Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 18:02:59 +0100
Subject: Re:  digital worlding
From: artefact-AT-t-online.de (Michael Eldred)


Cologne, 14 December 1998

Prof. Dr. Rafael Capurro schrieb:
> Where is the difference between this _digital worlding_ and say _printing
> worlding_? or _oral worlding_?

Rafael, thank you for your thoughts. 
You ask: Where’s the difference?

> _esse est computari_ (Sein ist computertechnisch Berechenbar-sein)(See
> Berkeley_ esse is percipi_). It is striking to see how this _rechnendes
> Denken_ at the same time produces a postmodern system such as the Internet,
> which is not controllable (in the sense of a panopticum). Probably it would
> be better to say:
> _esse est informari_ (Sein ist Dargestellt-sein) considering the _forma_ as
> the digital _presentation_ of things (not so much their codification in
> bits).

Sein ist Vor-gestellt-heit.

I would like to insist for the moment on the binary form of these digital beings 
since they _are_ nothing other than the binary code, and this is their form, 
_morphe_, _idea_ and, it seems to me, the culmination of _poiaesis_, i.e. the 
height of metaphysics. 

The very literal ontic placed-in-front-edness of digital beings on the monitor 
screen is only possible by virtue(/virility) of the ontological pre-view 
(Vor-Blick) of the _idea_ of digital decomposition of beings. And digital 
_poiaesis_ is the _dynamis meta logou_ (power guided by the pre-viewing _logos_) 
to bring digitally decomposed beings forth.

The Pythagoreans were the first to attempt the reduction of the being of beings 
to number. Only recently has the _idea_ achieved this de-composition into 
digits, but its seeds lie already in the Greek beginnings. Now we have beings 
which consist purely of series of noughts and ones and which can be imprinted 
(in-formed) in any suitably electrified medium. 

This arbitrary in-forming of matter allows digital beings an omnipresence 
hitherto unknown and the an-nihil-ation of distance. 

Heidegger writes in GA69 with regard to the essencing of power (“16. Woher das 
Sein als Macht?”: 

“Aus dem Sein, das zur Gegenstaendlichkeit wurde seit der ‘Wirklichkeit’, 
_en-ergeia_ und vordem schon seit der _idea_ ueber den actus zum perceptum und 
zur Vorgestell-heit. 
Hinter der Gegenstaendlichkeit verbarg sich lange, bis zum deutschen Idealismus, 
genauer bis zu _Schelling_, das Sein als Wille -- und der ‘Wille’ als seelisch 
geistiger Deckname fuer die Macht.
Wie bei Leibniz beides vorbereitet ist: perceptum des percipere und percipere 
als appetitus, alles im vollen Wesen der vis activa primitiva.
Dass das Sein zur Macht wurde und werden musste, ist eine Zulassung seines 
eigenen Wesens, das seit dem ersten Aufgang der Gruendung seiner Wahrheit und 
damit des Wesens der Wahrheit entbehren musste. Warum dies Entbehren? Die Folge 
des Fortgangs aus der Ueberfuelle des erstanfaenglichen Anfangs. Die Macht 
machtet. Das Sein als Macht ist das Unwesen des erstanfaenglichen, 
ungegruendeten Wesens des Seins als _physis_.” (GA69:62)

“Dann enthuellt sich Macht als Wesung der Machenschaft und diese als verstecktes 
Wesen der ‘Wirksamkeit’ im metaphysischen Sinne, der in der Auslegung des Seins 
als _idea_ -- _poiaesis_ (_physis_ -- _ousia_) verwurzelt ist.” (GA69:66)

There is a lot to think about in these passages. Here only a rough translation:

“Where does being as power come from?
>From being which became objectivity since ‘reality’, _en-ergeia_ and even 
before 
that since the _idea_ via the actus to perceptum and to Vorgestell-heit 
[representedness, brought-to-stand-in-front-edness].
Behind objectivity for a long time, until German Idealism, more precisely, until 
_Schelling_, was hidden being as will -- and ‘will’ as the psychic-spiritual 
code-name for power.
Just as in Leibniz both are prepared: perceptum of percipere and percipere qua 
appetitus, everything in the full essencing of the vis activa primitiva.
That being became power and had to become so is an admission of its own 
essencing which since the first arising had to do without the founding of its 
truth and thus the essencing of truth. Why this doing without? The consequence 
of the proceeding forth out of the over-abundance of the First Beginning. Power 
a-powers. Being as power is the dis-essencing of the unfounded essencing of 
being as _physis_ from the First Beginning.” 

“Then power unveils itself as the essencing of manipulation/machination and this 
latter as the hidden essence of ‘effectiveness’ in the metaphysical sense, which 
is rooted in the interpretation of being as _idea_ -- _poiaesis_ (_physis_ -- 
_ousia_).”

> I read Fraenztki, Vol. 1, § 54-57, where he explains his main thesis on the
> _identity_ (Selbigkeit) between
> DA des Daseins
> DA des Seins
> (this being the reason why he writes: DA-sein, with big letters)
> I do not think H. was not aware of this. In fact, we have the contrary
> information from Medard Boss (Indienfahrt) and the psychiatrist Erna Hoch
> (in Daseinsanalyse 2, 1-36 (1985) in connection with their difference in
> Indian Thought and also in late H., particularly in:
> "Zur Frage nach der Bestimmung der Sache des Denkens (Erker Verlag St.
> Gallen 1984) p. 19, where H. first refers to Boss and zu BT (§ 28: "Das
> Dasein des Menschen ist selbst die Lichtung", and immediately comments: "und
> sie ist zugleich durchaus nicht" (and it is not: "insofern die Lichtung erst
> das Dasein ist, das heisst es als ein solches gewaehrt" (as far as the
> openness _gives free_ Ek-sistence).
> The openness belongs to a dimension (Bereich) different (!) from the one die
> _analytic of existence_ is talking about.

I am not yet sure what to make of Fraentzki, but am presently inclined to think 
he’s overdoing the difference between his Daseinsontologie and Heidegger. (I’m 
missing the point.) But with regard to his main thesis, there seems to me to be 
indeed a standing-over-against of being vis-à-vis Dasein, and not a coalescence. 
Your quotes support this view.

Greetings to where Charles rests,
Michael
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