Do you hold that benzodiazepines are art? — Leontiskos

No. By "experience" I mean, experience by the five senses. The effect of a benzo is not in the taste, but requires absorption into the blood stream. Drugs are human creations designed to alter physical state (and this alteration in turn, may or may not alter mental state). I exclude this, the alteration must arise from the experience of the purported art, in the above sense of "experience".

Similar for food. Food allays hunger by altering physical state. But, most food is also designed to alter mental state by the experience of it's taste, appearance, and smell, and so most (prepared) food is also art.

It may be helpful to introduce R beside P and Q, which includes a more specific genus: — Leontiskos

Why is this helpful to the question of "what is art"? To be sure, I think a frowny face scrawled on printer paper with feces is worse than a Rembrandt, by any reasonable definition of "worse" here, so I also believe R.

So what do you think? Do you prefer P or ~P? — Leontiskos

You seem to have ascribed a fair amount of doctrine to me that I have not explicitly set forth.

I prefer P, Q.

Do you have an alternative understanding of art to offer? — Leontiskos

I do, and I've already offered it to you directly. Here is my current formulation:

Art is a human creation (in the loosest, most permissive sense) whose experience is designed to modify the mental state of the experiencer.

You will no doubt feel that mine is vastly too permissive, just as yours is vastly too restrictive to me. Yet we both believe P, Q.

The problem with yours is that you, like so many, conflate the question of "what is good art" with "what is art". Much of what you wrote just reads as a list of your opinions on good art. But that may well be what @Moliere is actually asking, and so I might be the one who is ot.

Actually Michael still keeps green:

1. As of right now, everyone has come to know that everyone knows that green sees blue through some means or another — Michael

So for this to be false, we must find some blue that can find some blue that they aren't sure knows green sees a blue.

How will you do this when n=100?

Hey no editing.

For (1) to be false, blue A must see blue B , and know that B sees blue C, but not know that B knows that C sees a blue.

This doesn't seem possible when n=100.

And yet, it is wildly unintuitive that (1) is false when n=100, or 1000, or 10000, or...

Yeah, I follow, there is definitely a case to be made. This puzzle has been confusing the fuck out of me. The core problem is, I think you understand, at what point is (1)?

n=3: no, every blue thinks it could be 2
n=4: no, every blue thinks it could be 3
n=5: no, every blue thinks it could be 4
...

My disagreement is that you need the guru to say something just to make the counterfactual work.

I no longer believe this either.

no

But there is NOT one blue eyed person. The logic just says, IF there is one blue eyed person, he would leave. He did not, therefore there is not one blue eyed person.

I acknowledge it. But not that it is relevant to the counterfactual logic.

If there were only one blue, then it WOULDN'T be true that everyone sees at least one blue. — flannel jesus

A = Only one Blue
B = Everyone sees one blue
C = Blue leaves on first night

B
A -> ~B
A -> C

Still valid.

It doesn't work, precisely because this is the counterfactual situation in which the speaking is absolutely necessary because the hypothetical solitary blue does not see blue and has to be told in order to deduce their eye colour. This produces a contradiction that the hypothetical solitary blue cannot but does see blue, and cannot but does know their own eye colour. — unenlightened

I'm not sure about this.
If we take as a premise that "everyone sees at least one blue", then the counterfactual still works: If there is one blue, he would leave on day one. As you pointed out, that the counterfactual is false is irrelevant.

What if the sage had said instead, "I see at least two blues"?

This is just what I was talking about. It seems so damn reasonable that at some n, they could skip the stupid guru, lock eyes, and start from there. Like, suppose the universe was packed tight with 10^100 blues, you need a guru to tell you that... she sees a blue??? Yet, afaict, you do.

if they were perfect logicians then they wouldn't have been there for endless years; — Michael

Since they are perfect logicians, anything that would have allowed them to synchronize and leave before the guru spoke can be ruled out, since they are still there.

So it's explicit that everyone can see everyone else and knows that everyone can see everyone else, and implicit that new people don't just randomly appear or disappear — Michael

Ît does say

The Guru is allowed to speak once (let's say at noon), on one day in all their endless years on the island. — flannel jesus

Maybe they were literally there forever.

A3 only works if you know that the blue eyed person you see knows green sees blue. But you don't know that he knows that. — flannel jesus

When b>=3, you absolutely DO know that. You can prove that everyone (including a real or hypothetical green) sees blue. The problem I see with @Michael reasoning is the use of "days". Days from what? There is a hidden assumption that everyone arrives at the island at the same time, and can all see each other at that time.

having examples where most people's "clearly" feelings are off base at least forces everyone to be a little more rigorous in their reasoning than just "it feels wrong". — flannel jesus

I mean, maybe, if everyone went through this problem, or similar, and perfectly internalized that lesson. But, they won't, and frankly we will probably forget this too, sooner or later. But the deeper quandary to me is, how can we ever really be certain? No matter how rigorous we are, or think we are, there can always be some error.

This is a stark example, but there have definitely been others, where it felt like something clearly was one way, when it turned out to be another. Surely you have experienced this as well, that the "clearly" feeling just isn't as reliable as it feels.

