The Certain von Braun (was Virgin...)

[jporter]

> From: Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com> Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 11:13:41
> -0800 (PST)
 
Me:

>> Without mistakes there is no meaning. By embracing uncertainty and
>> "incorporating" uncertainty into the encoding process, the encoder allows
>> itself to be aligned with unforeseen and changing contingencies of the
>> context into which its offspring will be released. But the price for opening
>> "the code" to the vagaries of the context is a loss of control. Is such a
>> sacrifice justified? It's probably the price of doing business.
>> 

Dave:
> 
> This is not unrelated to the necessity of misunderstanding to understanding,
> miscommunication to communication, mistaking to taking, et al., I think. Here
> see the various works of Jacques Derrida ...

Another look might suggest the figure of von Braun at the opening of GR.
Without mistakes there is no evolution, and finally, no emergence of
sentient beings seeking to communicate. Inspite of von Braun's platitudes
extinction is the hallmark of nature, albeit involuntarily, until perhaps,
now.

If the evolution of living forms is considered as the transmission of
information from one generation to the next, then there is no communication
without at least the potential for mistakes, miscommunications, extinctions,
etc. But Pynchon's von Braun would have us believe there are no mistakes,
just a process of "transformation."

But who or what then decides when and how the transformations are to take
place? If not for the potential of mistakes (and successes), if not for the
freedom to err, if not for freedom to choose against a backdrop of
randomness, then the whole dance is predetermined- including the holocaust
dream which follows v.B on stage., and even the Sartean choice of
"voluntary" extinction is not really an option.

And it is the same with all quasi-religious urges- an unconscious desire for
determinism- an attempt to avoid the void.

The theater exit sign has shifted to red....

jody