So if I see people applauding and cheering as a toreador sinks his blades into a bull's sides, that's not schadenfreude-like? These expressions actually represent remorse, love, pity, compassion. I thought these sentiments came with their own distinctive, dedicated physical correlates like :sad: :grimace: :cry:

:up: Next time you take a tumble and somebody laughs/sniggers (at you), you're gonna shake his/her hand, tip your hat, and thank him/her. — Agent Smith

Last I recall the toreador is supposed to bring about a clean kill in the lesser animal, rather than one of excruciating suffering.

That said, when have I ever denied the occurrence of sadistic assholes in the world? Your last sentence specifically leaves a lot to be desired in terms of coherence.

Ah, the vicarious pleasures of watching other life struggle, suffer, and die form a safe distance ... maybe with popcorn ready at hand. — javra

:sad: Oh well, let's not spoil the fun! This is the best the world has to offer by way of enjoyment! Schadenfreude is all we got, take it or leave it! — Agent Smith

Here’s a rephrasing of what I was saying: Mistaking the pleasure of watching well played-out combat sports for the pleasure of bloodlust is on par to mistaking the wails that occur during sexual orgasms for manifestations of suffering. That said, there of course are those who find fun in bloodlust’s fulfilment, this as they find fun the bringing about of others’ suffering via sex - neither of which were unheard of in the Colosseum, for example.



I was ignorant of the phrase's specific origins, so thanks for the reference.

What can be posited to exist without any perceptions or conceptualizations (for perceptions and conceptualizations are awareness-contingent and would in no way occur in the absence of all awareness)? — javra

I would say that absent percipients only what would be perceived if there were percipients could be posited. So, stars planets, mountains, rivers and so on. A cry long list if you include plants. — Janus

My first thought is, could anyone accomplish this positing without the use of their awareness? Take away awareness in general and the very possibility of this supposition seems to me to existentially vanish. What then?

But I grant that you, as with many others, deem it necessary that givens occur in manners fully independent of awareness in general, this in order to justify givens occurring independently of individual instantiations of awareness - the latter being something we all agree upon. In contrast, I’m thinking more along the lines of C.S. Peirce’s notions of idealism wherein “matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming natural laws”. Here, the physical (being effete mind) is contingent on the occurrence of awareness in general - but is not contingent on any individual instantiation of awareness. The former view - wherein matter is fully independent of mind - would seem to create a dualism between mind and matter if not for the supposition of physicalism. In at least this respect, the latter view does not.

At any rate, though we disagree on this point of ontology, thank you for the answer.

If all awareness in the cosmos were to somehow miraculously vanish [...] what, if anything, would remain of the world as we in any way know it? — javra

I would say everything bar percipients and their perceptions. — Janus

In other words, everything bar awareness and awareness-contingent givens. What would that be though?

One should minimally add to your reply conceptualizations - including those of the world past, present, or future; or even of possible worlds - for all conceptualizations are themselves contingent on some instantiation(s) of awareness. So it’s known, I find your answer in current form trivially true and hence uninformative. I can try to rephrase the question in this way: What can be posited to exist without any perceptions or conceptualizations (for perceptions and conceptualizations are awareness-contingent and would in no way occur in the absence of all awareness)?

Perhaps I'm thick, but I didn't understand what you were trying to convey in your first paragraph. — Janus

Or perhaps I haven't explained it well enough. If it's of help, to try to illustrate from a different angle; I’ll allude to what I find to be a parallel-enough metaphysics in this regard: Buddhism. It’s a non-physicalist ontology replete with its causal networks that affirms the lack of a creator psyche for the world. I uphold a like position in regard to the generalities just expressed. If this example is not of help, then it appears I'm currently not that capable of properly expressing myself. I'll work on it some for next time.

You might be interested in this comment. — Wayfarer

I don’t find anything disagreeable in the comment linked to. Thanks for it. I’m just struck by, I’ll call it the awkwardness, of physicalism being in this instance in part defined by the occurrence of awareness that is irreducible to nonawareness. Don’t know if you got a chance to visit the wiki page I linked to: though disagreements are many, turns out panpsychism as concept can nevertheless be deemed amiable to most any system of ontology, depending on who you ask. The only stringent exception being that of emergentism as it regards awareness per se. But when it comes to physicalism - irrespective of what future refinements, if any, might be made to the notion of “panpsychist physicalism”- it seem to completely evaporate the semantics by which physicalism is currently understood. For instance, taken from the first page of the manuscript @Manuel linked to:

What does physicalism involve? What is it, really, to be a physicalist? What is it to be a realistic physicalist, or, more simply, a real physicalist? Well, one thing is absolutely clear. You’re certainly not a realistic physicalist, you’re not a real physicalist, if you deny the existence of the phenomenon whose existence is more certain than the existence of anything else: experience, ‘consciousness’, conscious experience, ‘phenomenology’, experiential ‘what-it’s-likeness’, feeling, sensation, explicit conscious thought as we have it and know it at almost every waking moment. — Galen Strawson -- Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism

This statement, of itself, runs counter to what many a physicalist on this website tend to affirm.

