“God’s gaze anticipates everything that is to happen, and draws it back and recalls it to his own knowing in the present. There is no vacillation such as you imagine, with his foreknowledge changing this way and that; rather, with a single glance it anticipates and embraces the changes which you make, while itself remaining unchanged. God derives this understanding and vision in the present not from the outcome of future events, but from his own simplicity.” (page 114)

In “How Much Shall We Bet”, I read about Qfwfq calculating his predictions and couldn’t help but liken him to a God-like figure for being able to predict so far into the future without even the use of math. He was able to simply know something would happen without influencing events in any way. The reason I say this is because what I deduced from Boethius’ writing (particularly the quote I began with) is that his version of God just simply knows everything that will happen, period, without influencing anything he himself “remaining unchanged”.

It made me feel sorry for that type of a God, having to know anything and everything without having any kind of control over it. I didn’t think about this until I read “How Much”. Qfwfq just gets so caught up in the fact that it will happen, it’s going to happen, that he starts to look so much into the future and disregards the present (unless of course to check that he was right). Eventually he becomes reminiscent of the time when he knew nothing: “I think how beautiful it was then, through that void, to draw lines and parabolas, pick out the precise point, the intersection between space and time…whereas now events come flowing down without interruption…separated by black and incongruous headlines, a doughy mass of events without form or direction, which surrounds, submerges crushes all reasoning.” This gave me a further understanding of Boethius’ suggestion that though God doesn’t necessarily punish “evil” individuals he knows that they eventually get what’s coming to them.

For some reason it wont let me edit so i will just post 5 million comments:

boethius and calvino
In How much shall we bet? Calvino asks a question that reveals the absence of a comprehensible answer: Does the event occur because of its prediction or does the prediction come about because the event will occur?
At “the birth of all things” definition does not exist, neither in words or being, for not even being is definite, and it can only be defined by its act of defining: “the only proof I existed was that I bet with him”( pg 86)- space was uniformly empty except these two conscious beings.
“the birth of all things , the entire development of nature’s subject to change, and all that is in any way stirred to motion, derives their causes and order and shapes from the unchanging steadfastness of the divine mind” (Boethius 87)

When Qfwfq predicts the future with a word that is yet to be defined like “universe”, the word inevitably takes on the definition of whatever occurs, Qfwfq’s ability to imagine allows him to create this cohesion between a definition and a word. Regardless of what actually occurs, the future is bound to be what as he predicts it simply because in this story “existence” relies on definition, and when the future occurs he is the only being capable of defining, or naming it so it presumably goes by the name he chooses. The accuracy of his predictions relies on the fact that 1) he has neamed it and 2) he predicts a change.

Qfwfqs ability to calculate the early universe rationally relies entirely on the fact that there is no one else to imagine how to name things, so whatever occurs is what he called it- he projects his truths onto the world and thus gains knowledge: ”In the acquisition of knowledge all these elements deploy their own powers rather than those of the objects perceived” (Boethius 107) The Dean fails because “when a word began to have one meaning, he could not conceive of its having any other” – he lacks imagination of differentiation, unlike Qfwfq. The Dean always loses his predictions because “he had a static sense of reality”(Calvino 87), and Qfwfq has the advantage only because he assumes change rather than static-state: this is the first metamorphosis – the departure from simple “sensation” in static beings like the mollusk and the Dean, to a being with imagination, namely, Qfwfq .

In this beginning space was so empty and time so negligible that one event alone would occur at a time and there was no room for “chance” because it is the “unexpected outcome of a conjunction of causes” (Boethius 98). When there is only one occurrence there can’t be a conjunction, and there cannot be a chance. As Qfwfq’s universe gains momentum events begin to occur at the same time and begin to effect each other, giving birth to the concept of “chance” – here Qfwfq goes through a second metamorphosis – from a being of imagination to one of reason, i.e he begins to find connections between the causal occurrences rather than perceiving them as disconnected and distinct, and begins to “predict” what is to occur. Just as imagination served him better than sensation, rationality opens up a whole new set of possible calculations and again he is able to pass the Dean, who is still the static being he was in the beginning: “The more I went ahead, the better I understood the mechanism, and in the face of every new phenomenon, after a few rather groping bets, I could calculate my previsions rationally”(Calvino, 88)

