Part 8 Summary and Analysis

"Where Are We Going? And What Are We Doing?" The first part of this section describes how the lecture is to be delivered—with a single speaker reading one version of the speech while three other versions (which the speaker has recorded in his/her own voice) play simultaneously. The second part of the introduction explores the author's train of thought that led him to this style of presentation—an examination of the paradoxical question of whether "man is in control of nature or is he, as part of it, going along with it?" He then comments that the form of this lecture makes meaning "not easy to come by," but that he has chosen it "out of regard for the way in which [he understands] nature operates. This view," he adds, "makes us all equals ..."

The first layer...