Here is a female bower bird viewing the art. She is assessing if the male is a good artist, which will depend on her own artistic preferences. This has all been documented and studied.

I'm not attempting to define art, but rather identify it.

So every person is an artist?

Yes, but some artists are better than others.

Why are they artists?

They are artists because they are performing all the processes that human artists and viewers do, short of intellectual introspection and comment, oh and no money changes hand.

Take the bower bird, the male has inherited a highly creative streak, including critical faculties of the materials he uses and how they work together. The female has inherited acute critical faculties about the creative skills and execution of the male. Also she has her own particular style and preferences, along with the male. She knows what constitutes good art and poor art.

I agree with your definition over all the others, it is a cultural phenomenon and plays the role of a mirror. For example, the Punk movement was a well developed social force before the Sex Pistols were formed, they were just the latest development in the trend.

Its brave of you to attempt to define art as you have, I think there is some truth in what you say, but there are numerous counter arguments and I don't think one can restrict art to the contents of critical thinking, or the domain of self consciousness alone.

There is an interesting test for what is art, coined by Grayson Perry, put your art work in a skip and if it has gone by the next day, it is good art, or art, if it stays for a long time, it is poor art, or isn't art at all.

I broadly agree with you, you have made so many comments I can't get into them all now.

I think I've gotten to the point where I don't think art can be defined or fully described philosophically.

I agree with this sentiment.

I agree with your thoughts about Consciousness, and I like your concept of the King but I would extend the definition of consciousness beyond the sensibilities of mind. For example, as Colosseum said, animals are artists, but they don't have conscious minds like humans. Fish, clear a patch of gravel, for a female to like it, or the bower bird creating a beautiful bower for his female, who has a critical eye.

Thank you for your images, art works. They are very inspiring and intriguing.
I would say from the moment they became artistically interesting to you, you became an artist, however you were performing the same creative actions before as you were after you saw them as art. So you were creating art right from the beginning, while not recognising it as art.

As for defining what art is, this cannot easily be pinned down, or should it be pinned down, it is a cultural phenomena. We could go to great lengths to define it and yet that would be a great deal of talking and I doubt it would take us anywhere in particular.

What is more important if one is an artist is the art itself and the enjoyment of creating it and living with it. Also others sharing in that experience.

If the artist means something in it's art, then the correct way to interpret it is by that degree.

However, is it ok to interpret art incorrectly? I think so.

Unless, per se, there is a greater judge, who thinks 'no, it means this in it's best light', then the artist's meaning loses it's credibility. Perhaps, it's a matter of judgement.

I agree that if the artist deems it art then it should be judged in that way, but there is also the audience who have their say, so we have the King.

There is a dynamic between the artist and the King, with culture as the medium?

Thanks for your comprehensive post and welcome to the forum.

is there a correct or incorrect way to interpret art or is it based on a causal origin by the artist?

I think the answer to this question is complicated and is perhaps an evolution within society. The main problem I have with the way art is interpreted is the role of the critic, the critic has traditionally dictated what is good art, what is bad art and what constitutes art. This has the consequence that artists who are creative and skill based people feel they have to try to conform in some way to validate their work.

This still occurs, although modernism and post modernism has challenged this. To some extent the artist has fought back and the critics have stepped back and allowed anything to be good art and Art.

Well that's the argument right there. The first world says to the third world: We've got ours. You can't have yours. In fact you should die or not be born.

Yes, I agree that it is an argument against what Lif3r said about population control. For me though, I don't recall anyone who talks about the climate crisis talking about limiting population. I certainly don't, it was only because it was brought up here that I commented. What is more likely is them talking about what calamity, or disease is likely to reduce population.

As we are here though, let's have a look, the current population of India is approx 1.366 billion, and the rate of increase is not showing any sign of slowing down. Most of these people live a very modest lifestyle compared to people in the west. Following the air pollution crisis in New Delhi a few weeks ago, I think they might have had a wake up call. But I doubt they are going to stem the increase significantly, but rather look to generating solar power, they have a good climate for this and have achieved great things in technological innovation and progress. But if their population keeps increasing at the current rate, the technology won't keep up and the poverty crisis they have will only increase. Unfortunately the size of their country doesn't increase alongside the population. India has three times the population of the states and half the land mass. As I said in my last post, if all these people had the decadent lifestyles we have, they would have more than an air pollution crisis on their hands.

