Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. The command "forward" did not
produce any text in your letters "How Genes Self-Replicate."
I infer that mitosis in the computer memory is less
reliable than in the living cell.

I neglected to point out in the quotation from Faust:

Geheimnisvoll am lichten Tag
Laesst sich Natur des Schleiers nicht berauben
Und was sie deinem Geist nicht offenbaren mag,
Das zwingst du ihr nicht ab mit Hebeln und mit Schrauben.

that knowledge does not seem to exist independent of
the spirit (Geist) to which it is revealed. For Goethe,
if I interpret him correctly, knowledge is not the
acquisition or repetition of logical propositions, but
an intuitive apperception, a gift of nature which cannot
be extorted from her.

Goethe wrote: "Ich habe nie ueber das Denken gedacht."
I am critical of his reluctance to think about thought.
To think about thinking is to exercise the mind in a
special way that is very effective. It is primarily by
thinking about thought that one discovers ones mistakes.
Indeed thinking about thought seems to be to be the
unavoidable issue of all cogitation, its natural necessary
conclusion. Our intellect tends to be self-correcting.
Thought creates intellectual experience, which constitutes
a feed-back that in turn modifies and revises the thought
which provoked it.

I share your admiration of molecular biochemistry. Whether
one denominates it as fact or as theory is ultimately of
little import. I find in molecular biochemistry's description
of the genome an esthetic satisfaction akin to the satisfaction
I derive from a great musical composition. I discover reality
in the immediate apperception of the experiment, or in
the compelling application of the theory, rather than in some
remote fantasy- or mythlike construction which makes a mockery
of my intuition.

I've spent almost the whole day on "estate planning," a task
which I find unusually difficult, because by definition, I
cannot be the executor of my own estate. The laws are obscure
and ambiguous, and very threatening, fraught as they are with
heavy penalties. They constitute a challenge with which none
of my legatees will be able to contend. As a result, I feel
helpless.

I keep hoping that tomorrow the sun will shine, but the forecast
is for rain.

Jochen