But as he predicts, humans are born, and suddenly the whole things becomes more and more complex because the world is not subject to solely his interpretation, there are other beings deciding definitions of things and there is so much of this that there are suddenly infinitely many conjunctions of casual occurrences- chance becomes the rule of the universe. He is unable to predict and follow all of these paths because so many different chains are intersecting and making new things happen- reason fails because it attempts to continue making distinctions between things, and cannot take look at the whole. He was king of predicting the universe in which he could “draw lines and parabolas, pick out the precise point, the intersection between space and time where the event would spring forth, undeniable in the prominence of its glow” – where imagination could define and reason distinguishes. But in the newer universe filled with endless “chance”, or possibility, this method fails him. In the newer universe “events come flowing down without interruption, like cement being poured, one column next to another, one within the other, separated by black incongruous headlines, legible in other ways but intrinsically illegible, a doughy mass of events without form or direction, which surrounds, submerges, crushes all reason.”(Calvino 93) Qfwfq continues to use reason, which can only make distinctions but cannot step outside of the “present” overwhelming moment and see the whole eternal moment where the idea of chance is nonexistent. Its as if reason has lead him to lose the forest for the trees.

Here, finally, the Dean has an advantage because in being an eternally static being he is closer to the method of divine understanding which stirs to motion while maintaining its ever static state of changeless unity. The Dean, like Boethius’s God, is not caught in the rush of this doughy mass of events. Although he is the lowest being, the hierarchy of Knowledge acquires a circular quality, starting at the static sensations and ending at something close in nature to both the static and the distinguishing movement: the constantly impelling, moving and yet eternally static understanding which embraces everything in a unity and does not make distinctions like time or space and simultaneously retains the ability to recognize them within the unity: “the simplicity of highest being confined by no bounds”- neither the bounds of distinction nor the bounds of staticism, and this is the state into which Qfwfq does not manage a metamorphosis, because his story wasn’t written that way.

Sorry it was so long, I got really excited and then realized how confusing my ideas were once I started writing.

jack: I did not at all notice the parody of boethiu's world in calvino's when i was writing, but as i read yours i realized i'd missed such a strong underpinning of the stor. Humans= interesting because they are complex and silly and often wrong, similarly to what jenneke said its as if Calvino has us feel sorry/be annoyed with the god figure. It reminds me of Milton's covert expression of the absolute boring-to-death nature of "heaven"- his descision to have as his main character not the protagonist, but the most vile antagonist- none other than satan, simply because he is loads and loads more interesting. The only book in Paradise Lost that is set in heaven is boring as hell (no pun intended) . Anyway, i definately see this playing out in the Calvino stories- "humans" ,or rather, anthropomorphic beings, have a irreplacable quality in all the stories.

I like the comparison to Milton, although I think there are lots of arguments that claim that Milton wasn't actually advocating Satan as Calvino does Qfwfq. One of the chief ones is that we are fallen human beings and so it is because of our flawed postlapsarian nature that we sympathize with Satan. While a big part of Satan's appeal is in his grand, defiant speeches and heroic rhetoric (grandiosity isn't a foreign quality to Qfwfq), I think you are also right to put the emphasis on the complex and silly and wrong. Wrong because Calvino is pretty clear that the stories are inventions and not doctrine; silliness is perhaps only one aspect, but definitely part of his homely metaphors of noodles and gambling, etc.

So, just to expand on your suggested comparison, Calvino emulates the grandeur of Milton's Satan, but, in taking away militaristic pretensions from the equation, allows an acceptance and indeed embracing of the flawed, "fallen" humanity. I could put "flawed" in quotes too.