So the issue with population is that as so many of the population lives low impact, in terms of carbon emissions, lifestyles and we have an urgent climate crisis on the horizon. Requiring reductions in global carbon emissions beginning in the next few years. There simply isn't the time, or the opportunity for all these people to level up to our level of emissions. The message being given to countries like India, China and Brazil, is that the crisis is upon us and we need to make the changes now and countries like yours will proportionately feel the impact more than the more affluent countries in cooler northern climates. I would also like the message to include, that we have developed the technology and offer it to them so they can transition away from fossil fuels without economic crisis. It does take a long time to turn a super tanker though, especially one loaded with oil.

What is art is decided by the artist. A group of people who are difficult to pin down.

i noted that many environmentalists are for population control of third worlders. Nobody ever asks the third worlders what they think. Some extreme environmentalists are anti-human; and I oppose that type of environmentalism.

They have, certainly in India. For decades the Indian government has tried initiatives to limit population growth with no success. They overtook China a few years back in the size of the population.

I can be for clean air and water without wanting to deprive the third world of their aspirations to a better life.

The problem is the numbers, the carbon emissions would increase vastly if all those people had air conditioners, white goods, cars etc.

But my response was primarily to your second paragraph. Firstly that the changes will wreck western economies and that it is a small increase in temperature.

You can still acknowledge the magnitude of their crimes against humanity.

Right?

Yes, and I do, but in this case I don't know if the current policy is worse than the alternative, as I have pointed out. On the assumption (I know it is a big one) that this Muslim community is vulnerable to radicalisation (which I presume, the Chinese authorities conclude), then this might be the least disruptive solution.

I did watch a documentary about the camps and it didn't appear that their culture was being extinguished, but rather that education was aimed at integrating them into a Chinese ideology. I accept that the devil might be in the detail and that for the people being forced into this it might be a form of imprisonment with brainwashing.

I need to read into the culture of Uyghur muslims before I can pronounce any more on their susceptibility to radicalisation. Also I don't see why they would require to include any Christians.

I remember back in the day, I was so angry about what China was doing in Tibet that I decided to protest at the Chinese embassy, there were daily protests at that time. But after a couple of minutes I concluded that it was pointless to protest because China was always going to ignore any protests, also they are so big and powerful, which was only going to increase. So I experienced a forlorn sense of resignation about it and filed it under hopeless causes.

This feeling has persisted, so I have a hopeless sense of resignation when I hear of these camps and other policies. I am encouraged occasionally when I see evidence of the benevolence of the Chinese state and that they are trying to do what's best for their people, in one sense of the word. Their foreign policy is a bit of a concern, but I don't feel personally threatened as yet. I do have a mind to avoid ending up in one of those camps myself though.

I remember hearing Danny Baker trying to give an excuse when he was doorstepped the day after he was caught out. He said he was mortified when someone told him Meghan was mixed race (and the interesting bit for me), he had thought of using a picture of the chimp because they were royals and it was a silly jape about their unearned privelidge, or inbred genes or something like that. Of course he would have got away with that, if racism hadn't been implied.

Time to forget about Baker I think and get back to the story about the press treatment of Meghan and Harry.

We may never know. But in my opinion, Baker got what he deserved whether because he was being evil or because he was being stupid.

Agreed, my take on it was that he had a reputation for silly gags like this with racial overtones and got caught out. His excuse was not credible, he claimed that he didn't realise she was mixed race.

On the racist narrative, there is an undertow of endemic racism in the vilification, but a large slice of sexism, because Meghan is a successful celebrity and another slice of wanting to speak out for good causes. It's a heady cocktail of misogenoir and the press can't help themselves in their wallowing in the gutter.

Yes it looks like we're going to get a pincer movement between the EU and the US. No surprise there, but who are the Populists going to blame for that lack of foresight, I wonder.

