diary of infinity

So finally the second season of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (or if you prefer, Suzumiya Haruhi) is being slipped out as extra episodes interspersed amongst a rebroadcasting of the first series. Or rather, series two is in fact a superset of the first series and the new episodes. A Venn diagram would make everything clear, WHICH IS WHY YOU WILL FIND NO VENN DIAGRAMS HERE! Instead let’s look at the heiroglyphs that the young Haruhi of three years ago ordered Kyon to draw, compared to a slip of paper which had earlier been passed to him by Yuki, three years later. (Earlier? Later? It's all relative.)


Of course when we talk of "Haruhi three years ago", we might mean "Haruhi now, as broadcast three years ago", or "the Haruhi being broadcast now, in events that happened when she was three years younger". Is it a coincidence that Kadokawa et al waited three years into the future before broadcasting events that happened three years in the past? Or were Kyoto Animation just busy making Lucky Star, K-On and Clannad?
Of course, when I say "of course" it is just a rhetorical device. In reality (by which I mean, in fiction), there is of course no "of course" with Haruhi.
But on to the main point, which is Yuki's cryptic comment about the antinomies of axiomatic set theory.


What Yuki actually meant to say was this (taken from The Mathematical Experience, p322, click for full size image if you can't read it)


In other words (my own, in fact), what Kyon is saying is that Mikuru's claim (in ep.3 or 5 of the original series (depending on whether you use Haruhi or Kyon ordering)) that people can be inserted into an alternate time frame without affecting subsequent time frames, is inconsistent with the "bamboo" incident where his meeting Haruhi three years ago has affected subsequent events, specifically it inspired Haruhi to come to North High School.

Yuki's response essentially uses the example of mathematics to note that even in the most logical of all endeavours, things don't necessarily add up. In mathematics, people always assumed certain fundamental principles were guaranteed true in themselves without having to refer to the real world. But then, things that had been seen as sacrosanct for over a thousand years, such as the principles of geometry, were one by one found to be dodgy (eg. due to the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry).

As a result, mathematicians cast around for new fundamental principles which might underpin mathematics before it sank into the mire of subjectivity and empiricism. One candidate for this was Set Theory. Sets are just groups of objects which can be defined by some common sense description, such as "girls with brightly coloured hair" or "numbers greater than zero". As such Set Theory seemed a useful generalisation of logic, which is also built up from combinations of simple expressions.

Unfortunately there was a Boogiepop Phantom in the woodpile. Bertrand Russell realised (as any linguist could have told him) that it was possible to make a pair of seemingly common sense descriptions which contradicted one another or even themselves, such as a set of sets which contains "all sets which contain themselves". When you then make the inverse of this, "the set of all sets which do no contain themselves", you get a paradox, since such a set neither contains, nor does not contain, itself.

So in summary, when Kyon says "this doesn't add up", and Yuki says "Axiomatic set theory ... contains antinomies", she is saying "shit happens, even in pure mathematics".

(Actually, I thought Koizumi made the point more elegantly when he pocketed the king from the chessboard so as to get out of check. As he noted, there was nothing illogical about his action, and yet it totally violated the rules of chess. In other words having one set of perfectly self-consistent rules doesn't preclude you from having another set of self-consistent rules which totally contradict the first set. Which ultimately is what the antinomies nonsense boils down to.)

OK here is my doubtless premature list of anime series I liked during 2006.
In no particular order (other than chronological), I seem to have settled on four series this year. Maybe I’ll get round to watching some others people suggested, but in the meantime we have—

Karin

Continued over from 2005 I have a lot of affection for this story. I think of it as a vampire To Heart—there are several subtle references and similarities, from the watercolour style backdrops to Karin’s turn of phrase. Apart from the obvious Karin=Akari and Kenta=Hiroyuki, it’s entertaining to try and match up the other characters: Maki=Shiho, and what about Boogie=Multi? A rather perverse yet poignant match when you recall the scene where Multi collapses when her energy cell runs out, and contrast it with the similar scene of Boogie when his own lifeline is severed by Anju leaving her childhood behind.

Next we have 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 i.e.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

You knew I was going to say that didn’t you!
Let’s not get blogged down with all the stuff about 世界を大いに盛り上げるための涼宮ハルヒの団 or Haruhi Suzumiya’s Party for Overly Stirring Up The World as I prefer to call it. No I’m not going to pontificate on the rendering of 団 as “Party” at this point other than to observe that it nicely gives us “Party Leader” for 団長. Suffice it to say that the experience of seeing Haruhi’s rousing performance of God Knows in episode 12 completely lifted me out of a low in which I was contemplating the relative merits of catching the train to work versus simply jumping under it.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

or When The (Higurashi) Cicadas Cry, or When Daily Existence Cries Out, depending on how you read the deliberate ambiguity of the all-kana title. I don’t normally seek out scary stuff but this was simply billed on fansub.tv as a mystery story. It is that, but it’s also that rarity, a genuinely scary animated thriller, done in the classic thriller mould, building up the tension repeatedly with many false leads. At first I was dismayed by the superdeformed character styles, the first episode (apart from the chilling prologue) is deceptively and sickeningly twee like some cute kids show, but then it starts to bite... Want to stop the government building a dam in your valley? Simple, just kidnap the Minister of Public Works' grandson, oh and for good measure hack the construction works manager to pieces with an axe and the blessing of your local Shinto shrine...

Which leaves us with the much needed light relief of

Kamisama Kazoku

or The God Family, with its fresh style and fresh characters too, and catchy theme tunes that amazingly don’t seem to have been released as CD singles, only as extras on the DVD. The son of God (Samatarou) is going to a local high school to find out what it’s like to be human, accompanied by his guardian angel Tenko, who wears her heart on her sleeve and lets her feelings for him get jumbled up with her duties to help him become a better god. She got my sympathy from the start as being a mere angel living with a family of gods, she’s basically their skivvy doing the cooking and cleaning, occasionally mooning over the depressing fact that she has no family of her own, having been created to serve Samatarou. Anyhow it’s a great story, not too shallow and not too deep.

Well that’s my 2006 roundup. At some point I’ll probably expand on these things a bit more on the anime section of my website when I get it going again.