Borges, between science, metaphysics and literature

Abstract

This article considers some scientific questions addressed, with varying degrees of depth and scope, in the literature of Jorge Luis Borges. We present nine texts commented and scrutinized  in their scientific essence (The fearful sphere of Pascal, The library of Babel,  Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, The secret miracle, The Aleph, Funes the memorious, The garden of forking paths, The house of Asterion, and The perpetual race of Achilles and the tortoise) advancing in in some cases new conjectures and observations to interpret and contextualize these subjects within the Borgean stories, as an invitation for follow-up analysis of the work of the Argentinean writer. We show that Borges can be considered a singular case of erudite fusion that does not separate human and scientific aspects, although his understanding and familiarity with the latter was actually quite shallow. In a quite uncommon fashion, Borges based a large part of his texts on fantastic possibilities suggested to him by Mathematics, Metaphysics and Sciences as the stunts for a free literary creation, within a structured form and a style we could call “self-consistent alternative realities”.