As for the bongs, it looks like Farage is going to throw the party in Trafalgar Square, I'll be watching for the fisticuffs.

P.s. It's been confirmed that the bung for Stormont is 2 billion.

So you approve of it from a strategic angle if not morally?

I approve of it more than I approve of the action by Assad to deal with Islamic fundamentalism. I have always been uneasy about the methods adopted by China, particularly the way they have treated Tibet, but it does work quite well in preventing violence and civil wars and the like.

The last I heard from a Chinese spokesperson was that the Uygur muslims were free to come and go from the facilities and indeed, they had already left.

But more seriously, I agree that this seems to mirror the re-education camps of the cultural revolution. I am vehemently against such things, but I can't see any other solution for the Chinese administration. If extremist Islam finds its way into these communities, they will probably have a bigger problem which they can't put right without violence.

I'm surprised at this attitude, although it continues to surprise me how little concern there is for climate change in the members of the forum from the US. Is it a partisan stance perhaps, I recollect Trump's insistence that climate change is a Chinese plot, a deception to persuade the west to ruin its economies and competitiveness.

With the status quo, the residents of Gaza will be pummelled into the dust.

Yes, I realise this. But I have heard a summary of what questions will be asked of what witnesses, under oath. It will be difficult for them to deny it. Unfortunately I don't have this information at hand right now.

Now that Les Parnas's testimony is a available, Mayor Giuliani and Trump will be further exposed. If the Senate votes to exclude witness testimony, they will be collectively betraying their oaths of office. If witnesses are allowed they will either have to ignore the evidence, therefore losing any integrity they have, or if they accept it they will have to rule against Trump.

Then we should hope the CIA isn't partisan.

It’s a Ukrainian company in Ukrainian jurisdiction. As for American government officials I think that’s up to the justice dept. The president was only asking the Ukrainian president to look into it

So Trump was vulnerable to accusations of political expediency.

I expect the CIA will be watching what politicians are up to in ex USSR states if they may gain presidential office in the near future. Surely they know what happened.

I’m not sure what they said.

My point being that it was the role of the CIA to do the investigation, rather than the president, because the president could be vulnerable to accusations of political expediency.

I believe he has done nothing wrong, and more, I think he was right and obligated, morally and as a public servant of the country, to look into possible corruption between US and Ukrainian officials. The notion that he shouldn’t do so because it might harm a Democrat’s political chances seems absolutely absurd to me and I feel I am living in Clown World for having to argue against it.

And what did the CIA have to say about Trump getting involved in the investigation of Biden? Or did Trump neglect to tell them. Presumably they were already aware of said corruption from their Ukrainian spies.

I think we should give Meghan some credit, I think she is moving to Canada to protect the kids from that kind of exposure and vilification that is going to be dedicated to her and them in the UK.
I would do that, although, I wouldn't have married him in the first place.

Regarding the permission point, yes, I am concerned about this. Because the BBC, which is a nationalised institution is regarded widely as only purveying the true reality, which can be trusted above all else. Indeed whatever and however any story is covered on radio 4 is gospel. Most of the population will take this as granting permission. Although to the BBC's credit, they did not indulge in the overt racism and were quite balanced on institutionalised racism and sexism. The issue I have with their coverage is their elevation of details of the family life of H and M to the level of important national news, on a par with politics. Indeed it easily pushes Johnson etc of the headline slot.

Going back to the salacious vilification purveyed by the papers, it acts as a dog whistle for the bigoted racist rump I mentioned before. Which over time seeps into general discourse.

I say they were # hacked off.

Yes. That's why I don't claim to have any direct knowledge about Enfernity. For my worldview, It's merely a baseline for everything else. It's the empty-set outside our Reality-set circle (the universe). For the purposes of "intellectual inquiry", it serves as Plato's realm of Ideal Forms.

Yes, I agree on Enfernity. I would have described the equivalent in my philosophy. For me it is rather like the asymptote you describe, I see it as an event horizon, or meniscus. A horizon where the forms regress to an equivalence of infinity. I appreciate your view of this as a baseline, although for me it is a threashold, or window beyond which are forms of absolute/eternal worlds and beings, rather like the Hindu cosmology.

