Unthinking Thinking: Jorge Luis Borges, Mathematics, and the New PhysicsThis authoritative study explores the scientific and mathematical cultural milieu that patterns much of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges's narrative design. Although criticism of Borges's fiction and essays has long emphasized philosophical traditions, Merrell expands the context of this interrogation of traditions by revealing how early twentieth-century and contemporary mathematics and physics also participated in a similar exploration. Topics treated include the semiotic flows of paradox and contradiction, the patterns of infinities, the limits of natural and mathematical languages, and the narrative function in scientific theory. Against this, background, Merrell provides incisive readings of Borges's complex fiction and essays. |
Contents
| xiii | |
| xiv | |
| 10 | |
A Predilection for Paradox | 25 |
According the Eye of the Beholder | 26 |
To Reach the Unreachable | 36 |
The Demise of Totalizing Quests | 47 |
Models of Infinity | 48 |
Singularities and Other Strange Phenomena | 139 |
What Is Real? | 149 |
The Most Probable World | 150 |
A Throw of the Dice | 164 |
Multiple Realities | 171 |
Quantumand TextualInterconnectedness | 176 |
Symmetries Mirrors Broken Symmetries | 192 |
Suspended within Language | 203 |
The End of Certainty | 61 |
Interlude | 77 |
Number PowerWord Power | 78 |
The World as Dream | 85 |
The Universe as Library | 97 |
The Fearful Sphere | 98 |
Parmenides Triumphs | 111 |
Chronos in Chains | 127 |
Times Eternal Struggle | 128 |
Language against Itself | 205 |
The Rules of the Game | 222 |
Texts of Our Own Making | 228 |
The Receding Horizon | 235 |
Notes | 239 |
Works Cited | 259 |
Index | 285 |
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Common terms and phrases
actually Aleph appears Averroes become believe Bohm's Book of Sand Borges's Borgesian Cantor Chapter Four Chapter Seven Chapter Six Circular Ruins conceived concept consciousness construct contemporary contrast dimension dream Einstein Einsteinian entails eternal eternal return exist experience fact Ficciones fiction fictive finite framework Gödel Heisenberg hence impossible incommensurable infinite number infinity intertextuality Jorge Luis Borges labyrinth Library of Babel logical Lönnrot many-worlds interpretation mathematical mathematicians means mental metaphor metaphysical mind mirror mystical naked singularity narrator nature nominalist notion objects observer paradox particle perceive perhaps perspective Philosophy physicists physics possible potential problem quantum theory random reader reality reveals scientific scientist sense simultaneity singularity space space-time speaking story strange Suspended within Language symbols symmetry things thought three-dimensional three-dimensional space timeless tion Tlön Tlönians ultimately University Press Vaihinger words world-image writing York Zahir Zeno Zeno's Zeno's paradoxes