Are you positing a collective psyche or something like that? — Janus

As the "creator of the world" you mean? No. Tried to simplistically illustrate what I'm positing via the analogy to geometric points. More concretely, yet still simplistically, replace "geometric points" with "first-person points of view (conscious or otherwise)" and "geometric space" with "physical space". Lots of details to go through for which this forum isn't ideally suited. But the conclusion: physical space is a necessary correlate of there co-occuring two or more first-person points of view - and occurs independently of what these might individually or collectively desire in regard to space's existence. Just as there would be no geometric space in the absence of two or more geometric points, so too would there be no physical space in the absence of two or more instantiations of awareness. As physical space is contingent on there being two or more instantiations of awareness, so too will the physical world in totality of complexity be. But I really don't want to drag this into "my views". In short, though, the answer to the question you posed is "no": there is no creator psyche of the world from where I stand.

In fairness, though, you have so far not directly answered the question I've posed:

If all awareness in the cosmos were to somehow miraculously vanish [...] what, if anything, would remain of the world as we in any way know it? — javra

Regardless of that, what it means to say things exist independently of percipients, is that they are there to be perceived, and there regardless of whether or not they are perceived. — Janus

Right. Of course. Independently of me, or of you, or of any other individual sentience. But would they in any way occur in the complete absence of any and all awareness?

As an analogy, one single geometric point is indefinite, volumeless, and in this sense nonexistent. There must be two or more geometric points to establish any kind of space whatsoever - a space which the two or more geometric points inhabit with location. Now, given that space already is, this entails that a plurality of geometric points occurs. Take any one geometric point away and the given space yet remains due to there yet occurring two or more geometric points to define it. So, relative to individual geometric points, the space they occupy occurs independently of them. Yet, relative to all geometric points, the occurrence of the space they occupy will be dependent on the geometric points' primacy of being.

In like enough manner, the physical world (to not even mention individual objects in it) occurs fully independently of me, or you, of any other individual psyche. But in the absence of all awareness, including that pertaining to psyches, there would be no such thing as a world.

Like an ocean that is made up of water drops. The ocean is in one way fully independent of the individual water drops it consist of: taking a buck of water away makes no difference. Yet, there would be no ocean in the complete absence of all water drops.

This not with an intention to convince but to explain. I agree that the physical world is mind-independent (or indifferent) when addressing individual minds or individual mind cohorts. But I uphold that it is mind-dependent (or at least awareness-dependent) when addressing the occurrence of all coexisting instantiations of awareness.

Its an alternative view to yours - but it does account for why the moon is irrespective of whether I, or you, or some lesser animal somewhere, happens to be mindful of it or not. For one thing, the moon is thoroughly enmeshed in a cosmic causal matrix, the same we're all embedded in, and will thus remain long after we no longer are in this world.

Edit: Panpsychism of some form would then need to be to account for a life-devoid cosmos from which life evolved, this within such a system pivoting on a primacy of awareness.

:up: Thanks a bunch. I'll check it out.

If we believe the science it tells us that the universe did indeed exist before any organisms appeared on the scene. — Janus

I believe I've already accounted for this in my post via some, as of yet to be clarified, form of panpsychism.



I do see where you're coming from. My own view has nowadays come to take the primacy of awareness nearly for granted. However, due to my own views - liken them maybe to those of a logos operated anima mundi when it comes to the physical world we all share - this does entail that what we discover of the anima mundi (else, what the anima mundi informs us of) is, for lack of a better wording, our closest proximity to an absolute objective truth. A view easily shunned in multiple ways, I'm sure, but in this view, fully granting the primacy of awareness, we are being informed by the world that we sapient beings evolved from beings of lesser sentience which themselves somehow evolved out of nonlife. My degree of understanding may not be good enough to understand how, yet due to the very premises I hold - including that of awareness's primacy - I cannot find myself denying the data that life evolved out of nonlife. If not on our planet then in the cosmos at large.

In parallel to the issue of whether the Sun rises or else the Earth's axis spins, I personally find that on one hand life's evolution form nonlife really doesn't much matter in the context of the lives we live. On the other hand, I do believe its were deeper truths about the world in large, together with those pertaining to our own being, are to be uncovered.

But yes, regardless of any differences we might have, at the end of the day I do agree with this:

The empiricist view is that the universe exists irrespective of whether it is observed or not. In one sense that is true, but the empiricist overlooks the role of the observing mind in the representation of the Universe and so what it means to say the universe exists. — Wayfarer

Sure! If you are interested, I can see if I can find you an article - or a part of an article - in which Strawson talks about the problem of life in relation to panpsychism. — Manuel

I am interested. Cheers.

