EFTA01999339.pdf

done. (i hope to hear back from him soon.) On Feb 5, 2012, at 7:31 AM, Jeffrey Epstein wrote: Respond that a founder of the ped program„ jefffity epstein, who has had a colorful life. and misleading press. , has funded the santa fe instiute on evolution of words, evolution of language, evolution of the brain, also researches. , literature syntax, semantics, ( Steve pinker, ). to see if they can provide insight into neuroscience. as the language is the natural product„ are image based languages, or rhymic, musical languages , a result of , or in a feeedback loop with the various parts of the brain. I think if you agree, and i would strongly encourage , it , I will send jeffrey , your contact details.. I think you would greatly benefit from each others work On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 10:06 PM, Nowak, Martin < wrote: i talked with boyd (over skypc) and he sent this Begin forwarded message: From: "Brian Boyd (ARTS ENG)" Date: January 23, 2012 1:42:11 PM EST To: "Nowak. Martin" Subject: Re: follow-up Hi Martin, Good to chat. May I ask you some questions about how you envisage applying mathematics to literature, just so we can both think about this more before we meet. Let me ask first what kinds of things in literature you're interested in mathematizing? the reception of literary works, authors, genres, forms, across wide audiences? the diffusion of forms, devices, etc, in time and place? responses to works by individuals? the intensity and form of response, the relation over time between emotion and attention? between the cost of comprehension and the felt benefits? between these factors on a first reading and a re-reading or an nth reading? EFTA_R1_00495243 EFTA01999339 the effects of literary engagement on individuals, on their minds or behaviors the content of literary works: vocabulary syntax (e.g. functional shift: I can explain this via a paper a colleague has written) represented people (and perhaps social class, or role, or the number of characters overall (named or at least individualized) and the amount of text devoted to each?), places, scenes, actions literary devices: imagery, dialogue, representations of thought, free indirect discourse the landscape of available options for writers at a particular time, in a particular genre (the great film scholar David Bordwell has suggested something like this in film, in a non-mathematical way) the boundary between literariness and non-literariness: criteria for fictional versus non-fictional texts, for high versus middle or lowbrow literature? measures of sheer literary quality? measures of reputation can easily be ascertained by the amount of scholarship, and the space accorded writers in reference works, etc. Could internal measures of quality, which there must be, be quantified, mathematized? authorship: there is work done with the help of mathematicians or statistically- informed scholars to determine authorship, in the case of anonymous works in more recent times, or simply non-attributed works in older times when the identification of authors on title pages was sporadic. There is much lunatic work on Shakespearean authorship, for instance, with results as divergent as the obsessions of the investigators, but there is also much responsible genuinely academic work with largely convergent results and good statistical skills (showing, for instance, that five plays by Shakespeare were co- authored with different collaborators; the techniques can usually get down to the level of identifying the author of individual scenes) related to this, statistics of stylistic details have been used to work out the chronology of Shakespeare plays. Some are known within limits set by external evidence, but the dates or date range of many can be identified only by internal evidence EFTA_R1_00495244 EFTA01999340 Then let me ask what kinds of questions do you want to ask or answer with the mathematization of literature? I have a very open mind on what kinds of questions might be askablc or answerable, but I'd love to know what hunches you have, in case I could offer feedback or tailor my talk in ways that might be maximally relevant. Another 2145 MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.68.12.198 with HTTP; Fri, 2 Dec 2011 09:50:49 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 12:50:49 - 0500 Delivered-To: [email protected] Message-ID: Subject: From: Jeffrey Epstein To: "Farkas, Andrew L." Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundaryFd0447957f03d38904b31f9c4a EFTA R1_00495245 EFTA01999341