Dear Marion,

Our exchanges remind me of a sophisticated game of
intellectual ping-pong, whose essence is the back and forth,
repartee, and whose meaning would be extinguished by agreement. 
Nonetheless: what you wrote about aesthetics is plausible;
I don't disagree with anything; not that disagreement is
impossible, but understanding makes it unnecessary.

Your introducing historical considerations, past experience,
future surprises, etc. into the aesthetic stew makes it all
the more interesting and adds to it, for the cook, another
ingredient, for the mathematician, another dimension. I
agree: the photographer's choice of scene, selection of image,
of perspective and illumination, are expressions of subjective
intuition. I point out, however, that the subsequent appearance
of the photographic picture is the consequence of an objective
physical or chemical process; as distinct from the painter,
who similarly chooses scene, image, perspective, and illumination,
but then creates the physical picture by successive application
of brush strokes with intuitive, subconsciously determined
motions of his hand.

All this in the context of the admission that all theory,
aesthetic theory included, is artifact, and, purposefully
designed, is itself a work of art. As such the theory can be -
and perhaps must be, interpreted also according to aesthetic
criteria by what turns out to be a recursive process. I'm
reminded of Kierkegaard's definition of spirit as a relation
that relates to itself. It occurs to me that just possibly
the discovery of recursion is the ultimate stage of all
seemingly valid thought, the certification, as it were,
of its ultimate invalidity.

You asked about the 118 pages of computer print-out of my
notes on the 1984 trip to Germany. When I discovered the
typescript in one of the numerous cardboard boxes of Margrit's
papers, I was seized with what turned out to be transient
enthusiasm for transcribing the "hard copy" into text files
to be edited for possible publication on my web site.
However, I soon grew tired of that laborious enterprise;
the paragraphs I appended to my letter were all that I ever
copied. I contented myself with scanning the remaining
115 pages into pdf format, storing the images, 22.48 megabytes,
both on a CD and on the hard disk drive.  Relieved that I had
succeeded in preserving the document, I never bothered to read it;
and I see no reason why reading it would be worth your effort.
Nonetheless, if you were sufficiently curious, I could mail you
a copy of the CD.  Alternatively I could attach the 22.48 megabyte
file to an email. Transmission over the telephone line, if it
proved feasible at all, might take several hours.

Jochen