The gist of it was (if I remember correctly) that all of "life" could be explained by our physics, chemistry and biology, but this still does not touch on the topic of experience at all. — Manuel

Right, I'd say. Nor does it yet seem to me to touch on the quantum leap, to so speak, between a bundle of inanimate molecules (like a bundle of individual lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids in a pastry dish) and the homeostatically metabolizing process operating on these otherwise inanimate constituents which is (sentience-endowed) corporeal life per se (tmk, even the most rudimentary bacterium can sense its environment and act/react accordingly).

Strawson postulates panpsychism as necessary because emergence cannot be brute or "radical": there must be something in the phenomena by which new properties arise as they do (in this case consciousness or experience), otherwise it would be a miracle every time a new property arises in nature. [...] — Manuel

Awesome. Thank you much for the explanation. I guess I'll be needing to read into the physicalist version of panpsychism, then. This with primary interest in the dichotomy between life and nonlife, which to me still seems rather brute/radical in terms of evolutionary developments (here in the generalized sense of change over time).

But what about relativity? Isn't it built on thought experiments that were later verified? At least some of our native reason works? — frank

I'll add the following: It works quite well, true. As does QM. But because there are disparities between the two, we know that at least one of the two is not accurately representing what is - if not both.

But, Chomsky doesn't agree with Panpsychism, because he believes "radical emergence" to be part of normal science. — Manuel

Maybe I'm not as well versed on this topic matter; still, I don't find a necessary conflict between the idea of panpsychism and the idea of radical emergence: e.g., even if panpsychism, there would yet be a radical enough emergence of life from nonlife. Any idea of why the two would need to be contradictory?

That's the opposite of what happened, Newton overthrew materialism, and it has only gotten stranger since - further removed from common sense. — Manuel

To further illustrate this point:

Strawson, on the other hand, describes panpsychism as a form of physicalism, on his view the only viable form.[26] Panpsychism can be combined with reductive materialism but cannot be combined with eliminative materialism because the latter denies the existence of the relevant mental attributes.[8] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism#Physicalism_and_materialism

emphasis is mine

So, you believe that if you as an observer ceased to exist, the world would go with you? — Janus

Picking up on this: Its utterly reasonable to me to claim that when the unique self which I am will cease existing, all my personal loves and idiosyncratic perspectives will end with me - but not yours or those of the eight billion and counting, to not mention the far greater quantity of unique selves of lesser sentient beings.

What I find to be a more interesting question in respect to the thread: If all awareness in the cosmos were to somehow miraculously vanish - from that of the lowly bacteria to us, to that occurring in any other place in the universe irrespective of its degree of development; even that applicable to panpsychism if one so maintains the world to be - what, if anything, would remain of the world as we in any way know it?

While I take this to be an open-ended issue, I can’t fathom any type of envisioned world occurring in the absence of any awareness to envision it.

(As to the issue of life evolving out of nonlife, some as of yet nebulous system of panpsychism could potentially account for this just as well as, if not better then, the metaphysical stance of physicalism does. But, here, the world would be primordially constituted of awareness, thereby entailing that no world occurs if no awareness occurs.)

From my POV, respectfully, you have not demonstrated an understanding of my point. That may be my fault, for not finding the right words. My point is not about consciousness denial at all, but only about the phoniness of the hard problem (which can be understood as a denial of the utility or intelligibility of a certain metaphysical use of 'consciousness' or 'qualia.') — ajar

Then why oh why reply to me this way: I.e., What was it in my initial post to you that you disagree with?

But I guess like I previously said, never mind.

Well, in that case, never mind. I can only then presume you in fact agree that such a thing as fist-person points of view occur in the world, hence actually happen, this rather than being illusions. And that it’s absurd to conclude otherwise. This in contrast to some of us assuming that they occur due to being "trapped in the grammar of a word".

Ah, the vicarious pleasures of watching other life struggle, suffer, and die form a safe distance ... maybe with popcorn ready at hand. Not so taboo nowadays, I think. For those who are into it, there’s quite a resurgence of enacting the Ancient Roman dictum of “bread (like fast food for those who can’t afford better) and circus (like the both literal and figurative bloodsports that surround)” … this in our oh so civilized society, so as to keep the vast majority of us appeased in times of ever-increasing want. Always was and always will be so no point in being opposed to this, the attributes of the so called “real world”. Besides, no such thing as the vicarious pleasure of seeing others well off while one is in suffering; and if there is, it doesn’t pertain to the real world anyway.

Am I getting things generally right here? My bad for the tonality if not.

I can enjoy a well played out physical contact sport. I’ve seen quite good, and brutally intense, kickboxing where the competitors gave each other long, earnest fraternal hugs when the match ended. This hugging thing is deemed uncomfortable, un-male-like behavior by many of us. But this same portion of us are not thus uncomforted when a boxer bites off the ear of another.