You just have to accept that you aren't a perfect logician. Is that so bad? — flannel jesus

The point is, usually when things feel logically certain, we think we at least know that much. That feeling of logical certainty amounts to a kind of psychological "proof". How else do we ultimately know anything logically follows?

Here, I was tripped up by the idea that the guru can't possibly be giving new information. But, amazingly, despite that feeling, she is, no matter how many blue eyed people there are.

Of course this forum, and philosophy in general, is a quagmire of mistakes. But it is probably much worse than we suspect. If our intuitions are that uncertain, even when they feel totally certain, it seems we are always on logical quicksand.

When someone uses art they are always doing something that falls away from the fundamental telos of art. — Leontiskos

Some of the uses of art I have in mind: mental stimulation. modulating mood. Experiencing intense emotions safely. Education. Passing the time. Having novel experiences.

Which of these is in accord with "the fundamental telos of art", and which is not?

When craftsmen create art for money, when painting was funded by patronage, when novelists and musicians aim to earn a living and even get rich, when entire industries are oriented around the production of art.. telos, or not the telos?

What are the stakes of abiding the telos, or of violating it? Where is the telos, who has defined it? Could it be... you?

You talk about intention as if there were only one of them, and we all agree on it. Art has one intention, to be appreciated for itself. Sex has one intention, pleasure. Why imagine this? It bears no resemblance to reality I can see.

And if hypericin wonders what verb is properly applied to art rather than 'use', then I would recommend 'appreciate' or 'enjoy'. In the case of a painting we might say 'gaze' or 'contemplate'. It would be strange to walk up to someone viewing a painting at a museum and ask if they are done using the piece.) — Leontiskos

Kind of like how food is useful for sustaining life, but we don't use it, we eat it?

Damn it. I buy it now. @unenlightenedhad it worked out before I even typed anything.

This brings up a related question I had thought of before: if it wasn't given in the question, I would have said, no one leaves, end of story. Even after seeing the answer, I had a hard time accepting it.

Given that cases like this exist, how do we even trust our own reasoning? I think the answer is, we can't (except maybe unenlightened!)

yeah that's the one I edited, I won't do that anymore.

I don't think so, but fair enough.

No, at b=2, every blue sees one other blue, and for all they know, that blue does not see a blue.

oh wait...

No, I was right, at b=2, a guru must see a blue, but it is not true that everyone else must also reach that conclusion. But at b=3, not only must everyone know that a guru must see a blue, everyone must arrive at the conclusion that everyone else knows that a guru must see a blue.

At b=3, everyone can make the guaranteed true statement, "everyone must see at least 1 blue"
At b=2 or b=1, this is not a true statement.
So at b=3, but not b=1 or b=2, anyone can say of the guru, "she could truly say, 'I see a blue'", and so anyone could say "if there were a guru, she would say, 'I see a blue'".

t's a counterfactual conditional from which valid deductions can be made thus:

If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.
But beggars do not ride, but have to walk.
Therefore wishes are not horses. — unenlightened

It's a valid deduction, but we already know from the outset that wishes are not horses, it tells us nothing new. Similarly, the blue would have left if b=1, but we already know b>1, so their not leaving also tells us nothing new.



We agree that if b=1 or b=2, we MUST have the guru's statement to get the ball rolling. But if b>=3, then @Michael's reasoning seems to apply. We may as well just imagine the guru making the statement, which means we may as well just imagine the guru, and this imaginary guru can make the statement about blue or brown, and so everyone would have left long ago. But if this works with b>=3, surely it works with b=1 or b=2. But it does not.

Right? — flannel jesus

I mean yeah, but... but...

Why should the step "If there were one blue, they would leave on the first day" appear in the brains of perfect logicians who already knew before the guru spoke that this was not the case?

If that is not an active possibility, which it is not when blue >2, the failure of anyone to leave on the first night also provides no information.

Whereas if blue = 2, blue = 1 is still an active possibility, so its disconfirmation on the first night provides new information.

What's tripping me up is this:

If only one person has blue eyes, the guru's statement is clearly informative: the person with blue eyes doesn't see any blue eyes.

If only two people have blue eyes, the guru's statemen is clearly informative, since no one leaving rules out the 1st case for each of the two blue eyed people.

But at three people, the Guru may as well not have spoken. Everyone knows that there is at least one blue person, and everyone knows that everyone knows that there is at least one blue person. Once you move beyond two blue people, the scenario shifts, yet you are relying on the one and two blue people cases to reason about it.

Ok, this one is really tricky, and I couldn't figure it out on my own. But it is still not adding up for me, something is off.

From the start, everyone knows there is not just one person with blue eyes, so why are these perfect logicians waiting the first day?

From the start, everyone knows there is not just two people with blue eyes, so why are these perfect logicians waiting the second day?

...

Similarly, we have sex because it feels good. We can find a purpose, like reproduction, but that's not why we do it. We do it because it attracts us, it feels good, and we want it. We have sex because we want to rather than for some purpose. — Moliere

"We have sex because it feels good. We do art because we like it." In what sense is this supposed to be philosophy?

