Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. As is the case so often,
I compose an answer before I forget. Forgive this 
gently critical comment: You've been reading too much
science fiction. Your caricature of me as one intent
on being

_   "dropped into a world that you had to decipher
_    and navigate by yourself?  No prior acculturation or
_    education to prepare you, smooth your way?  You get
_    to figure it out de novo, you coin your concepts,
_    erleben unlimited!  Is that what you wish for?"

has, unless the Alzheimer progression is greater than I can
divine, no basis at all in any of my letters. When you
continue:
 
_    "I suppose such a virgin world could be made available
_    to you in cyberspace.  As you entered it, you would
_    be envelopped in relatively undifferentiated cloud-matter,
_    and you would have a joystick with which you could figure
_    out how to create differentiated things, or set their
_    evolution in motion.  You could be the Historian and Lord
_    High Epistomologist for this world and describe what is
_    happening there, develop a language, guiding principles,
_    laws, a knowledge base, all of your own devising. 
 
I begin to wonder if perhaps this time it's you who has gone
off the deep end. Your description is flattering enough.
It brought to mind Goethe's Sturm und Drang poem about
Prometheus. It's somewhat lengthy and not entirely apposite
but great literature. In my opinion it's never too late for
a dash of deutsche Kultur, - and as always, there's no charge
for exegesis or translation.

Prometheus

Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus,
Mit Wolkendunst
Und übe, dem Knaben gleich,
Der Disteln köpft,
An Eichen dich und Bergeshöhn;
Musst mir meine Erde
Doch lassen stehn
Und meine Hütte, die du nicht gebaut,
Und meinen Herd,
Um dessen Glut
Du mich beneidest.

Ich kenne nichts Ärmeres
Unter der Sonn als euch, Götter!
Ihr nähret kümmerlich
Von Opfersteuern
Und Gebetshauch
Eure Majestät
Und darbtet, wären
Nicht Kinder und Bettler
Hoffnungsvolle Toren.

Da ich ein Kind war,
Nicht wusste, wo aus noch ein,
Kehrt ich mein verirrtes Auge
Zur Sonne, als wenn drüber wär
Ein Ohr, zu hören meine Klage,
Ein Herz wie meins,
Sich des Bedrängten zu erbarmen.

Wer half mir
Wider der Titanen Übermut?
Wer rettete vom Tode mich,
Von Sklaverei?
Hast du nicht alles selbst vollendet,
Heilig glühend Herz?
Und glühtest jung und gut,
Betrogen, Rettungsdank
Dem Schlafenden da droben?

Ich dich ehren? Wofür?
Hast du die Schmerzen gelindert
Je des Beladenen?
Hast du die Tränen gestillet
Je des Geängsteten?
Hat nicht mich zum Manne geschmiedet
Die allmächtige Zeit
Und das ewige Schicksal,
Meine Herrn und deine?

Wähntest du etwa,
Ich sollte das Leben hassen,
In Wüsten fliehen,
Weil nicht alle
Blütenträume reiften?

Hier sitz ich, forme Menschen
Nach meinem Bilde,
Ein Geschlecht, das mir gleich sei,
Zu leiden, zu weinen,
Zu genießen und zu freuen sich,
Und dein nicht zu achten,
Wie ich!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1774)

No, I lay no claims to, I have no paranoid delusions of
being Prometheus. May I write, without insulting you,
that I consider myself a biologist?  I conceive of my
interpretation of the characteristics of what Ernst Cassirer
dubbed "die symbolischen Formen", most preeminently,
language, as a sort of meta-biology - my apologies to your
profession - which describes the intellectual and emotional
limitations of the human animal just as conventional biology 
describes its anatomic, physiologic, biochemical and genetic
characteristics.

_     Is this what you're looking for when you bemoan your
_     captivity within historically developed language,
_     culture, philosophical and legal framework?
 
The moaning is a mere ploy to get attention. The "captivity"
is an historically sanctioned conceit. The bottom line is
acceptance and understanding, without which there's
no possibility of escaping the Pollyanna mode. I have no
alternative but to work within, to build upon the 
"historically developed language, culture, philosophical
and legal framework," which I dare say is susceptible to
a fair amount of improvement.

We, you and I, differ somewhat in our sensitivity to and in
our assessment of risks and imperfections. It may well be a
lack of realism (or a revelation of the blackness of my
soul) that makes me more more afraid of the policeman
than of the robber, that causes me to be more concerned with
what I cannot know than what I can know.

These differences between us, I think, aren't going to go
away; but they give me a chance to sound off. And that's a
lot of fun.

Jochen