I take many a competitive sport to be mock-aggression, with or without bodily contact, much like a good portion of childhood play is. Something we engage in as practice for the real thing, but not the real thing itself; certainly not something wherein we must become the victor at any and all costs. I assume there has to be some mock-aggression in the stereotype of girls playing with barbies if there is to be had any fun to begin with in such play. More social than physical, but again serving as practice for the real deal in terms of conflicts.

Generally asking: What has bloodlust to do with this? Well, other than a resurgence in the general populace's desire for it.

No doubting that.

'First person point of view' is potentially just as innocent as 'conscious experience,' such as a novel being written in the first person point of view. — ajar

You’ve managed to spur my interests.

And how is a fictional first-person point of view an innocent ignorant assemblage of words? That we can all understand what a novel, fiction, written in the first-person point of view entails directly contradicts your affirmation.

Besides, I was addressing an "occurring (i.e., actually happening) first person point of view". You were saying this assemblage of words has an unclear referent. Again, how?

Psychopathology turned into an artform. This artform affectively speaking only to … psychopaths. Not inscrutable by a long shot. Still, this gives no contribution to the thread's question of what art is, never mind good art.

The context would be your own being in the world, for it addresses that which is "first-person". But I too am getting tired of this rather dull subject. I'll do my best to let you further discuss this with others without butting in.

Alright. What about "an occurring first-person point of view"? Do you deem that phrase to be reified or paradoxical? If so, I'm curious to find out how.

Respectfully, from my POV, you 'mysterions' (I dub thee such playfully) are trapped in the grammar of a word. — ajar

You sound as though to say that words can't, or at least don't, refer to real givens.

Consciousness is a word, yes. So is Earth, no?

On what experiential or rational ground do you grant the first word no referent when, I presume, you do the second?

yet insisting that the existence of such an entity is beyond question. (If philosophers do question it, they are monsters who can't be serious.) — ajar

If you - or anybody else - as an occurring first-person point of view want to question the reality of your own occurrence as a first-person point of view, I say knock yourself out.

It's when the conclusion is made by an occurring first-person point of view that their own occurrence as a first-person point of view is a falsity (an illusion or whatnot: basically, not real) that the "cannot be taken seriously" issue comes into play.

And where was it ever claimed that a first-person point of view (of which consciousness cannot be devoid) is "an entity"? Last I heard, it's addressed as a "be-ing": a verb, if not an outright process.

And so artifacts are always meaningful in so being artifacts in this sense which is intrinsic to our very notion of what an artifact is. — javra

If I understand what you're saying, and it is very possible I don't, I disagree. — T Clark

Fair enough. To try to clarify my meaning: “artifact” as word to us means/signifies the following concept: “an object that was made by some person(s) hand or labor intentionally (this rather than accidentally, or else not as a byproduct of some other process(es) the person engages in)” If this word “artifact” has real-life references, then that which the word references will be concrete instantiations of “an object that was intentionally made by persons' hands or labor”. Hence, all concrete instantiations of artifacts are discerned to so be because we find them to mean that somebody made them with intent by hand or labor. I might be going in circles, my bad if I am, so here’s an example: You’re in a desert and you come upon a watch on top of a rock. Naturally, the watch you deem to be an artifact; the rock you don’t. When you see the watch, your implicit thought is, “someone made this thing with intention (rather than accidentally or as a byproduct of some other activity) by hand or labor”. The rock you deem to not be made by anybody, intentionally or otherwise, irrespective of the means available to them. Therein lies the watch’s pivotal meaning to you as an artifact: it’s something that someone intentionally made by hand or labor. And even devoid of an audience, the artifact would have this same meaning to its creator(s). Devoid of this meaning it holds relative to us, no one would be able to discern it as an artifact. The watch would just be a more intricate rock.

If this doesn’t make my position clearer, bummer, but so be it. I get your intention to head off.

As I noted before, I'm reading Collingwood's "Principles of Art" and I'm really enjoying it. — T Clark

Sounds good. Hope you enjoy it through to the end.

I addressed my uncertainty about this issue in a recent post addressed to Tom Storm. I don't know if you saw it.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/642426 — T Clark

Saw it, and I've re-read it. Here's my own current take. All (created; human made) form follows function - with "function" being in this context a fancy word for "intent, purpose, hence, in this way, use (i.e. the purpose for which something is employed)". Maybe debatable but I'll uphold it. When it comes to fine art, the product, or artifact, as form is a result of the designer's/producer's functional/intentional usage of what is to become the artistic form as vehicle to express something more or less personal, if not idiosyncratic, so that a community might understand it. So all fine art as product is there because it was deemed useful in this sense: it, as form, is supposed to be a vehicle for conveying that which the artist intents to communicate.

Let me know the extent to which we might disagree on this.

I don't understand how the fact that something was made intentionally gives it meaning. I think we may be about to fall into the "What does 'meaning' mean" abyss." — T Clark

But then, any artifact as form follows function - its intended usage. So I figure that any artifact, by shear virtue of so being a form that is resultant of some function, or intended use, carries as part of it this very meaning to anyone who discerns it to be an artifact: an artifact, of itself, in part means "some thing that was intended to be for some usage, hence purpose, and thereby is".

