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     I need to correct my statement about lapidary memory.  I
said lapidary memory was history; Better to say that lapidary
memory is memory of an historical object.  In contrast to
naive memory, which is memory of experience.

     Matters get more complex when it is pointed out that an
historical object is also experienced.  Perhaps one might
distinguish lapidary experience from naive experience, where
lapidary experience is a pointer to the past, while naive
experience points to the present.

     It is worth noting that lapidary memory entails an
element of recursiveness; in that lapidary memory is memory
of a story distilled from memory, a link in a chain that has
a logical beginning in an original naive memory experience,
that reproduces itself in as series of modified replicas
which, so long as the capacity for remembering is intact has
no logical end.

     It was in writing computer programs that I encountered
the mathematical notion of recursive functions.  The concept
of recursivity is a useful instrument to describe human
behavior and experience.  Recursivity serves a bridge (link)
between substance and function: inasmuch as a recursive
function qualifies as substance; (takes the place of, has the
effect of substance) and substance in turn may potentially be
resolved into recursive function.

     I am embarrassed by the prominence in my thinking of the
dichotomy between subjective as opposed to objective
experience. I am aware that the uncritical pursuit of this
distinction can cause much confusion. My teacher (Karl
Vietor) advised me to follow Goethe's example, (Ich habe nie
ueber das Denken gedacht.(I have never thought about
thought)), and forget about it. But the dichotomy is
extraordinarily productive.  Admittedly, the terminology is
not entirely felicitous and might be improved.

     However, the basis of the distinction seems to me
inescapable.  It might be designated as the social
communication gap: the circumstances a) that I cannot
directly express what I feel, and b) that my thought is
necessarily constructed with a public language.

     a) I cannot directly express what I feel. I rely on
speech, on poetry, music, drawing to express my feeling; yet
such expression of my feeling does not transmit that feeling
to the reader, the hearer or the viewer of my art. Such
expression provokes a feeling, an experience in the other
person, which I assume to be analogous, if not identical with
my own. The work of art appears to be a bond, albeit limited,
between the artist and him or her who reads, listens, or
observes.

     b) Broad realms of my feeling and the entirety of my
thought are dependent on, and conditioned by communal
instrumentalities, primarily language and music, the
acquisition and maturation of which are consequences of
social interaction.

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Copyright 2005, Ernst Jochen Meyer
