In particular - Professor Denis Dutton. — RussellA

Thanks. I remember Dutton's work establishing Arts Letters Daily and I enjoyed his criticism of pretentious and meaningless academic language which is sometimes evident on this site - especially in discussing aesthetics.

Art devoid of Truth is merely imagination without will. — PseudoB

Interesting. I have never associated truth with art. I'm not even sure how they would relate.

E, any discussion of art needs an understanding of aesthetics, which in its turn needs an understanding of "a priori knowledge". — RussellA

Can you identify a critic or writer who embodies this view?

Nice. I have always been astonished by old men who tell me they still feel 25. Really? I stopped feeling young in my late twenties.

I'm in my mid-50's and I feel like I have done most things I've wanted to do, so I have no ambition to live a long life. I am not keen to become frail or need help with tasks of daily living. I hope to be dead before this happens.

Best years? Can't say I would elevate any particular era I've lived through so far but I think I enjoyed my 40's most. Advantages of getting old? Probably experience. I disliked being young so perhaps growing old will be better.

You argue your point with strong commitment. I figure we come from different perspectives so I see no good reason to debate this issue with you. I've thrown out the few ideas I wanted to make and do not consider myself a debater. What is interesting is to see people (both pro and con vax) repeating themselves endlessly on a kind of loop. It never seems to go anywhere. Nevertheless, along the way I've learned some new things about how people arrive at decisions. Take care.

Perhaps in poetry but more formally something either is the case, or it is not the case.

Actually, the very first 'spiritual book' I ever read was called Relief Without Drugs, by an Australian doctor by the name of Ainslie Meares, in about 1972. It was about that principle. — Wayfarer

That brings back some memories. Digression. My father was able to switch pain off. He would have all dental work done without any anesthetic and this included drilling, extractions and a root canal work. He also at one point almost cut off two fingers with a chainsaw. He drove to the hospital with his fingers hanging off on one hand and was whistling in the Emergency Department when the doctors saw him. I asked him how he did it. "It only hurts if you let it," he explained unhelpfully.

Ok, you meant Buddhism. I withdraw my earlier question.

At least one of the causes of suffering caused by human attitudes and actions has been identified. What possible solution could there be to suffering caused by natural events? Do you really believe that the behavior of the natural world is going to change, or that humans could cause it to change?

If you had read what the Buddha said, you'd have some ideas. — baker

This could be an interesting thread.

Quite merrily? — baker

Yes, I think not living according to your beliefs is often an easier way of going about one's business. But sometimes the fault line's between belief and practice do rub up against each other and cause tremors and quakes.

The final solution to the problem of suffering is widely known and readily available, it's just that people "do not embrace it and act on it"? — baker

Can you tell me what it is? I was away that day.

How schizoid can one handle to be? — baker

Simply pointing out that people quite merrily live by keeping two sets of books. Schizoid is the wrong word. Hypocritical or inconsistent may be closer.

What does that look like? Can you elaborate? — baker

It simply means that I regularly think about death and dying, maybe 2 or 3 times a month.

In order to succeed in the world, or at the very least, in order to get by in the world, one has to believe "there is a real world out there" and "there is only one true, accurate, correct way to perceive this world". — baker

Yes, we (even the most implacable idealist) have no choice but to behave as though the real world is real. If we want to live. What we believe however is separate, isn't it?

Really?? So then what -- do you get anxious? If you do, what do you tell yourself to calm down and compose yourself? — baker

I'm often mindful of my mortality. The only time I get anxious is when I am in a vehicle that is going too fast. Generally I ask the driver to slow down.

Life is risk
I don't believe that.
I don't believe that life is a gamble in any way. — baker

That is interesting. We have different views. Alert the media...

The point being? — baker

I told you. To me this (and many other examples) point to the innate lottery inherent in being alive (which you don't agree is a thing).

This is a philosophy forum. More precision is fully warranted. — baker

Not necessarily. We have conversations containing some philosophical ideas using basic English words and idioms with some specialized terms. We ask for clarifications when something is unclear - as you did.

Do you ever reflect on risk before crossing the road or eating seafood? I'm pretty sure you don't. — baker

I sure do and when I get in a car.

I'm obviously using luck in the conversational sense. But whatever you wish to call it. Life is risk and you may be dead by morning...

If the world is really incoherent and dangerous as you say, then there is no reason to believe that anything (whether vaccines or levers) can make any difference. Except maybe magic. — baker

I actually didn't spell out precisely how dangerous or incoherent, did I? Is this merely some grotesque exaggeration to avoid a point? I can't tell.

An example - a friend died of lung cancer at 40. She didn't smoke. My grandfather smoked 2 packets a day for 70 years and never got sick. He died in his sleep at 96. Human experience in a nutshell. This is why I use words like luck or incoherent. Feel free to suggest an improved nomenclature, but you can't avoid the point.

But from this example I do not conclude there is no merit in taking precautions in life because, all quirky anomalies aside, most people who smoke 2 packs a day die from it.