You were saying it is possible for artifacts to have no meaning outside of a viewing audience - which I implicitly take to not be the artifact's creators. Yet artifacts as forms always are due to the intent, purpose, usage ascribed to them by those who create them. And so artifacts are always meaningful in so being artifacts in this sense which is intrinsic to our very notion of what an artifact is. Hence, they have meaning outside of the viewing audience's particular attribution of meaning to them: they always signify, minimally but then also necessarily, "a form that follows the function assigned to it by its creator(s)"; i.e., a person-caused, hence made, functional form.

Then, given that we recognize artifacts as "forms that follow the functions given to them by their creators" we can then assume they were given functions that they in fact were not. Thereby unintentionally forsaking their original intent, hence their original meaning*, and imbuing them with novel meanings based on the functionality we attribute to them.

Nevertheless, the task of distinguishing non-art from art and craft and fine-art is the task of figuring out if the object, firstly, occurs due to an intended usage and, if so, secondly, determining what its intended usage as object originally was.

At least that's what I'm currently entertaining.

* Footnote: as to meanings' meaning, it always pivots around intent, hence purpose, hence function - this either literally or metaphorically. Or so I'm thinking. E.g., A sign's significance, or meaning, is that which is intended by the sign. An example of it being metaphorical: when the sign is heavy clouds, the sign's significance is probable rain - heavy clouds can mean probable rain - in so far as heavy clouds (metaphorically) intend for there to be rain. But if this gets debatable, I understand what you mean by "the abyss".

I've been endorsing two meanings of the word "art." 1) Something artificial without meaning beyond the viewers experience and 2) Something offered for aesthetic judgement or, as you expressed it, intended by some being to be art. I think they both work and I don't think they contradict each other. — T Clark

I don't mean to pester but to better understand: How do you discern artificial from non-artificial in definition (1) if not by that which is artificial occurring (necessarily but not sufficiently) on account of a persons' (or cohort's commonly shared) intent that it occurs? In other words, if you can't discern whether it was intended to be by one or more persons, how can you discern it to be an artifact?

I ask because if intent is inherent to what artifacts are, then all artifacts would yet have a meaning in so being: they all signify being the outcome of some intent. And this again gets to the issue of how an artifact can be devoid of all meaning outside of the viewer's experience - if meaning of "being a creation" is innate to being an artifact.

In which case, some might not help but wonder why the creator(s) of the artifact bothered to create it - for it then is factual that it was the result of intentions - which again speaks to the intentions of those who produced it.

I'm probably missing something, but I'm not getting what that is. ... You're of an engineering background, so I'm thinking of buildings, which are functional artifacts. Can you find it possible that an engineer could design a building in manners perfectly devoid of aesthetic properties? I'm here thinking of the proverbial notion that form follows function: when this occurs, the end result would be aesthetic in the sense of elegant (or something to that effect).

I've been pushing the definition of art as something without meaning beyond the viewer's experience. — T Clark

Think back to what we were all discussing in terms of differentiating art from non-art - this irrespective of its aesthetic standing. In order to be art some being must have intended it to be art and, in so intending, that being must have meant it to so be - thereby imparting it with this meaning. Hence, even in this basic facet of it, for X to be art it must have the minimal meaning of having been intended to so be by someone - and this fully independent of any viewer's experience of it.

Otherwise:

How do I turn that personal, idiosyncratic standard into something a community can share? — T Clark

Though taken a bit out of context here: That's the rub of it all, I think. Even in assuming that the prototypical artist intends to convey some affective state to other(s) - something I myself champion - the same question holds.

[...] Quality of art is a measure of the extent to which a specific community consistently has positive experiences [...] — T Clark

I'd embellish this by saying that quality of art is a measure of the extent to which a specific community consistently is brought closer to eudemonia - to a flourishing of being - by said artwork (regardless of whether its pretty or morbidly grotesque, initially appealing or revolting, and so forth). How would that work?

I hear you. — Tom Storm

Cool. Glad I didn’t come off as too much of a jerk in saying what I said.

Only by exposing yourself to new things and sticking with them and, perhaps reading about them, can one come to appreciate their subtleties or lack there of. This means sticking with things you are not drawn to and possibly dislike. Subjectivity is something we can overcome. I gradually 'discovered' a lot of music, novels and movies by doing this. — Tom Storm

Got to understand and appreciate traditional African artwork that way. More recently also contemporary minimalism, which I wanted nothing to do with before understanding what others saw in it as a genre. So, yea.

