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I'm surprised you find the Kekulé Problem not supporting that he liked science. I think of it more as pointing out that the unconsciousness has been ignored scientifically, but he certainly frames it as a question of science: "The unconscious is a biological system before it is anything else. To put it as pithily as possibly—and as accurately—the unconscious is a machine for operating an animal." "To repeat. The unconscious is a biological operative and language is not."

For those who are interested, here is the article https://nautil.us/the-kekul-problem-236574/

As you say, Cormac's relationship with science is a bit hard to get from his novels. But I also think he really did love science, you might enjoy one of the most memorable days during the short time I was at the Santa Fe Institute https://dabacon.org/babel/2023/06/13/cormac/

I took that essay to be at least in part about how much of what we think of as a world governed by symbolic logic is really governed by a powerful unconscious world that is resistant to the scientific way of thinking. Not to say it is magical, but that underneath our modern brain is an older brain that works differently. I first read that essay after reading The Passenger, and wanted to connect it to what I took to be one of the themes of that book, which is that humans fundamentally aren't prepared to wield the tools of symbolic thinking, math and language. That they tend toward destruction (atomic warfare in the book) and, beyond that, a kind of insanity. That leads me to think he is fascinated by science, but not in the uncomplicated "fuck yeah science!!!" way.

One distinction is maybe between the way the world works and way we humans work, with our language and our unconscious. My read is that Cormac is deeply skeptical of the rational story our language tells us, and that we overlook and ignore the role of the unconscious, but that this is a statement about our own internal universe, and not the universe at large. Whether the universe is organized and symbolic, I don’t get a read, but he certainly seems skeptical that we can cross this divide, especially only with language. I can see how this feels a bit against science, but I guess this feels very much at philosophy of science level (so maybe more tame but also more interesting)

But also yeah totally agree on the “fuck yeah science!!!” Personally that also scares the crap out of me, but maybe that is a bit too much heresy in tech land.

Worth a watch if you're interested in McCarthy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrUy1Vn2KdI

The gist is that he liked smart people. He was good friends with Murray Gell-Mann and others at The Santa Fe Institute. I absolutely think he "liked science," I don't think he was cynical about it, though I do see where you could pick that up in his writing.

According to Gell-Mann, McCarthy knew a lot about 20th century physics...not in terms of math but in a "history of ideas" sense, i.e. where major physicists stood on various questions.

> According to Gell-Mann, McCarthy knew a lot about 20th century physics...not in terms of math but in a "history of ideas" sense, i.e. where major physicists stood on various questions.

This really came across in The Passenger and Stella Maris.

I think he was quite cynical of a totalitarian mindset of control and mastery that can rest in the background of the scientific "project." Many things that we would generally consider horrific by modern standards were considered completely reasonable in the past when done "in the name of science."

Judge Holden is, after all, the main villain of Blood Meridian, and yet he says in a speech:

> Whatever exists, he said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent. [...] The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.

I'm sure many people here would, without understanding the context of the quote and his character, identify with that quote nonetheless precisely because of what it offers --- control and mastery.

Maybe interested in science, but disliked scientism?

From Stella Maris:

>Cantor, Gauss, Riemann, Euler. Hilbert. Poincaré. Noether. Hypatia. Klein, Minkowski, Turing, von Neumann. Hardly even a partial list. Cauchy, Lie, Dedekind, Brouwer. Boole. Peano. Church is still alive. Hamilton, Laplace, Lagrange. The ancients of course. You look at these names and the work they represent and you realize that the annals of latterday literature and philosophy by comparison are barren beyond description.

If anything, I would say the book suggests he was cynical about literature rather than science!

But what about this one:

> You will never know what the world is made of. The only thing that’s certain is that it’s not made of the world. As you close upon some mathematical description of reality you cant help but lose what is being described. Every inquiry displaces what is addressed. A moment in time is a fact, not a possibility. The world will take your life. But above all and lastly the world does not know that you are here. You think that you understand this. But you don't. Not in your heart you don't. If you did you would be terrified. And you’re not. Not yet.

Almost Lovecraftian to me. I don't think he is drawing a distinction between literature and science either, they are similar in this view of the world. It's more like pre-modern vs. modern, not art vs. science.

What is this from?

The Thalidomide Kid, a hallucinated entity in the mind of the main character of The Passenger

Thanks, I have a copy in eyeshot. I'll pick it up.