Labyrinths By Yevgeny Zamyatin
The rational and irrational of Mathematics In the novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin and the collection of short stories Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges, mathematics plays an integral role in both authors’ writhing. In We, Zamyatin creates a world called the One State that is a fictional representation of Soviet Russia, and the One State is an advanced utopia that uses mathematics to control and comprehend the universe. While in Labyrinths, a majority of Borges short stories focus on a philosophy of infinity, more specifically the problems that arise when infinity is applied to a human perspective. In the story We, mathematics is a tool to rationalize the universe in ways that are useful and productive to society, while any irrational sides of mathematics
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The premise is of a Mayan magician who is locked in a hemispherical prison where there is a jaguar on the other side separated by a wall. Through legend, the magician believes that the jaguar has written on his body fourteen words of God that when uttered would grant him the ultimate understanding of all reality. Determined to discover this sentence, the magician spends years catching glimpses of the jaguar’s spots until he finally sees it after a dream of suffocating in sand. He then encounters a union with divinity where he envisioned God and a wheel made of water and fire infinite in diameter, yet he could see every point on it and became aware of everything that ever existed and came into existence in the universe. Eventually there came a point where he could recite the sentence to break out of the prison and become all powerful, but since he has experienced everything there is to possibly experience in the universe, he decides to waste the rest of his life in the prison (Borges 169-173). In this story we see how the character’s behavior changes completely when he finally coming to terms with the divine reality. To humans, viewing the universe from an infinite godlike perspective will leave that individual unmotivated since they have experienced everything there is to possibly experience. To even pass on this knowledge is useless because they have lived the conciseness of every human. Overall, encountering the irrational is an overwhelming realization, and in The God’s Script, learning the irrational leaves that individual’s existence
The premise is of a Mayan magician who is locked in a hemispherical prison where there is a jaguar on the other side separated by a wall. Through legend, the magician believes that the jaguar has written on his body fourteen words of God that when uttered would grant him the ultimate understanding of all reality. Determined to discover this sentence, the magician spends years catching glimpses of the jaguar’s spots until he finally sees it after a dream of suffocating in sand. He then encounters a union with divinity where he envisioned God and a wheel made of water and fire infinite in diameter, yet he could see every point on it and became aware of everything that ever existed and came into existence in the universe. Eventually there came a point where he could recite the sentence to break out of the prison and become all powerful, but since he has experienced everything there is to possibly experience in the universe, he decides to waste the rest of his life in the prison (Borges 169-173). In this story we see how the character’s behavior changes completely when he finally coming to terms with the divine reality. To humans, viewing the universe from an infinite godlike perspective will leave that individual unmotivated since they have experienced everything there is to possibly experience. To even pass on this knowledge is useless because they have lived the conciseness of every human. Overall, encountering the irrational is an overwhelming realization, and in The God’s Script, learning the irrational leaves that individual’s existence