The challenge with an overly personal or subjective account of art is it tends to render Citizen Kane equivalent with an Adam Sandler movie (or insert piece of shit of your choice). I guess a criterion of value is usually established by a community of shared understanding. Which kind of leaves us to talk inside to our bubbles. — Tom Storm

Going back a bit to what I was saying about commonly shared tastes in relation to food and the exception of some humans somewhere finding human shit to be a delicacy: if what is shit (in terms of art out there) to the vast majority of us is deemed a sublime delicacy by some select few, this doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t serve the vast majority’s affective appetites any. (I know. I'll try to fully stop my chastising of much of modern art with this last comment on it. :smile: ) But could we in any way address this and like issues outside of our intersubjective bubbles?

I'd really like to hear a few choice navigation points from a phenomenological approach to artistic value. — Tom Storm

As regards art's aesthetic rather than monetary value (the two often do not coincide) as a generalized topic for philosophy: I think any phenomenological approach would have to first find the universalizing principle to aesthetics in all of us, in all beings capable of the experience for that matter, this just as much as it does with the principle of aboutness. Then again, I'm not a phenomenologist, just have certain affinities to some of it.

For me a key question isn't merely whether the art is any good but what the consumers of that art are getting out it. — Tom Storm

Yes; "exactly" I want to say. I’ll offer that in many ways good art parallels good food. We each have our own tastes – in part due to different needs for different nutrients, upbringing, so forth – but if someone where to tell me that some food tastes good when I in fact don’t find it so, I won’t enjoy eating it irrespective of how objectively good they tell me it is. To me, it’s not about an objective value that is somehow innate to the object – for I don’t think that any non-sentient object has an intrinsic impartial value in itself - but about what is innate within all of us as beings – what impartially exists in this sense – and which finds its diverse uniqueness by placing in relation the complexities of our psyches with items we become aware of. So good art, like good food, is always good in actuality only in relation to some living being(s). "Good" is good only in relation to whom it is good for. Yet degrees of commonality occur between us despite our diversities – and we tend to enjoy it when they do. As one example when it comes to food, all humans can agree that human excrements are not good tasting (well almost: in my comparative cultural studies I once did see a video showing certain humans eating human feces on fine dining plates as a delicacy. Not to be taken too seriously, but they do say that exceptions make the rule).

Maybe mediocre art provides transcendence for mediocre people? :razz: — Tom Storm

:grin: :up: Without taking transcendence here literally, I for one certainly do uphold this. There’s no doubting that some humans have the capacity to grasp deeper meaning than others, with the profundity of aesthetic experience being intimately associated. Nor, for me, is there any doubting that none of us are endowed with the pinnacle of deep understanding relative to all beings that every were, are, and will ever be. I know myself to be of mediocre tastes by comparison to others – and in fact would hate the idea of it being otherwise, for then there would be nothing left to learn. There’s the willful, openminded enquiry into other’s taste to better comprehend what others aesthetically see, with this sometimes rubbing off on oneself in terms of aesthetic appreciations. And if not there’s still greater comprehension. But, also biasedly speaking, for me equally important is the courage to maintain one’s own authentic aesthetic as in fact being true, or real, relative to oneself, this in spite of what others might comment – for we humans often times take mirth in deriding each other’s affinities rather than accepting the diversity of experienced beauty that can be found in different persons.

Now, though I’ve taken my jab at modern art – as you previously called me out on – I don’t find myself to be hypocritical in so saying this now. Like a food that doesn’t taste good to me, I’ll be honest in my own aesthetic truths in regard to art pieces (without intending to demean others for their contrasting affinities; a live and let live mentality, at least as an ideal) … Otherwise nonauthenticity results (saying one sees something to be in a way one does not see it to be) - thereby leading to the emperor’s new clothes statements I previously gave in relation to much, but not all, of modern art.

I think it's equally true that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", and that there are aesthetic standards within disciplines. — Noble Dust

I’ll try to illustrate a point via near absurd extremes. Will a frog’s lack of aesthetic calling for a work of art we all hypothetically enjoy, call it art X, take away anything from the work’s value? Suppose the frog could talk and, in so doing, tells us that art X is worthless, nonsensical, instead pointing us to a fly resting on some branch saying, “now there is something worth giving your attention to, worth contemplating, something that truly attracts the deepest inner workings of your soul!”. We don’t deny the frog its own aesthetic truth, but are well enough aware that our own capacity for understanding is far greater than its and, in so knowing, we don’t earnestly compare apples and oranges in attempts to establish which of the two – art X or the fly on the branch – is most infused with aesthetic worth. Importantly, this for us rather than the frog. On the other extreme, lets momentarily fathom an artistic psyche that stands in the same relation to us that we stand to the frog: a deity of artistic manifestations, a Dionysus of sorts. This deity (with a small “d”) creates a work that is dear to it, whose truths its deems profound, sacred, appealing: call it art Z. We look at art Z and understand nothing of it; if not for our here knowing it was the creation of this deity, art Z to us would in fact be worthless, nonsensical. Would this in any way invalidate the reality of the aesthetic calling we ourselves find for art X (but not art Z)? If we were to be honest with ourselves, not in any way. Art X is what calls to us, pulling us nearer, magnetizing us - and not art Z.

