1 1 0 V O L U M E 8 , D O C U M E N T 6 2 0 a
imposing limiting law as long as physical experience cannot afford any reason
against this limit, . . . . . is, according to my current view, [still] a death-defying leap
of reason (but a “forgivable” one). [It’s wonderful, you know, how Spinoza antici-
pates scientific progress—defines something as “freedom” that shouldnÊt be a free-
dom at all in the sense of causal detachment: how well its structure entirely suits
the word in the end, even in this sense, even if it only refers to the cognitive
subject!][11]
Now, however, after the transgression of the boundary has been ex-
posed as illegitimate, adherence to determinism, different from a working hypoth-
esis in natural science, therefore strikes me as a belief – – or as a very mystical faith.
We must assume certain primordial elements of the mental “replica” of the uni-
verse: whence the primordial facts of consciousness: admission of the past pos-
sibility of the future; existence of at least one constructive principles within the
framework of this possibility. Excluding precisely these primordial facts is a pro-
cess that the history of science has justified as a temporary process which I, how-
ever, regard as infinitely “improbable,” at least for the final mental state.
– The ultimate thing is the irreducibility of existence. A creative person creates
for himself pictures of the whole, in which the creator’s personal introspective fo-
cus, his “navel,” must inhere—Spinoza’s “navel” in this sense is amor intellectua-
lis. Another navel is in modern-day physics of processes [Geschehensphysik],
which essentially just describes a 4-dimensional existence, the cone of conscious-
ness describing existence :: better still, what matters is what comes [out] the other
end.
I do think, incidentally, that I’m battering down a wide-open door. You’re surely
only saying: “in physics this view doesn’t have any rights of citizenship yet. As
soon as anyone gets anywhere with it (and not before!), I may concern myself with
it as a physicist.” Against which I, of course, can’t counter anything, nor do I want
to.
Warm greetings, yours,
Michele.
Vol. 8, 620a. To Heinrich Zangger
[Berlin,] 21 September [1918]
Dear Zangger,
You don’t write a thing about my proposal that I’m willing to offer a lecture for
a month each semester at
Zurich.[1]
Meyer for his part is agreed but hasn’t spoken
to anyone yet. According to his view, if all goes smoothly, I should appear for the
first time on February
1st.[2]
That’s why I want to drop the trip for now, especially
considering that the semester is already starting here and I have announced a lecture.