I also contemplate this threashold present in myself, humanity, all the kingdoms in nature and individual cells for example. So amenable to communion.

Likewise it dovetails nicely into ideas reducing perception of our world to one point in time and space. And is useful in freeing oneself of human conditioning and nature for purposes of contemplation.

I was thinking of starting a thread on this myself. I think the video spells out the issue well. I would only reiterate the mention of the way the media operates in the UK. It has become normalised for the entire media to examine the lives of certain, chosen, Royals in minute detail and to turn any slightly interesting, or controversial developments, or circumstances into a media storm. This level of scrutiny is unprecedented anywhere else or against any other group of celebrities.

The press pack is lead by a group of competing newspapers known as the gutter press. The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Express, The Sun, The Daily Mirror. These rags blow up any tittle tattle, selacious gossip, juicy stories into media storms daily and once they latch on to a Royal story they just don't stop. Yesterday, as I walked past the newstand in my local Supermarket, every front page( including the serious papers) had large photos of the Queen, or Meghan, or Harry, pulling faces, or looking angry. This has been going on continuously since the story broke and won't stop for months.

This is followed by the mainstream TV repeating sanitised versions of the story's ad hominem, until everyone is sick of it.

More broadly and what is the base perspective of these rags is a toxic cocktail of sexism, misogyny and racism, which pervades a rump of the population who read these newspapers. Perhaps half a million to 2 million people. This then pervades a larger group, who will imbibe the vitriol almost subliminally, while not questioning it, or giving it much thought. This same rump were very vocally in favour of Brexit by the way.

A new word has been coined to describe the prejudice against Meghan, misogenior. A combination of misogyny and racism against black, or people of a West Indian heritage.

The majority of the population in the UK are broadly supportive of the Harry and Meghan, and are either appalled by what has happened, or simply don't see it as an important story at all.

If there is something that ought to fall, it is the Zionist agenda and the concept of Israel as a Jewish state that makes second rate citizens of non-Jewish Israelis. It's a racist country and Zionism is what informs that racism.

Yes I wholeheartedly agree, I was going to write the same thing, but hadn't got around to it.

I suggest folk go to google earth and zoom in on Gaza, you can see what amounts to little more than a concentration camp from space.

Could you say more?

Well, in essence mysticism includes an approach to knowledge which offers two other means of enquiry (there may be more). Other than the intellectual route to knowledge. An enquiry into the self and an enquiry into communion, or intuition with or aided by a real, or notional deity, of some kind.

During this inquiry insights may occur into other areas, or ideas, different, or even orthogonal to the intellectual route to knowledge.

For example I have realised that there is a form of knowledge, which is gathered, or achieved via acquaintance, or communion with aspects of the self, or other entities. A route in which the intellect is used only as a tool of interpretation of the experience which has become known, before the intellect became involved.

1) Mind-body dualism is a non sequitur.
2) Human substance (being) is a unity having two properties (i.e., body and mind).

I would agree with this, to an extent. The extent that a human entity can be regarded as a substance, however both body and mind are foundational to the conscious being therein. So perhaps one can describe the conscious being to be found in a human, fundamentally dualistic, due to the case that consciousness of the body and the consciousness of the mind, are foundational and both are necessary for that consciousness to occur.

I assume that Eternity-Infinity (timelessness and spacelessness) is the default state of BEING.

I'm not sure it is wise to use the word infinity there, I note that you qualify it with spacelessness, but squaring infinity with reality doesn't end well.

Timelessness and spacelessness, is a good default, or baseline. But it is a dead end when it comes to intellectual inquiry.

There's a news story going around that the Home Secretary of Britain, Priti Patel, has categorised the ideology of Extinction Rebellion as a terrorist ideology and cases of it can be referred to the Prevent Programme, which is the UK anti terrorism security force.

I quote,

"the rest is silence"

If you really want answers you will have to absorb a little mysticism, Shakespeare knew that when he wrote Hamlet.