Well you guys are saying all there is to say, I dont wont to repeat stuff so let me try to add anything that may be useful. On one level I saw a similarity between the character of Mr. Dean and the Boethius character. The Mr. Dean character is always questioning the validity of Q's bets. Dean doesn't supply the real answer simply questions. I sort of got the impression Calvino is comparing this to Boethius's methods. Boethius keeps questioning LP's views on foreknowledge and providence but doesn't offer any answers himself. I know the basis for the Dean not knowing any alternative was the whole concept of lack of imagination as Sara talked about. I don't know, this comparison came into my head but it may be completely off.

In "How much shall we bet?" I believe Calvino comments on Boethius's criticism o God's foreknowledge. ""How much?.. I tried to lead our predictions into the field of numbers....."They'll grow e raised to pi"....Trying to act smartI Any fool could have told that much." this quote deals with how Boethius believed God cant couldn't have foreknowledge if he wasn't completely certain the outcome was going to happen. "So if something is about to happen in such a way that its outcome is not certain and necessary, how can it possible be foreknown that it will occur? " Its kind of like saying, he thinks he is so smart but anybody can predict something as an opinion, it may or may not happen.

Another major Boethius idea Calvino brings is the idea of Providence vs. Fate. Q starts losing bets because he doesn't understand the concept of providence and fate, and therefore doesn't understand the concept of free will. (pg.88, bottom) "And so, from the data I had at my disposal, I tried mentally to deduce other data, and from them still others, until I succeeded in predicting eventualities that had no apparent connection with what we were arguing about" (pg. 89 top) "I admit it required very complicated deductions to forsee the Mesopotamian plans black with...." Q is basically playing the role of God but using judgment of a human. His role of god is to initiate Providence, he can creat and predict the overall "eventual" outcome of something. This outcome is reached in many different ways through free will. Q is thinking like a human would in tracing step by step all the millions of variables which effect each other to get to the final prediction.

There is a sort of butterfly effect that goes on. The eventual outcome is predicted but the path to it is unknown. This becomes a much bigger problem for Q as the universe starts to develop. The development adds much more variables, as these variables are added the butterfly effect gets more and more complicated and Q has to trace many many things, this is why he makes mistakes. When the humans come with there free will the course of fate gets way too complicated and Q loses more and more. Q's acknowledgment at his attempt to follow this butterfly effect is stated in this quote. "...But my passion for gambling led me, from every possible event, to foresee the interminable series of events that followed, even down to the most marginal and aleatory ones. This also brings in the concept of accident and chance. Here Q admits chace, quite contrary to LP's view o chance.There is a point where Q realizes he's dug to deep into human free will and predicting the infinite amount of options were too difficult. This realization came in the form of sports. "Arsenal-Real Madrid, semifinal. Arsenal playing at home. Who wins? and in a moment I realized with what seemed a casual jumble of words I had hit on an infinite reserve of new combinations among the signs, which compact, opaque, uniform reality would use to disguise montony..."

After reading Calvino’s “At Daybreak”, I thought a lot about the role of Granny Bb’b in the story. “At Daybreak” is Qfwfq telling the story of how matter began to condense and how the beginning began. Throughout the entire story, Granny Bb’b keeps saying that she remembers when matter was “uniformly scattered in space, and there was heat and light” [pp. 19]. Qfwfq describes her as still believing that matter was uniform and that she was sure that things would go back to way they were before. He also talks about “getting through the long night” implying that there would be an end to the way they were living before, in only darkness. Granny Bb’b, I felt could be compared in a way to Boethius’ god. She had foreknowledge of what was going to happen, in actuality, I felt that she had a concept of what had happened and was going to happen as a whole. She seemed to know what had happened before the darkness, what would happen during the darkness and what would happen after it, in a way she seemed to know everything except for where her cushion was, although I found it strange that first of all if she was all-knowing, wouldn’t she know where her cushion was? And second of all, if she had been asking for her cushion for a really long time, wouldn’t she have cared more about it when Qfwfq found it?
After reading this story a couple of more times, I began to think that the cushion idea serves to purposes. First, it makes her [I guess I can say more human since I have no idea what ‘they’ are] and more relatable to the reader, as an old grandmother who always remembers the ‘good ole days’. Second, the fact that she was always asking for her cushion and then didn’t seem to care that it dissolved when brought out of nebula proves to me that she had already known where the cushion was and what would happen to it; she was just waiting for the cushion to be found, just like the god that Boethius describes.

