tom stoppard

From Act One, Scene Four of Arcadia, in which Valentine describes to his pupil Hannah the idea of mathematical iteration in the context of a project he is working on (tracking grouse populations). In the conversation from which this passage was excerpted, Valentine and Hannah discuss objects of nature as mathematical models and how "the unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is."

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stanislaw lem

The "liquid giant" is a prominent figure in this seminal sci-fi novel. The setting is a space station positioned near an ocean-like organism out of which the shapes of the space station inhabitants' deepest emotions are formed and made "real."

For example, one morning the protagonist wakes to find a former lover, who had committed suicide some 10 years before, lying next to him. As the story progresses, he is forced to examine his role in her demise and bear the consequences of the resulting emotions.

Through the metaphor of this alien organism, Lem dives headfirst into a deep exploration of the cosmic noise made when our conception of reality rubs against our conception of the imaginary, and how qualities like desire and guilt fuel that noise.

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