Assignment 1: The Garden of Forking Paths

The Garden of Forking Paths
by Jorge Luis Borges

1941

-Right away (starting in the intro at least), there seems to be a prevalent idea of innovation being somewhat directly related to Thomas Kuhn's concept of divergence vs. convergence, when it comes to the innovators themselves. -Where those that diverge from the norm cannot quite be left to their own devices, as there wouldn't be too much order, or anything to follow, though at the same time, those that converge after all, cannot be left to stagnate.

-1941 - Borge proposes the idea that there are multiple ways to read a novel.

-Story of the German Soldier desperately trying to escape what he thought to be his fate (something that he took as a given, or norm), by thinking of a plan and following it sort of on the fly. I find that this exemplifies the idea of diverging from the norm, and that which is expected, to help eventually point to something new and unheard of, all the while using preconceived knowledge (like the trick to labyrinths) to aid him on his way there.

-Interestingly relevant quote: "I felt myself to be, for an unknown period of time, an abstract perceiver of the world"(32).

-The idea of the infinite book: What comes to mind is something that doesn't quite have a cap on it, something that can always be added to, edited, updated, what else have you, with more knowledge. Something like the internet today, maybe?

-Moreover though, it would seem that the infinite book refers more to the idea of a figurative (though somewhat very real) web of potential paths and subsequent realities that exist, just by thinking "what if..?"