Cologne, 21 September 1996
Dear Rafael,
Are we speaking into the wind? We are at least leaving an impression at a hard
disk in Virginia and several other PCs throughout the world. By committing
ourselves to writing, anything we say is taken down and can be used against us?
This Stentorian writing is indeed one of the most remarkable, incidental gifts
of IT's giving.
You say:
"The superfluity of information is almost nothing compared with the superfluity
of beings in the universe!"
Aren't these the same thing? Anything which is not information today is not. The
new moons of Jupiter dis-covered recently by Voyager _are_ nothing other than
the electromagnetic impressions the satellite sent back to Earth. Being needs
humankind.
Today I heard on the BBC that apparently rock carvings have been discovered in
the Kimberleys of North-Western Australia dating back 170,000 years! That's over
100,000 years earlier than previous estimates for the earthdwelling of the
Australian aborigines and ca. 140,000 years older than the cave paintings in Les
Trois Frères in France. It seems that beyng has been putting in its claims on
humankind for some time now.
Thanks for the references. I wish I could read French half as well as you write
English.
The idea of weak technology as allowing incidents and accidents to be could take
us further. Joe Sachs' translation of "kata symbebekos" as "incidentally" is
indeed better. It's like the alternatives between "zufaellig" and "beilaeufig"
in´German. The incidental/Beilaeufige has a lighter touch, does not push its way
into such a prominent stand in presence, comes and goes as it likes. Aristotle's
metaphysics, in this regard at least, offers a way of weakening technology by
making room for the incidental? It contrasts with Leibniz's "nihil est sine
ratione", "nothing is without a ground/reason", which leaves no room for the
incidental but instead plasters over every crack and crevice in the being of
beings with causation.
Thinker/artist as the casting agent of beyng: In the German TV industry they
have simply adopted the English term: casting, which is putting/finding the
actors into/for the pregiven roles. A casting agent is a middle(wo)man who finds
suitable actors for given scripts. The casting agent casts (wirft, giesst) the
actor into the cast (Giessform) of the role (Rolle). The thinker as casting
agent of beyng casts beings into the form of their AS. He/she(?) helps decide as
what beings will appear in the opening of aletheia. Der Denker ist
Mit-ent-werfer des Seins des Seienden.
Your angeloi seem to come in here: bearers of the missives of beyng. They do not
bear pre-formulated messages but write in midflight.
Saluta
Michael
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