One thing that LP said that really stood out to me and reminded me of Granny Bb’b was when LP was describing how Fate and Providence work. She says, “Imagine a series of concentric circles revolving round the same axis; the innermost one lies closest to the single nature of the central point, and itself acts as a sort of axis round which the other circles lying outside it can turn. The outermost circle travels round in a wider circle, and the further it departs from the undivided middle point, the more widespread is the area over which it extends…Similarly, whatever distances itself further from the highest Mind becomes enmeshed in the broacher chains of Fate…” [pp. 88]
This idea of a point or circle that is being circled by other circles reminded me of Granny Bb’b. When I picture how they were in the nebula, I picture everyone else just sort of hovering around her because of the fact that she is the oldest and seems to know everything that is. Granny Bb’b can be seen as a god/mind-like figure and the events that were occurring in this story as the ‘chains’ of fate.

In Calvino’s “How Much Shall We Bet?” we see how the Qfwfq and Dean start betting on whether or not certain events will happen. Initially I thought that Qfwfq won all the time because as he thought of an event such as the creation of the atom, it happened. It was like having the nous control the existence and shape of matter as well as motion. So through half of the story I thought that Dean (k)yK’s static sense of reality, which influenced his lack of imagination, was the reason he lost most of the time. Lady Philosophy states that “[S]ince God confines all things within due order, what place can be left for random processes?” I think this sort of the idea Dean (k)yK had about the universe. Things were a certain way, had been for millennia and so why would anything change now? That is why he bet against the possibility of any event happening. I’m still trying to figure out how Qfwfq begins to loose. His loosing is an indicator that the nous doesn’t control everything. Perhaps we need to bring in Aristotle’s philosophy of causality.

I also found two passages that could parallel each other, Qfwfq’s “I started feeling a bit strange, as if there was going to be a change of weather…”(k)yK and Lady philosophy’s “God’s gaze anticipates everything that is to happen, and draws it back and recalls it to his own knowing in the present.” I thought it was interesting that Qfwfq feels that a change is going to be happening soon and God knows of the change because he has glanced at it. I thought it was interesting. What I really want to get into is how Lady Philosophy attempts to put an all knowing God on the same plane with free will.She states: “There is free will for no rational nature could exist if it did not possess freedom of will.” She is trying to say that we have free will because otherwise we would be like robots ready to perform a preprogrammed sequence. However, how can you have both free will and an all knowing God? This is a line that she blurs because she cannot really explain it.

In "At Daybreak" (and many other of Calvino's stories, including "A Sign in Space"), a lot of time goes by very slowly. It seems that as the amount of time approaches eternity, the experience of that time lengthens. In Book V of Boethius, true eternity is instant experience. Interesting, though technically as there is always change in Calvino's stories to mark the end of a period (thus limiting time from being eternity) there is no direct opposition. That said, it's interesting to think about what a long bout of nothing would look like to Boethius's omniscient God. Would it take up a larger portion of that "single moment"? Thinking about it is similar to thinking about "All at One Point." Some of the subjects in that story were larger or smaller than others, but can something be smaller than a geometric point? How can one or another take up more or less space? I suppose it's just fun to consider.

Another thing in "At Daybreak" that played off Philosophy's last teachings: things don't make any sense to the characters in the Calvino. This is like how humans can never attain God's knowledge. Something is happening, and the humans may or may not be playing a role in it, but maybe -someone- knows what's going on—but that knowledge can't be attained by reason.

Small note -- similarity to Orpheus, with Eurydice retreating underground; Qwfwq's sister disappears into the earth (also like Ayl in "Without Colors"), common theme in Calvino?