Cologne, 23 September 1996
Rafael Capurro writes:
>We are designing Being starting from virtuality in the computer, so that 'real
things' appear 'nothing other than'.<
I wouldn't say "real things appear [as]", but things (beings) _are_ nothing
other than digital code. It is not a reality that appears as something else, but
it is reality itself: the digital difference. 00000000100000111000 is one being;
00000000100001110000 another.
Rafael:
>In what sense is 'everyone' a Mit-ent-werfer des Seins and in what sense are
thinkers, poets, politicians etc? in what sense are we (who?) not? or in what
sense are we limited (by whom? by what?)? We are 'Mit'entwerfer. Who are the
others?<
Who or what are the co-casters of the being of beings as digital difference?
Co-casting means here not only that several human beings are involved in this
casting of the form of beings, but that human beings themselves are not the
ultimate origin of the casting, but rather are angels catching snatches of the
wind of beyng. The logos gathers the wind of beyng into the unity of beings as
such, and this unified logos can speak many human tongues, i.e. the cast of
beyng changes historically.
Who are the co-casters of beings as digital difference? I suppose it all goes
back to Pythagoras, and then via Plato to Descartes and Leibniz and Newton, who
opened up metaphysical access to the being of beings in an analogically
mathematical way. The calculus (mathematical analysis) is the analogue cast of
the being of beings. Maxwell's electromagnetic field equations push this
analogue casting to the limit. But where does the specifically digital casting
start? On the one hand there is Planck (and Einstein), who reformulates
Maxwell's equations in quantum theory, quanta being the 'digits' of nature (my
knowledge of physics is very limited, mind you!). On the other hand there is
Turing, Church and the other computability mathematicians in the first half of
the century who are the fathers of automata theory. Someone like Bill Gates and
his famous MS-DOS is much further down the cast of co-casters. The inventers of
programs and new types of IT are already thinking within the cast of beyng as
digitized information, just as Marconi is following in the footprints cast by
Maxwell.
Heidegger says that thinking is the essential act (Letter on Humanism).
Nietzsche talks about thoughts that come on pigeon's feet moving the world. Such
seldom individuals are outstanding thinkers by standing out in the wind of
beyng. At this point Heidegger quotes Hoelderlin: "We are a sign, without
interpretation..." and writes:
"Wenn der Mensch auf dem Zug in das Sichentziehende ist, zeigt er in das
Sichentziehende. Auf dem Zug dahin sind wir ein Zeichen. Aber wir zeigen dabei
ein Solches, was nicht, was noch nicht in die Sprache unseres Sprechens
uebersetzt its. Es bleibt ohne Deutung. Wir sind ein deutungsloses Zeichen."
(WhD S.52)
English:
"If humankind/man is on the draught into self-withdrawing, it/he points into
self-withdrawing. On the draught thither we are a sign. But we point at
something that is not, is not yet translated into the language of our speaking.
It remains without interpretation. We are a sign without interpretation." (WhD
S.52)
Rafael:
>We are 'Mit'entwerfer. Who are the others? Under metaphysical premises was
it not possible (?) because God was the creator? Plato's demiourg seems
(according to the end of the Sophist) to have created things in a more
original way (maybe even ex nihilo?) than we (as poietikoi) do. Does this
shaping of things entails always a draft of being?
This brings me back to the 'nothing other than': we are supposed to be
Mit-entwerfer. There is always something else, so that it is impossible to
shape in the sense of 'nothing other than'<
The "something else" is not the god or the demiourgos (which would tie the
drafting and casting back to a being or beings) but "that which is in
self-withdrawal", which is of course not a "something" but the openness of the
truth (aletheia) of being.
The other "something else" that occurs to me is matter itself, the earth in its
self-concealment, for it suffers itself to be cast this way and that in the
casting of being. Thus iron, for example, becomes the material for encoding
digitally on tape. The laws of electromagnetism allow iron particles to accept
the imprint of digital code. For Plato, matter was the _ekmageion_ (kneading
dough) for accepting the form. Matter in its pure selfwithdrawal from form is
not a being.
The possibility of form is given by the openness of aletheia which allows the
gathering of the logos into the oneness of being, i.e. we cannot think this
co-casting of the being of beings metaphysically as simply matter (hyle) + form
(morphe). The openness of aletheia that allows the play of strife between
concealment and unconcealment always already holds sway before this metaphysical
schema.
How the artists, poets, politicians also co-cast the being of beings is a big
topic that I'll leave for today.
I really like the point about the angels not knowing about casualia and fortuita
in advance. Do you have a reference?
Much cheer co-casting,
Michael
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