'In the novel Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon uses the term "pornography" to denote modes of representation and reproduction which fragment continuous experience into discrete, quantifiable, replicable units -- modes of representation/reproduction which simulate fluid movement while relying upon discontinuous, static elements. Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow focuses chiefly upon two specific varieties of such "pornography": calculus and film. It is clear, though, that Pynchon's definition of "pornography" would apply equally well to digital information processing (or, indeed, to any mode of representation which can be mechanically reproduced). Like a movie, which approximates continuous motion by speedily scrolling through a series of discontinuous static images, and like pornography, which relies upon the dismantling of a (usually female) body, digital technology splinters unified experience into an array of pixels, samples, or bits. '¹

pornography is the symbol of something, not its actuality. like truth, pornography can be viewed in either a dualistic or integralistic sense.

if thomas pynchon is experienced, he is using digital representation as a metaphor for how human values have fragmented. otherwise, he is probably assuming that by blaming the method he can dispell the process of relying on methods in place of goals.

in one sense, dualistic religions have separated reality and its meaning, and therefore have meaning be the pornography which stands in for a real experience. in this view, pornography is like a truth - a distillation - of an experience which can be passed along in place of that experience.

in the integralistic sense, pornography is something that passes time without action, thus is anti-heroic. there is no ability to have a representation of the real experience which has truth in it; pornography merely describes the sexual experience, and thus will forever be hollow.