This assumes a simple and straightforward cline regarding depth of understanding among beings. But things are never this simple. I may find song S aesthetic within this emotive context but not some other. My degree of depth of understanding doesn’t significantly change in me as an individual but, even so, my aesthetic attractions toward the same creation might change, change back, and change again.

This for me further illustrates that the objectivity of aesthetics – if it does in fact occur – cannot be found in anything palpable, such as within an object itself. It instead resides in that which makes aesthetics a common, if one wills, meta-experience within all of us: What the frog, us, and that deity of the arts all share in common in terms - not of tangible outcomes, but - of the calling toward of the soul in relation to something it deems as other. Simplifying aesthetics to this calling for ease of argument, the objectivity, impartiality, of aesthetic reality is to be found in the universality of this calling in and of itself. We might be drawn toward different things, but the calling in all of us remains the same when we are so drawn.

Aesthetics is not equivalent to art. But in terms of an art piece’s aesthetics: IMO, the ideal artwork needs to hold Goldilocks aesthetics, such that it speaks neither to the understanding of frogs nor to the understanding of deities, but to us. In my laconic appraisal of modern art, in its attempt to be ever more refined, to speak to deities of abstract understanding, it has become a joke, even to the vast majority of artists themselves. For it has in large part become nonsensical to most; and those few curators and such that are refined enough to catch glimpse of beauty here and there in what most take to be nonsensical have forgotten that the purpose, the power, of art is to communicate. Its not intended to be a secret language shared by an exclusive few, but to grab hold of as many as possible. Without this, our art becomes socially powerless.

As to the standards upheld by the gatekeepers of the artworld, you’re right: they’re intended to filter out, for example, that which is froggishly mediocre from that which is profoundly viable to society as is. I often blame the corporatization of these gatekeepers for their most often failing to do so nowadays (the music industry comes to mind as one example I find blatant), but this gets into a whole other branch of hot potatoes. Still, like the commonsense standards of decency, these often implicit standards of what makes art good can change with the interests of society. Toward the lowest common denominator, here lacking any profundity (e.g., Godsmak’s song “I stand alone”), or else toward a refinement so elevated that it turns around upon itself to become a joke to everyone (e.g., too many paintings consisting of white on white, if that much, called, “untitled”).

Anyway, a lot written. Simply wanting to exchange views as best I can. I think most of us sense that the standards for good art are nowadays more often than not missing in some way: thereby evidencing that there are such a thing as standards for good art to begin with. But I, personally, so far don’t know how to pinpoint them .. organically or otherwise.

There is always disagreement even amongst those qualified to participate in this organic process. But inevitably, standards get set; some bits of milk rise to the top, and some get skimmed off. I'm of the believe that, in general, this process works pretty organically and well enough, but of course, some scum rises to the top, and some cream get's discarded. — Noble Dust

I agree with this as far as (imperfect) ideals go, but am dissatisfied with what is currently occurring in practice. I of course might well be a dinosaur, but I've talked to youngsters that share the same view.

Short on time for now. I agree in large. Still, defining these standards of becomes quite difficult, it at all possible. But I agree it's something one senses ... even when one's tastes are not in accord with the given artwork that is produced.

There’s the saying that beauty, aesthetics, is in the eye of the beholder. I find this to be true. But then what differentiates the aesthetic from the unaesthetic for the given individual? And, then, for all individuals that can differentiate between the two? - this irrespective of their unique preferences. A very difficult question, asked now for millennia. But my hunch is that in this question’s answer lies the resolution to what aesthetics is, to unraveling its capacity for power, and hence to it value for us. This rather than in focusing in on any particular object’s appraisal. This latter approach I imagine being akin to trying to define what intelligence is by focusing in on a given equation and asking other’s what they see in it. It doesn’t address the question.

As for my playful jab at the situation in modern art, truth is there is much bias in it, a bias primarily rooted in a personal indignation on behalf of artists I’ve known and known of. I can greatly admire artists whose works I personally find unaesthetic. Virginia Woolf quickly comes to mind. Or Kandinsky. Examples however don’t matter, for these too are in the eye of the beholder. What matters to my biased appraisal is the toil that these artists incurred in bringing forth something they themselves deeply believed in: aesthetic truths that spoke to their heart. This so that their efforts and accomplishments are nowadays considered on par in worth to realizations such as that of “Pile of Bricks” – which conveys what to you, personally, if I might ask? To me, at best, it conveys the sterility of an art piece devoid of anything sacred to the artist: the expression of the meaningless to be found in a meaningless world. If you do find beauty in it, explain it so that I might expand my horizons - even if I don’t share your tastes. But if not, and one professes it to be aesthetic, that to me it is a bit like affirming the naked emperor to be clothed.

Whose to say? If not I, not you, not even the artist has a voice in the matter - each of us as a unique beholder - then in my all too indignant bias I can well see how some can say that art and the esthetics its supposed to contain indeed does not matter. But this perspective is not my cup of tea.

