A tiny question.

[Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt]

hg sez:
> <Here is the von Braun quote:
>      Nature does not know extinction, only transformation. Everything 
>      science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my 
>      belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death (GR, 1).
>  
> <The quote is nonsense of course>

J disagrees: 
> Makes sense to me.  The only word I might argue with is "our."  "We" after
> all are nothing, except perhaps to ourselves.


Von Braun argues from the first law of thermodynamics ('Energy can 
neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed') to an expressed faith 
in perpetual spiritual existence after death. Simply looking at the word 
'extinction', and von Braun's uncritical importation of it from a clearly 
defined scientific application into the vague arena of generalized human 
language use, bears testimony to the dangers of any carelessly performed 
interdisciplinary activity. Spiritual existence after death (and I assume von 
Braun means self-conscious, individual existence*) does of course not 
necessarily follow from the first law of thermodynamics, which deals with 
measurable, physical energy - although neither does the opposite. _These_ 
particular concerns remain within the realm of the meta-physical.** The von 
Braun quote immediately introduces one of the central themes of GR, namely 
the relationship between science and human actuality (in which the 
metaphysical, unlike in science, plays a crucial, direct, and even dominant role). 
The point of convergence of physical, scientific transformation and Human 
death, although medically quantifiable, occurs necessarily, for us, on the level 
of the human.  Whether all attempts at incorporating the metaphysical into 
the realm of science have to be rejected outright remains debatable; the way 
von Braun goes about it in the above quote certainly has to be dismissed as 
illegitimate. IMO Pynchon is aware of this, too, and a lot of his humour, 
pathos, etc. is generated when his characters forget this. What (also) makes 
TRP so successful a writer for me is that he generally does _not_ fall into 
these kind of traps - he simply isn't sloppy / lazy enough.

* although it would equally apply to a more Eastern or African 
'circular' interpretation of 'spiritual existence' 
** I'm really not trying to sound like a logical positivist, but also 
am aware that a positivist vocabulary is quite useful here

hg
hag at iafrica.com