Page 5 - OCTOPUS COMMISSION REPORT SCHWARZKOMMANDO ENG
P. 5
OCTOPUS COMMISSION REPORT NOV 3TH 2101
Net: Two clues do not make a proof. hypothesis.
Dr Lem: I’ll accept that. Yet the hypothe- Dr Net: I am forced to agree, though wi-
sis is suggestive. Pynchon and the Here- thout conviction. Yet such a reshuffling of
ro, that is, exactly the Schwarzkomman- plans disgusts me.
do, who knew a lot about rockets!
Dr Mart: It seems plausible to me, EXCERPT #3
perhaps not certain, but plausible.
Dr Recht: Also, remember the strange Among the various debates, there was
symbol on the face of the Issuer. an even more discussed concern regar-
Dr Net: The key? It could only be an al- ding the signals received at Yevpatoria,
lusion to the code. Every code has a key. namely on the related meanings that are
And he uses a code to communicate. deducible from the relationship betwe-
Dr Recht: Possibly, but... en the Haiku, the metamorphic phases
Dr Lem: But you’re thinking of a contro- of the face in the video signal and the
versial symbol, aren’t you? formal articulation of the Totem, inclu-
Dr Recht: I was thinking, although with ding the sound fragments.
some reticence, of the symbol of the... For convenience, here is another excerpt
Dr Net: An atrocious symbol! If it were from the commission’s proceedings.
true, it would mean that the Issuer is
openly threatening us. Dr Recht: In my opinion, the crux of the
Dr Lem: Calm down. Remember, we matter is to be found in the overabun-
don’t know what the Issuer knows about dance of references to which we are
us. How he reasons, whether he percei- subjected by the set of signs coming
ves time as we do... he might even mix from the Issuer and with the Issuer, whi-
things up by trial and error, using ran- ch we can now call Schwarzkommando
dom pieces to make contact. Or he sim- (henceforth abbreviated to Schwarz).
ply plays with human symbols with an And it is not just a question of number,
almost divine indifference. In any case, if but of a quality – whether conceptual,
it reassures you, the Schwarzkommando material, formal – which holds a soverei-
in the novel was playing a double game, gn tendency towards contradiction.
deceiving the Nazis for their own purpo- Dr Zam: You could almost say that it is
ses. an entropic tendency, a set of contradi-
Dr Mart: Indeed, the signals that the Bro- ctions that, like incessant opposites, can-
adcaster has sent us are very contradic- cel each other out in a sort of thermal
tory, and once upon a time these would death of the sign. As if it wanted to con-
have been categorized, perhaps hastily, demn itself to insignificance.
as postmodern. So, I see no reason why Dr Recht: If you want to make a reference
we should not accept that it has appro- to physics, you can see it that way, but
priated a name taken from the Rainbow I’m thinking more of the sacred.
of Gravity. Dr Zam: The Totem.
Dr Recht: Rather than contradictory, the- Dr Recht: Absolutely, but not only that.
se seem to me to be indifferent signals, Or rather: at best, it is a confirmation. I
sent like semantic probes in a strange at- understand the sacred as that which is
tempt of contact/non-contact. separate from the place of men, the pla-
Dr Lem: I tend to agree with your ce of the undifferentiated, where codes
hypothesis, Dr Recht. Do we therefore are endlessly mixed, and the principle
accept, with all due caution, that our bro- of non-contradiction has no place. Coin-
adcaster decided on the name Schwar- cidentia oppositorum is opposed to re-
zkommando for himself? ason’s cataloguing schemes of reason,
Dr Mart: I accept it. which proceeds by discernment, disjun-
Dr Recht: It is currently the most solid ction, establishing that A cannot be NOT A.
OCTOPUS COMMISSION REPORT NOV 3TH 2101
