PUPIL 1:
When Albert Schweitzer had done his day’s
work, he usually would play on his piano
with organ-pedal that had been built for
use under tropical conditions. He would
practise for his compilations of
Bach-compositions that were sold as
recordings and also for his public
concerts, which earned money for his
charitable engagement.
His organ-teacher made him to compile a
complete collection of notes of Bach’s
compositions for organ; and in 1908, he
published a Bach-monograph that is seen,
until today, as the standard work of
music-aesthetical approach …
PUPIL 2:
… Bach’s „Art of the Fugue“
is the late work of the Leipzig
Thomas-Cantor that is surrounded by a lot
of legends. After Bach died in 1750, it
was almost forgotten. However, in the
second half of last century an author had
the idea to combine for his book’s
title the name of the composer and
musical theorist Bach with two areas of
complete different human thinking and
feeling — with the mathematics of
Kurt Gödel and with the paintings of
Marits Cornelis Escher ...
PUPIL 3:
… All three had created something
which is able to deceive human senses,
something that would continue from a
beginning until it arrives again at that
point of beginning — a movement in
an endless loop.
Escher, for example, painted objects or
buildings which, on first sight, look
natural but then appear as impossible
constructions …
We are not talking here about the
normally impossible move of our
school-building from a German town to an
African railway-platform; this seems
— as shown by your and our presence
at this location — to have been
quite possible for the controller of this
TAZARA-game … We are talking about
Escher’s graphs of impossible
perspectives, of optical delusions and
other phenomena of perception …
 His painting
„Waterfall“ for example
shows a stream of water that
moves away from the observer,
then turns to the left, is then
falling down only to connect to
its beginning. What seems to work
on this painting in two
dimensions would be not possible
in the reality of three
dimensions because the water had
to flow uphill. His painting
„Steps up and down“
shows, in a similar way, a
staircase on which people move
endlessly around … |
Again, it is not an image
of the staircase leading up to our „Giebelsaal“!
However, pay attention, since we are
working with multi media-applications,
there are shortcuts into a virtual world
as well — into the World Wide Web
…
PUPIL 2:
The already mentioned bestseller-author
researched as physicist and information
scientist with regard to the „endless
loop“ — as appearing in the
works of Gödel, Escher and Bach —
the question, how it was possible that
out of relatively „dull“
elements — for example the neutrons
in the human brain — intelligent
systems could grow with the capability of
self-reflection …
The author himself, Douglas Richard
Hofstadter, is, so to speak, noble
material: he was born as son of the NOBEL
PHYSICS LAUREATE Robert Hofstadter and
since the 1980s he is representing a
scientific school that expects much of
the creating of „artificial
intelligence.
„GÖDEL,
ESCHER, BACH: AN ETERNAL GOLDEN
BRAID“
The book by Douglas R. Hofstadter,
Klett-Cotta, 2006, 17th edition)
… What
is it about?
It is not only about mathematics,
not at all only about music or
art. The book is dealing with
many different areas, it does not
only have a brief look at them
but offers perceptions from a
wider variety of scientific areas
thereby trying to answer some of
the most important questions:
 How is the
„I“, the self, coming
into being?
How can
consciousness develop out of
unconscious matter?
What is
this creation of the „I“
and how was it possible that it
could emerge from matter? …
Category:
„dull“ particle in
GDR-brain:
On an East-German tramway, a
musician is reading a score. An
agent of state-security thinks
this score may contain cipher
writing and arrests the man as a
spy although the musician claims
it is a fugue of Bach. Next day,
an interrogator shouts at him:
„Now you tell me! You can
confess; Bach did already!“ |
PUPIL 1:
Tonight, here in our „Giebelsaal“
of the Albert-Schweitzer-School in
Nienburg at the river Weser you are
introduced to:
SCHWEITZER, KISSINGER, ANNAN: AN ETERNAL
GOLDEN BRAID
… What is it about?
It is not only about charity, not only
about diplomacy and not at all about
peace or war. Our working group is
dealing this evening with many different
areas, it does not only have a brief look
at them but offers perceptions from a
wider variety of scientific areas thereby
trying to answer some of the most
important questions:
 How did the „I“
of Albert Schweitzer, of Henry Kissinger,
of Kofi Annan come into being?
How did the
consciousness of the NOBEL PEACE
LAUREATES emerge?
Out of what matter did
it develop?
| Albert
Schweitzer was a reputed
organ-player, a musical
scientist, a theorist of organ
building and one of the most
important interpreters of the
music of Johann Sebastian Bach. |
PUPIL 2:
However, for that he was not awarded the
NOBEL PRIZE!
The keynote
of Schweitzer's personal
philosophy, which he
considered to be his greatest
contribution to mankind, was the
idea of ‚Reverence for Life‘.
He wrote:
„True philosophy must start
from the most immediate and
comprehensive fact of
consciousness, and this may be
formulated as follows: ‚I am
life which wills to live, and I
exist in the midst of life which
wills to live‘.“ In
nature, one form of life must
always prey upon another.
However, human consciousness
holds an awareness of, and
sympathy for, the will of other
beings to live. An ethical human
strives to escape from this
contradiction so far as possible.
Though we cannot perfect the
endeavour, we should strive for
it: the will-to-live constantly
renews itself, for it is both an
evolutionary necessity and a
spiritual phenomenon. Life and
love are rooted in this same
principle, in a personal
spiritual relationship to the
universe. Ethics themselves
proceed from the need to respect
the wish of other beings to exist
as one does towards
oneself.“ |
PUPIL 1:
However, for that he was not awarded the
NOBEL PRIZE!
| Many friends
and well-known scientists, headed by
his friend Albert Einstein who
died on the 18th of April 1957,
urged Schweitzer to protest in
public against nuclear bombs and
the atomic tests. Renowned
scientists had the idea that the
reputation of Albert Schweitzer
could help to awaken the public
to the problem of nuclear
pollution and the consequent
danger to human beings.
Schweitzer didn't feel called
upon to do this. He had always
refused to comment on political
problems or to take up a position
in favour of one party or
another. But after the first
hydrogen bomb test in 1954, he
began to make an intense study of
the political and scientific
aspects of the nuclear tests and
the military implications. In
January 1957 the well-known
publisher Norman Cousins visited
Albert Schweitzer together with
the photographer Clara Urquhart
in Lambaréné. Together they
hoped to be able to persuade
Albert Schweitzer that he must
commit himself against the
nuclear bomb. He hesitated about
his competence in the nuclear
question and doubted seriously
whether a statement from him
would have any influence. Then
Schweitzer wrote a letter to the
American President Dwight
Eisenhower: „In my heart I
carry the hope I may somehow be
able to contribute to the peace
of the world. This I know has
always been our deepest wish. We
both share the conviction that
humanity must find a way to
control the weapons which now
menace the very existence of life
on earth. May it be given to us
both to see the day when the
world’s people will realize
that the fate of all humanity is
now at stake, and that it is
urgently necessary to make the
bold decisions that can deal
adequately with the agonizing
situation in which the world now
finds itself.“ |
PUPIL 2:
However, for that he was not awarded the
NOBEL PRIZE!
Albert Schweitzer received the NOBEL
PRIZE thanks to his image coined by the
world media as the „good doctor of
Lambaréné“.
|
