriā, "geometry", which was used as a translation of gēmaṭriyā, though some scholars believe it to derive from Greek grammateia, rather; it's possible that both words had an influence on the formation of the Hebrew word.
(Some also hold it to derive from the order of the Greek alphabet, gamma being the third letter of the Greek alphabet (gamma + tria).) The word has been extant in English since the 17th century from translations of works by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Although ostensibly derived from Greek, it is largely used in Jewish texts, notably in those associated with the Kabbalah.

Some identify two forms of gematria: the "revealed" form, which is prevalent in many hermeneutic methods found throughout Rabbinic literature, and the "mystical" form, a largely Kabbalistic practice. (hide spoiler)]

The best-known example of Gematria is the Hebrew word Chai ("life"), which is composed of two letters which add up to 18. This has made 18 a "lucky number" among Jews, and gifts in multiples of 18 are very common.
There's more about gematria here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria

This is starting to sound a lot like the Da Vinci code, huh?

I knew the Greeks were obsessed with numbers, but I hadn't realized the extent of Jewish obsession with numbers.

I had known a tiny bit about the Kabbalah, knowing it was a mystical Jewish school of thought rather reminiscent (to me) of hinduism in the sense of that I knew that some Western schools of "magical" thought superimposed the Hindu chakras over the tree of life of the mystical Kabbalah.

So, the Hindu version:



transposed upon the tree of life gives the Kabbalistic version:



What seems to be emerging to me from what Eco is writing and our research on that, though, is the idea that words and numbers have 'magic' connotations to them.

One is also reminded of the Biblical pronunciation of that : "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1.1)

Jim wrote: "I wonder if a century from now, these books will need additional notes added to explain "word processor", "cell phone"..."

I feel pretty sure they'd scratch their heads at the idea of a word processor, at the very least.
Which reminds me I still wanted to comment on something; let me quote:

"I knew why Diotallevi distrusted Abulafia. He had heard that word processors could change the order of letters. A text, thus, might generate its opposite and result in obscure prophecies. "It's a game of permutation," Belbo said, trying to explain. "Temurah? Isn't that the name for it? Isn't that what the devout rabbi does to ascend to the Gates of Splendor?"

Firstly, I'm not sure what he is referring to in mentioning that 'word processors' could 'change the order of letters'? Was this some kind of urban myth at the time, or is he referring to the fact that one could program software to do permutations?

Also, I wanted to look up 'Temurah'. :P

Jim wrote: " one of the greatest innovations was when PC's had a hard drive added. Before that, just two floppy drives - one for your app, one for your data."

I hadn't realized that. No wonder they were so slow! I did know that they had tiny teeny small amounts of memory, both regarding RAM and storage. I remember a time when 400MB was an amazingly large amount of storage space and quite sufficient for all one's needs. Of course, people back then didn't keep videos and films on their hard drives, and PC's could hardly reproduce anything close to realistic sounds.

I rather enjoyed Eco's musings on the wonders of digital storage, and no doubt at the time that the book was published, what he wrote was probably regarded as a lot of geeky showing off regarding this new technology. But how Eco must smile if he were to read through those passages again today.

I remember that there were two kinds of disks "floppies" (which were the very oldest kind that came just after people were using magnetic tape (or still contemporaneous with those?)) that consisted of (and please correct me here if I'm wrong) magnetic tape inside a sort of plastic cover. This disc was soft and could be bent. I presume this is what Casaubon was working with? Later on you got stiffies (and/or still contemporaneous with floppies) which consisted of a smaller harder disc which could not be bent.

Only after that did we get CD's then DVD's and then sticks and external drives and the likes.

Talking of the nitty gritty: yip, before the days of Windows, one had to navigate through your PC manually! (And it was not amiss at all for PC users to know at least a little bit of BASIC. I still remember doing my first Hello World! :D)

Okay, waiting time is up! If you have read up to the end of chapter 6, please have at it. I've made our first thread cover a very small section to accommodate people becoming involved without having to read a long stretch first.

There you go, everyone! https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Eco quotes from the Jorge Luis Borges poem
El golem:

Judá León se dio a permutaciones
de letras y a complejas variaciones
y al fin pronunció el Nombre que es la Clave,

la Puerta, el Eco, el Huésped y el Palacio,

(The entire poem can be read at:
http://www.poemas-del-alma.com/jorge-... )


Friend Kalliope helped me out with a translation of the quoted passages:

Judá León se dio a permutaciones
Juda León worked out (various) permutations

De letras y a complejas variaciones
of letters and complex variations

Y al fin pronunció el Nombre que es la Clave,
And finally pronounced the Name which is the Key,

La Puerta, el Eco, el Huésped y el Palacio...
The Door, the Echo, the Guest and the Palace...

Many thanks to Kalliope!
***


Lee todo en: El golem - Poemas de Jorge Luis Borges http://www.poemas-del-alma.com/jorge-...