Stan Kelly Bootle:[to
Gary] "...agreed in general on how often we can overlook evidence ‘right
before us,’ but may I query, in context, your phrase ‘ignore significant
matter.’ The amazing (but rather artificial) Invisible Gorilla experiment works
precisely because the viewers are intensely focused on other matters
(counting basket-ball passes) The popular idiom, The Elephant in the Room, is
somewhat other! Here we have an unarguably visible object that for diverse
reasons we prefer not to acknowledge. Until, that is, someone forces a reaction.
Topics such as Malcolm X’s murder...and VN’s sources for Lolita spring to
mind.Your general warning remains valid...We all tend to find what we are
looking for: the unconscious cherry-picking of evidence that supports our
hypotheses. From the enormous number (literally unlimited!) of potential
anagrams lurking in Nabokov’s texts, we pounce on those that favour our
interpretations, and reject counter-examples."
JM: Your Invisible Gorilla
addition reminded me of a
response to the announcement that two million Argentinian soccer fans,
and a dentist, would be wiped out of the planet during the 2010 World Cup
Soccer championship ("Why the dentist?") used to demonstrate that only the
dentist was "a significant matter."
What do you mean: "VN's sources for Lolita?" The
Maar hypothesis, as if there were no foreplays in "The Gift," and as
if the outline of plot and a name were sufficient
clues to garantee a link to VN's "Lolita"?
Would the search for any kind of
consistency, loyalty or pattern represent also a "cherry-picking
of evidence"?