An Example of Pseudo-Isomorphism and Weak Adjunction in Nabokov's Gift

1. One of the flavours of current math wizards in Category Theory is that beyond the simplifying beauty of their commutative stick diagrams, they appear to be in agreement that not much of their art has any obvious applicability to other parts of life.
Since much of what they do is to find the widest possible brushstrokes -- universal properties -- it is not surprising that it is difficult to find examples in real life where uniqueness can be trusted to serve some general principle. Nevertheless, there is the odd inflection where Nature appears to be a failed or perhaps much more subtle mathematician, hoovering just out of reach of our theories and inviting us to step off the cliff into an abyss. Tempting, or just foreshortened?

Source: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=Nabokov+the+gift&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=d&tbm=isch&tbnid=2gtZSYEoawJoaM:&imgrefurl=http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/07/01/nabokov-butterflies/&docid=H5txSi_bq0brTM&w=480&h=665&ei=KZc1To31NYGs8QPSqMWgDg&zoom=1&biw=768&bih=946



Here is an example by Nabokov on how even a reflective symmetry across plant and animal, suggesting communication across thousands and millions of generations is itself unique. This taking some elements of one world and BORROWING them for another world is exactly what Category Theory was originally meant to rigorously capture. The two different worlds remain as they are, and somehow they are transformed by the exchanges into resemblances of each other.

"In my vicinity some witch doctors with the wary and crafty look of competitors were collecting for their mercenary needs Chinese rhubarb, whose root bears an extraordinary resemblance to a caterpillar, right down to its prolegs and spiracles - while I, in the meantime, found under a stone the caterpillar of an unknown moth, which represented not in a general way but with absolute concreteness a copy of that root, so that it was not quite clear which was impersonating which - or why."

Source: Nabokov, Vladimir (1963) The Gift, pp. 116-117.

The beginning of the next line:

"Everyone tells lies in Tibet."

Source: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=rhubarb+drawings&hl=en&client=safari&sa=X&tbo=d&tbm=isch&prmd=ivns&tbnid=fNc9cMBfY__jBM:&imgrefurl=http://daviddrawsandpaints.blogspot.com/2011/04/rhubarb.html&docid=e3qM48rphly6LM&w=609&h=479&ei=75Q1Tp2zKYbE8QOo5p2hDg&zoom=1&biw=768&bih=946

2. Maybe one of the functions of "lying" is to preserve or move towards an image which the liar cannot help but replicate for his own needs and for the sake of preserving his world in the midst of a foreign world.