Part of the problem is insisting on looking at the matter from the perspective of large numbers, large populations, and then expecting that individual people will be convinced and soothed by this.

If you are the one who gets the stroke after the vaccine, it does not matter to you if so many millions didn't get one. It's still you who is now paralyzed. — baker

I wonder how useful this observation is. Isn't understanding and managing the odds how life is negotiated for the most part? All of life is a risk. Simple daily activities like crossing a road or eating seafood can kill you if you have bad luck. If you're the one with the bad luck, you can be understandably dismayed but isn't this the price of being a fragile corporeal creature in an incoherent and dangerous world?

Hmmm. I don't really understand where this is heading but in the words of the now obscure 20th century philosopher Lana Turner, "A gentleman is simply a patient wolf."

I like it when you talk dirty. :wink:

Do businesses care that some employees hate their job? Perhaps. Perhaps not because caring about your workers may cut into their profits, a big no-no. Society has allowed a bunch of systems to exist, called "businesses", who may not even care about the employees they hire. Many workers are treated like dirt. It all seems so cruel and unfair.

What do you think? — Wheatley

I think businesses are always looking to maximise profit and cut costs and will ususally do whatever the legal system, the government and conditions allow them to get away with. Happiness of staff only starts to matter when you go further up the hierarchy.

I think the cult of the artist as genius and visionary has almost always run alongside highbrow art too - whether you're talking Rembrandt, Wagner or Leonardo.

In art proper, one doesn't express oneself, one expresses a higher truth. — baker

I think the idea is that in a particular work we see personality interacting with the great and universal themes. I am not a great appreciator of the arts, so the issue is moot.

Ok. I think we may be coming from different perspectives. I agree that power doesn't have to be misused. It's clear that leaders need power to be affective. As do governments. They require a mandate so they can govern without impediments.

Remember too that Lord Acton went on to say that 'great men are almost always bad men' another angle to this. I am convinced that many people who chase and attain power are psychologically damaged and ruthless individuals. So you could also say that people corrupt power. Either way, it doesn't make any difference to the end result.

People are dishonest with themselves all the time. This dishonesty is for personal gain - in the form of avoidance. Long term, not short term, this is often detrimental. This is corruption as you’ve framed it and I’m saying this is due to a lack of power. — I like sushi

Can you provide an example so we can see this in action? I'm still unclear.

Absolute power doesn’t exist, and higher degrees of power don’t necessitate corruption. — I like sushi

Contestable claims here. Can you demonstrate that absolute power doesn't exist? I think the idea here is that there is 'maximal power' which surely does exist. I would say Stalin had this and so too do the Taliban right now. Power over who gets to live and die and what people can do and wear is as close to absolute power as humans can get. Perhaps North Korean leadership has more power than this - they even control people's thoughts.

Why are you interested in this subject - what thesis are you testing out? Is there more you can add?

Nietzsche doesn't resonate with me greatly but I enjoy some of his aphorisms. It's all just a little grandiose and camp for me. I was never really clear if N intended der Wille zur Macht as an almost foundational principle behind all of nature, or as a psychological insight about human behavior. Schopenhauer is more interesting and I have read some essays (the prose is nicer) but I am not a philosopher so I don't read much philosophy.

Not for a while.

I think it is more simple and straightforward to acknowledge that we are part of nature. — Manuel

Just checking - is your position that everything that is the case is natural?

I'm looking into antirealism, to see if it is a viable alternative to realism. — Banno

Excellent. I've wondered about this. Verisimilitude not being realist is fascinating. I guess there's also the phenomenologist's perspective (of which I have limited understanding) wherein we co-create reality and share an intersubjective experience rather than an objective reality. But maybe I've got this wrong. Let us know what you find.

Apologies if I got it wrong. I thought I was agreeing and extending the point.

You are speaking rather loosely here. Exaggerating. — Daemon

Not by much.

It was an aside, Frank - the idea being that it is not only computers that can assemble syntax without connecting to the content. You don't have to agree.

So you use verisimilitude as your measure of truth. — Banno

I'm not a Popperian but I plead guilty to elevating verisimilitude. As far as I can tell, I have no alternative but to assume the world I am in is real that other people exist and act accordingly. All matter may well really be discrete globs of energy bobbing about on quantum waves but it makes no sense to conduct life using this model of reality. Is there help?

Yes, human translators sometimes don’t understand what they are translating. Everyone has been baffled by poorly translated product instructions I guess. And sometimes this is because the human translator does not have experience assembling or using the product, or products like it. — Daemon

Yes, as long as you obey certain rule understanding the meaning can be secondary

Nobody masters a language with no idea what they are saying. I don't know why you would suggest such a thing. — frank

Because it is true? But maybe you don't get my meaning and are making it too concrete. I've met dozens of folk who work in government and management who can talk for an hour using ready to assemble phrases and current buzz words without saying anything and - more importantly - not knowing what they are saying.

If everything is consciousness, is consciousness regarded as natural?

