Subject
Pale Fire, Godel and mathematics
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Dear List,
I recently read Stan Kelly-Bootle's article 'One Peut-Être, Two
Peut-Être, Three Peut-Être, More', and
his comparison between the 'solution' to Pale Fire and Fermat's Last
Theorem/the P=NP problem
made me think of another mathematical analogy: Godel's Incompleteness
Theorem, which states, in
a very simplified manner, that even with an infinite amount of axioms,
or ground rules, one can still
not answer every question.
I am reminded of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem in Pale Fire because it
appears that however
many axioms Nabokov added to the text (Kinbote commits suicide, Shade
wrote the index, Kinbote is
Botkin) the 'real' solution still could not be reached. Perhaps there is
a 'solution' out there to the
authorship debate, and many of the other contentious points within Pale
Fire, but they simply cannot
be reached logically, even with an infinite amount of axioms, and this
is what makes the text so
interesting!
Best,
Simon
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I recently read Stan Kelly-Bootle's article 'One Peut-Être, Two
Peut-Être, Three Peut-Être, More', and
his comparison between the 'solution' to Pale Fire and Fermat's Last
Theorem/the P=NP problem
made me think of another mathematical analogy: Godel's Incompleteness
Theorem, which states, in
a very simplified manner, that even with an infinite amount of axioms,
or ground rules, one can still
not answer every question.
I am reminded of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem in Pale Fire because it
appears that however
many axioms Nabokov added to the text (Kinbote commits suicide, Shade
wrote the index, Kinbote is
Botkin) the 'real' solution still could not be reached. Perhaps there is
a 'solution' out there to the
authorship debate, and many of the other contentious points within Pale
Fire, but they simply cannot
be reached logically, even with an infinite amount of axioms, and this
is what makes the text so
interesting!
Best,
Simon
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/