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A scientific approach to the plot of The Crying of Lot 49 leads us to the exploration of the notions of entropy in thermodynamics and information theory. Consequently, a significant portion of class today was spent on discussion of Maxwell's Demon. The Demon is a thought experiment by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell designed to break the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The Law states "the entropy of an isolated system which is not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." Equilibrium is a move toward equality or sameness. Pynchon creates a novel in which the protagonist escapes her mundane and homogenous life by organizing and creating order in a world of mystery. Thus Oedipa becomes the Demon as she tries to solve the mystery of Tristero; she attempts to find the true meaning of the information she gets. By allowing Oedipa to escape and evaluate the homogeneity of the American life, Pynchon comments on it as well. Beginning at a high level of thermodynamic entropy, Thomas Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49 actively eliminates the sameness in the life of Oedipa Maas, thus preventing her own cultural heat death.
Another theme of the novel is Informational Entropy and its connection to thermodynamic entropy. Entropy of information moves from low levels to higher levels within the novel as more information channels are introduced. Examples of these channels include W.A.S.T.E and Yoyodyne. As Oedipa connects the world of the Tristero she increases informational entropy. This theory is important to the book structurally as well, because Pynchon ends the book with high Informational entropy and high indeterminacy: there is no final answer; the abrupt ending leaves the reader wondering if Oedipa could have found the final meaning of all the information she had gathered.
Word Count: 299
Quotes
Page 147: "San Narciso had no boundaries. No one knew yet how to draw them. She had dedicated herself, weeks ago, to making sense of what Inverarity had left behind, never suspecting that the legacy was America."
* Oedipa finds chaotic sameness in the system of American culture. Inverarity owns everything. Oedipa sees America coming to a heat death; American's thermodynamic entropy is too high due to a lack of variety. This is likely due to the low levels of information entropy in one single system of mail carriers.
Page 84-85: "The sensitive must receive that staggering set of energies, and feed back something like the same quantity of information. To keep it all cycling. On the secular level all we can see is one piston, hopefully moving. One little movement, against all that massive complex information, destroyed over and over with each power stroke."
* This quote also embraces the second law of thermodynamics as well as information entropy. Nefastis describes the entire process of the laws. As individuals, we are always gathering information and afterwards we must process and organize these fact or clues into a form that is understandable to our minds. The more information we receive and discover, the closer we hope to be towards comprehending the information we have compiled.
Key Terms
Second Law or Thermodynamics (Law of Entropy): 1. The quality of matter or energy deteriorates over time; thus useable energy becomes unusable. 2. In a closed system, disorganization, randomness and chaos increase.
Communication theory: The idea that information is the possibility of what could be said. The more communicational channels in existence, the greater the informational entropy.
Cultural heat death: Once equilibrium is reached in a system and entropy is at its highest molecules become useless because there is no energy left in the universe. Pynchon applies this physical definition to that of culture and life. When complete assimilation and homogeneity prevails there will be no energy left in culture. Thus culture dies a heat death.
Information Theory: it is the statistical theory of communication that is used to find out the speed and quantity of information transmission.
Pre-Lecture Music
We started today's class off with the work of Israeli DJ Kutiman's ThruYou project as an example--along with Girl Talk during the lecture about Barthelme, Thompson, and Reed--of postmodern pastiche.
Through the luck of the draw you ended up with having to write notes for a difficult section of class, but you did a very good job. I realize that you were up against word limits for the summary, so you couldn’t necessarily talk about how Tristero/WASTE adds new information channels and provides the possibility for cultural renewal. But you could have drawn on a passage from 101 or 141 that would have given you a chance to talk about this. It’s an important point that is in the main missing from your notes.
I’m also not sure what the difference is between information theory and communication theory in your definitions. The definition you have under communication theory is the concept that the class needs to know, but it should be put under “information” or “informational entropy.”
One caveat is that you treat the word “information” in different ways throughout the notes. Some of the time you use it to stand in for “meaning,” using the word as it is commonly used. Information is the possibility of meaning rather than the meaning itself as far as Pynchon is concerned.
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Comments (1)
Brian Croxall said
at 11:06 pm on Apr 16, 2009
Through the luck of the draw you ended up with having to write notes for a difficult section of class, but you did a very good job. I realize that you were up against word limits for the summary, so you couldn’t necessarily talk about how Tristero/WASTE adds new information channels and provides the possibility for cultural renewal. But you could have drawn on a passage from 101 or 141 that would have given you a chance to talk about this. It’s an important point that is in the main missing from your notes.
I’m also not sure what the difference is between information theory and communication theory in your definitions. The definition you have under communication theory is the concept that the class needs to know, but it should be put under “information” or “informational entropy.”
One caveat is that you treat the word “information” in different ways throughout the notes. Some of the time you use it to stand in for “meaning,” using the word as it is commonly used. Information is the possibility of meaning rather than the meaning itself as far as Pynchon is concerned.
You don't have permission to comment on this page.