Was there a question? Language is never the thing it describes so it is not surprising that language can be mastered and words mustered that never make contact with experience. It strikes me too that people are often not much better than computers and often master languages - management speak, or whatever and have no idea what they are saying.

"Suppose, however, that God did give this law to the Jews, and did tell them that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to worship any other God that they should kill him; and suppose that afterward this same God took upon himself flesh, and came to this very chosen people and taught a different religion, and that thereupon the Jews crucified him; I ask you, did he not reap exactly what he had sown? What right would this god have to complain of a crucifixion suffered in accordance with his own command?"
Robert Ingersoll

Maybe I missed my calling after all. More or less, this was one of my apostatic "arguments" when I was sixteen: Adam & Even were set-up for "The Fall". — 180 Proof

I think this is a profound reading. And in a similar vein please explain Jesus - is it not the case that God sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself for rules he made himself? What magical recalibration took place on Calvary? It seems like a pointless ritual to justify some megalomaniacal decision making process.

I don't know of anything that is 'supernatural'. How would we even identify this attribute? I am only aware of claims people make about entities or phenomena for which there is no great evidence. I take the view that whatever we see or experience is likely to be 'natural' or quotidian. But this is provisional.

What is this power you’re talking about? Is it the ability to influence others or something entirely different. — I like sushi

Power has many definitions. I'm not interested in all variations. I was feeding back a few thoughts about leadership and those in an elevated position of authority who might abuse that status. I am not saying that this is always the case. Remember Lord Acton's quote - I was at pains to reinstate the word "may".

Dishonesty doesn’t necessarily have be external. I’m pretty sure the dishonesty towards oneself is a greater problem than dishonesty towards other (as it appears to be the seed of the later). — I like sushi

Can you explain this with an example? I can't make out the point.

Then there is being dishonest towards what one believes to be a ‘corrupt’ individual in order to do any with perceived ‘corruption’. See my point? — I like sushi

No.

The question isn't defining power, it is trying to determine where the line is between stewardship and authoritarianism and how to prevent the former from becoming the latter.

Power can be described as having control, a mandate, influence, authority and autonomy. It can come in absolute forms or it can be tempered by checks and balances.

Thomas Jefferson was less optimistic than Acton.

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

What is this power you’re talking about? Is it the ability to influence others or something entirely different. — I like sushi

Acton was referring to government power, but it's an observation others have made. I don't need to explain to anyone here the uses and abuses of power in government. I think it is a function of power that those who seek it most are frequently ruthless. Chasing power is like chasing wealth - the most inadequate personalities seem to go after it at all costs.

One related theme is the idea of leadership - how power is used to create cultures and behaviours.

Would a lack of power also be considered ‘corrupt’? Meaning lacking any ability to control or make choices for oneself or others? — I like sushi

Not sure this makes sense. Corruption is choosing to behave dishonestly in return for personal gain. So no.

People who like to control others will seek out the means to control others. People who care for others will seek out the means to control others too. Here ‘control’/‘influence’/‘manipulate’/‘help’ are hard to distinguish from each other once we strip away the subjective perspectives and goals. — I like sushi

Some people might think they are the same but I don't. I'm not much interested in explorations of 'power over others' in limited roles like a doctor or teacher or cab driver. I am more interested in power in connection with leadership (organisations or governments). But my interest is fairly limited.

Sentiments like 'power corrupts' are just that. They are myopic in both application and reach. — I like sushi

I have no doubt that Lord Acton's quote is mostly accurate - the actual quote is 'power tends to corrupt' (the tends is important and makes the quote). From personal experience of working in diverse areas - media, the arts and health, I think Acton was on the money. The rest of the quote is, of course, "absolute power corrupts absolutely." Absolutely right, which is why democracies have a separation of powers and often a bill of rights to protect people from the abuse of power. Not that this works entirely well.

I'm not really sure what the rest of your OP is getting at. I think it might help to narrow it down a bit

Power we know in the physical sense is about the ability to work. In a more human sense this doesn't quite apply in the same manner as we live across a span of time and not merely in some abstract mathematical moment of 'here and now'. — I like sushi

I can't work out what this means. Sorry.

It may not work. In fact it is highly unlikely that it will work. However, what is there to lose? — Pop

Ok

A definition of art,and I’m not saying my definition is necessarily it, has the potential to shift the power balance in the art world, back into the hands of the intellectuals and the artists. This is my primary goal. It is a long shot indeed! but what is there to loose? it is worth a try, imo.

The definition is useful in these potential ways rather then as something providing clarity about art, or the art world today - whose clarity, and integrity, at present, as you may know, was recently well represented by a banana nailed to the wall. — Pop

I like the idea of this but I can't yet see how it would work. Sorry.

Can you perhaps, using some brief dot points and a given work, step it out for us so we can see it in action?

Even if the 'art world' accepted the idea that art is consciousness, what difference would it make in practice? They already mostly accept that art is the personality of the artist.

I still can't see the use of this in action.