P-o-B looks like a pile of bricks. If I saw it in a museum, the intent of the artist that it be considered as art would probably have been clear to me. At the job site, it probably wouldn't be. As Tom Storm noted, if it were a sculpture of the human form, I probably would recognize that it was intended as art, even at the job site. — T Clark

Don’t know if this will humor you but it humors me. In college I worked as a security guard at a relatively small modern art museum. A visitor had left their grocery bags inside by the front entrance upon entering the museum (I forget if it was raining or not). Long story short, soon enough some other visitors started asking who the artist of this artwork was (the visitor’s grocery bags, that is). It was quite the rave for a little while.

Might as well have been some pile of bricks that was momentarily left behind by some visitor ...

I know it’s elitist of me - bad me - but when the emperor has no clothes there are no clothes on the emperor, irrespective of what others might affirm. Saying this in relation to the overall theme of the thread, or of the OP at least … rather than being a reply to what you wrote.

But sure, I agree with the quote.

If I saw the Thinker at a construction site I would know it was art while I probably wouldn't even notice Andre's Pile-o-Bricks. Does that have a bearing on whether or not P-o-B is art? I don't think so. To me, it's the artificiality and the intent that makes something art. — T Clark

OK, I didn't get this statement then. If you don't recognize P-o-B as an intended artifact, then how would you discern it to be art? How would anybody for that matter?

Stone work does something to me. It touches me deeply. I don't know why, but I can feel the surface of the stones in the picture. Smell the dust. Feel what it's like to pick them up. Strangely enough, I can feel those same things with P-o-B, so it's probably not the right work to use as an example with me. — T Clark

Just because something is aesthetically pleasing does not entail that it is art. A nice enough sunset, for one example, is not deemed by anyone to be an artwork. (Leaving possible monotheistic perspectives - where God is the creator the the sunset, kind of thing - out of this).

Point being, even if you find P-o-B to be aesthetic, this of itself doesn't constitute it as an artwork (from your pov).

Or does it? In which case, anything aesthetic - like a gorgeous tree - is discerned as artwork by you ... But then, where would the intent part fit in? (And I won't be satisfied by God-did-it like answers, personally at least.)

But you know, we cannot speak of happiness analytically (Wittgenstein would not), which is a very peculiar thing. We can talk about what makes a person happy or un, but happiness simpliciter is hands off. — Astrophel

I've been contemplating that a lot lately and for some time now: an idea regarding volitional valence. In short, when we obtain what we intend as intended, volitional happiness (as in the archaic notion of luckiness, good fortune), irrespective of how minor or major the intent. Likewise, when our intention is in any way impeded, volitional suffering (bearing the weight of an unwanted circumstance). All this however is contingent on the reality of intentions and, hence, some notion of teleology - and, in an indirect way, on the reality of freely willed choices. Things of course get very complex, but that's the short version of it. Anyway, addressed because I at least believe it might be possible to speak of happiness analytically in a suitable enough manner, this at least for the topic of ethics.

Curious to hear your thoughts or rebuttables concerning this overall idea.

The problem is that it is nearly always interpreted as nihilism, as a literal nothingness, although I really don't think it is. It is just the ending or stepping outside the 'nightmare of history' that is being talked about. My view is that there's a shadow, in the sense intended by Jung, in the Western psyche, around this question, as a consequence of the particular religious history of the West, but that is a big argument. — Wayfarer

We westerners tend to be very attached to thingness. We grasp at things as though they were lifeboats that facilitate the very possibility of our own life and, by extension, the possibility of life itself. We even tend to regard our own identity as a thing: if not a stable body than an unchanging soul. Indeed, the very word that English employs for “indefinite nonoccurrence” is “no-thing-ness”. Such that the absence of things is equated to absence of being itself.

Not to refute your hypothesis, but I find this archetypally existential – to not say metaphysical – motif that modern western culture is subliminally steeped in to be at least equally a product of a materialistic tendency: wherein being is equated to physicality. And this carries over into the spiritual as well for the common westerner: If God is not a psyche, a guy, hence endowed with thingness - be it on top clouds or waking the earth in some garden - then this God is no God whatsoever, for whatever is addressed must must be devoid of any real being … so the western intuition tends to flow (notably, this for atheists and theists alike). In contrast there can be found the concept of “the One” in the west and (tmbk, at least some interpretations) of “Brahman” in the east, such that both are here conceived as devoid of thingness … and, yet, rather than being nothingness, are then deemed the essential source for everything. This “no-thing-being” - to so term it - is within these cultural contexts maybe even interpretable as the core essence of life itself. This, again, in direct contrast to the typical westerner’s views that upholds the principle that the only reality there can be can only consist of thingness.

That leaves the question of what standards to apply to determine whether or not art is good. I have some ideas that I tried to lay out in the last few of my posts. They still need a lot of work. — T Clark

Even so, I liked the general idea to them. :up: