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Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)

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Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)

#31

Post by lacker »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #23
lacker wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I don't agree with that review at all, and I loved Everything and More . I'm even somewhat of a "finitist" myself mathematically, but I think you can just view the whole hierarchy of infinities as a finite mode of description, and get utility from it without worrying about the "reality" of the whole thing. But that's a bit of an aside. The review-writer clearly hates the book before he even gets to the mat…

> "He incorrectly suggests that the axiom of choice is used for Cantor's diagonal argument" This alone is a pretty substantial, even foundational, error. The author of the review, Rudy Rucker, is a sort of cult/underground author of math-heavy science fiction. I don't think he's opposed to framing things in a literary way, so long as it's not misleading or falsely dramatized. Like, e.g., Godel ending his days in some…

The DFW style is not just "literary", it's dense, full of self-referential hints, critical footnotes, invented acronyms, retellings of the same events from multiple perspectives. I like Rudy Rucker a lot but his work is nothing like it.

The core problem with this book is that it is a great book for people who love both math and Infinite Jest. But, that might be an audience of nobody. Or almost nobody, because it does include me.

Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)

#33

Post by eszed »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #26
npilk wrote: post #7

I've seen a theory that the mistakes Pemulis makes are intentional, and signal that he isn't as smart as he thinks and that he doesn't really have everything in control. I'm not sure; clearly DFW had some math aptitude but these also could have been honest mistakes. Presumably it would have been harder for editors to check these things in the 90s. The probability error seems harder to explain and likely just a mistak…

Would Pemulis be Polonius though? If he were the advisor to the king, then the king would more likely be Tavis, not Hal. I do like the idea of Mario as a court jester though.

I associated Pemulis with Polonius based on the phonemic similarity of the names. I don't have the maths background to evaluate the mistakes, but agree that if intentional they "match" with the character's presentation in Hamlet.

Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)

#34

Post by lemonberry »

chamomeal wrote: post #21
lemonberry wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon? If not, it's worth checking out.

Inherent Vice is such a fun whacky read too. I kinda wanted to read Gravity’s Rainbow but my friend (who also recommended Inherent Vice) said I probably wouldn’t have the patience for it lol. He’s usually right

Inherent Vice was great too. Gravity's Rainbow took me a few times to get into but it was a wild ride.

His early book "The Crying of Lot 49" was also really good.

Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)

#35

Post by RunSet »

npilk wrote: post #7

I've seen a theory that the mistakes Pemulis makes are intentional, and signal that he isn't as smart as he thinks and that he doesn't really have everything in control. I'm not sure; clearly DFW had some math aptitude but these also could have been honest mistakes. Presumably it would have been harder for editors to check these things in the 90s. The probability error seems harder to explain and likely just a mistak…

Perhaps my favorite deliberate error in arithmetic is from Winston Groom's Forrest Gump, during the protagonist's tour in Vietnam:

> I am the machine gun ammo bearer, cause they figger I can carry a lot of shit on account of my size. Before we lef, a couple of other fellers axed if I would mind carryin some of their han grenades so’s they could carry more orations, an I agreed. It didn’t hurt me none. Also, Sergeant Kranz made me carry a ten-gallon water can that weighed about fifty pounds.

Unlike Forrest, the reader knows a gallon of water weighs roughly eight pounds and is not spared the extent of his burden.

Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)

#36

Post by dkarl »

lacker wrote: post #20
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #19

DFW also wrote Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity -- an uncritical review of Cantor's work, which was absolutely loaded with errors. Rudy Rucker wrote a scathing review here: https://www.rudyrucker.com/oldhomepage/wallace_review.pdf I actually read Everything and More and it's probably even worse than that. Though I'll admit that I'm a little bit biased; I'm a sort of Aristotelian Realist or even a Fi…

Personally I don't agree with that review at all, and I loved Everything and More . I'm even somewhat of a "finitist" myself mathematically, but I think you can just view the whole hierarchy of infinities as a finite mode of description, and get utility from it without worrying about the "reality" of the whole thing. But that's a bit of an aside. The review-writer clearly hates the book before he even gets to the mat…

> The whole book is striking a middle ground between expressing every step of mathematical rigor, and describing in a more literary way how to feel about these concepts

I really hate this. If you don't care to understand something, why would you want to absorb the feelings that somebody else thinks you should have from understanding it? It reminds me of all the cringey posturing that undergrads engage in because their English professor mentioned a couple of philosophers during lectures and it totally changed their wardrobe.

Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)

#37

Post by gowld »

RunSet wrote: post #35
npilk wrote: post #7

I've seen a theory that the mistakes Pemulis makes are intentional, and signal that he isn't as smart as he thinks and that he doesn't really have everything in control. I'm not sure; clearly DFW had some math aptitude but these also could have been honest mistakes. Presumably it would have been harder for editors to check these things in the 90s. The probability error seems harder to explain and likely just a mistak…

Perhaps my favorite deliberate error in arithmetic is from Winston Groom's Forrest Gump, during the protagonist's tour in Vietnam: > I am the machine gun ammo bearer, cause they figger I can carry a lot of shit on account of my size. Before we lef, a couple of other fellers axed if I would mind carryin some of their han grenades so’s they could carry more orations, an I agreed. It didn’t hurt me none. Also, Sergeant…

Eighty pounds is "about fifty pounds", especially considering that a water can worth carrying at all is often not full, and insofar as nothing else in the paragraph is given a specific weight so the precise number doesn't really matter.

Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)

#38

Post by gowld »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #19

DFW also wrote Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity -- an uncritical review of Cantor's work, which was absolutely loaded with errors. Rudy Rucker wrote a scathing review here: https://www.rudyrucker.com/oldhomepage/wallace_review.pdf I actually read Everything and More and it's probably even worse than that. Though I'll admit that I'm a little bit biased; I'm a sort of Aristotelian Realist or even a Fi…

The problem with Everything and More is not because it is "uncritical"; it's that DFW didn't understand it and was "not even wrong" when explaining it. Even if you choose not to engage with Cantor's hierarchy of infinities because you don't find it interesting or relevant to the (finite or smaller infinite) sets you care about, there's nothing wrong with it as mathematics.

Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)

#39

Post by gowld »

lacker wrote: post #14
andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #10

> Again, Mike Pemulis is lecturing Hal, but this time he is helping Hal prepare for the college board exams. Pemulis states that for the function x^n, the derivative is nx + x^(n-1). In fact, the correct expression is nx^(n-1). This, too, may be a typographical error. Another possibility is that Pemulis is simply bad at math :D

Reading the DFW biography, Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story, it said that there were hundreds of cases where the editor claimed something was a typographical error, and DFW insisted that actually it was precisely how he meant it to be. They went back and forth for months, with the publisher eventually charging DFW a fee for all the extra labor involved. So... we can't know for sure, but there's a strong case that an…

> (Which arguably has its own errors, but those tend to fall more in the category of simplifications for the lay reader, IMO.)

They were more mis-simplifications by the lay writer.

Re: Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)

#40

Post by griffzhowl »

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #10

> Again, Mike Pemulis is lecturing Hal, but this time he is helping Hal prepare for the college board exams. Pemulis states that for the function x^n, the derivative is nx + x^(n-1). In fact, the correct expression is nx^(n-1). This, too, may be a typographical error. Another possibility is that Pemulis is simply bad at math :D

Yeah, that looks to me far more likely to be deliberate. The obvious comedy of the situation is someone taking himself to be well-versed enough to be giving a lecture while in fact being an incompetent buffoon.
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