do the Hierogrammates care about the megatherians?

David Stockhoff · 22 May 2011, 00:16 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sat, 21 May 2011 20:16:57 -0400
Subject: (urth) do the Hierogrammates *care* about the megatherians?
In-Reply-To: <351750.3295.qm at web114705.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
References: <2623-4dd6e500-1-28238b00@133038278>
	<351750.3295.qm at web114705.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4DD855F9.2090704 at verizon.net>

Exactly my point.

On 5/21/2011 7:37 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> From: Sergei Soloviev<Sergei.Soloviev at irit.fr>
>> I noticed (already at Nabokov's list) that people have a tendency to  identify
>> as much things as possible, with slightest hint as a proof. I don't  think
>> that there is enough evidence that 17 megatherians and the beasts  living in
>> the depths
>> are the same creatures. To me, it seems curious that the  number 17 could
>> replace other "magic numbers" (3, 7, 12... ) of our times.  Maybe this was
>> the intention of Wolfe - to show that even this may evolve.  Look how much
>> places etc. are like "Seven...", "Three..." nowadays. They are  not identical!
> Other possibilities for 17 (in addition to the typical, or minimum, number for
> the Politburo):
>
> A tribute to /Illuminatus!/  Incidentally, that book contains another Great
> Beast, who Gerry Quinn has mentioned: Aleister Crowley.
>
> Or when Wolfe needed an arbitrary number, naturally he picked 17.  So did my my
> Mathematical Logic professor in about 1982.  Finally someone asked him why, and
> he explained.
>
> First of all, it's obvious that numbers greater than about twenty are too big to
> be arbitrary.  Second, odd numbers are clearly more arbitrary than even ones.
> One is too singular.  Three is the number of the Trinity, so it's not
> arbitrary.  Five is the number of fingers on the human hand and consequently the
> basis of our number system.  Seven and eleven are naturals in craps.  Nine is
> three squared.  Thirteen is an unlucky number and the number of the original
> American colonies.  Fifteen is a multiple of both three and five.  And nineteen
> is really too close to twenty.
>
> I seem to remember having the feeling I'd heard that before, so it could have
> been folklore that Wolfe encountered somewhere.
>
> Jerry Friedman
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