We have sex for all sorts of reasons beyond "feeling good", such as, to strengthen bonding with a partner, to affirm a claim upon a partner, for social status, to explore sexual identity, because it is socially normative to do so. But most crucially, you speak of the drive to reproduce as if it somehow stood outside of the way sex feels good, and the way we feel impelled to have sex? When in truth, these are two facets of the exact same phenomenon? How can you understand our feelings without the reproductive drive, and how can you understand how the reproductive drive is effectuated without our feelings?

That is "useless sex", sex divorced from all meaning, purpose, context, and understanding, so that it "just feels good".

I think Oscar Wilde's use of useless might be better than yours, which seems too expansive to be ... useful. — Jamal

Better? It's tricky. I think the quote works because it is clear while deviating from normal usage. In most contexts "useless" connotes no utility at all, not just no instrumental utility.

What if it were not Oscar Wilde, but a 19th century schoolmarm, or a Trump appointee, saying "art is useless". Or, a friend says "that movie was useless". The meaning would be pretty clear: art, the movie, has no value. Plenty of things are 'useless' in this sense, it is not so broad a meaning as to be useless.

But I think no one here believes that, that is not why I am objecting. Instead I'm arguing against the idea that art somehow stands on its own, intrinsically meritorious, disconnected from human need and purpose. The very fact that so many are driven to devote their whole lives to art's creation, and the fact that we are seemingly driven to saturate our environment with art, speaks instead to its deep connection to human purpose, instead of an inexplicable obsession with useless things. Even if we are not always explicitly conscious of what that purpose is. It is our job as philosophers to make the implicit explicit, only then can we actually understand what we are investigating.

I'd rather say that it's dour to insist that what serves needs must be "useful" — Moliere

Not dour, just proper English. It doesn't seem to make sense that something can both meet needs and be useless.

You seem to use "use" in a way that excludes aesthetic use. This seems unhelpful to me, neither humans nor any other animal behave in ways that are useless, that don't meet needs or serve any purpose. If from the start you presume the behavior is useless it will be impossible to understand. How can you understand a useless, meaningless behavior?

I'm all for the wider artworld -- games, novels, music, whatever -- I just don't think it's valuable due to its use, or would rather shy away from the uses of art towards the reasons we're attracted to it. — Moliere

If we are clear that the use of art includes , for instance, making us feel certain ways, then the use and attraction of art are inseparable. That we are so strongly attracted to art is powerful evidence that art is useful, that it meets needs and serves a purpose.

And I question that pre-moderns would typically wonder about ‘the meaning of it all’, as existence in those times was very much circumscribed by custom and your place in the social hierarchy (not that this was necessarily a good thing.) — Wayfarer

What do you think of this quote?

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity... What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? — Ecclesiastes 1:2-3

I didn’t say nor imply that there isn’t a hierarchy of meanings. At the most basic level the organism’s purpose, and the overall aim at which all of its constituent parts are engaged with, is persisting, staying alive. This drive animates (literally) all living creatures. — Wayfarer

You didn't say there was no hierarchy. But you neglected to mention it, though it is crucial to the topic. See my example of the poop machine.

People today are well aware of biological purpose, including their own. I once saw a tee-shirt that read "Born. Work. Fuck. Die." As if to say,

"Yes, my life has a certain purpose. I spend much of my time meeting biological purposes: working to sustain myself, and reproducing, or at least trying to do so. And yet, what is the meaning of all that? If these purposes are not themselves grounded in a higher purpose, they collapse into purposelessness."

Even though the world is suffused with biological purpose, this does not answer the charge that life as a whole is without purpose.

I'm going to try to write an OP that will go into some of this in more detail; we've already hijacked Moliere's thread for too long! — J

:up:

Questions of the meaning of life long predate the scientific revolution, so it is suspect to make it somehow responsible for a fundamental human question such as this.

What your essay seems to miss is the notion of hierarchy in purpose. Of course, biological life is full of purpose, at every scale. But at every point where purpose is found, one can ask what purpose does that serve?

Take for instance the poop machine.

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/05/poo-machine-by-wim-delvoye.html?m=1

At every stage of the poop machine, one can ask what its purpose is, and receive a perfectly reasonable answer. But at the final stage which produces poop, when you ask, "and what is the purpose of that?", you find only silence. The end result, and therefore the entire machine, is ultimately purposeless.

The same can be asked of life itself. Despite all the purpose we can identify in all the facets of life, one can still ask, what is the purpose of all of it? And here too, one may encounter silence. With or without science.

Simply, farmers spend their time away from urban areas. Urban areas are where cultures mix, new ideas circulate, where you are constantly exposed to different peoples, different lifestyles, different faiths. By necessarily to live in an urban area you must have a reasonable tolerance of change.

Moreover, urban landscapes are always changing. Cities can change dramatically in a single generation. Whereas farms change much more slowly.

Cities require a tolerance of difference and change. Not only do they change their inhabitants, but there is a self selection effect. Those that do not tolerate cities avoid them.

Since farms are inhabited by self selected conservatives, they will be culturally conservative. This is a further reinforcement, as cultural conservatives prefer to be around others like them.

All this adds up to a striking effect in the US: step outside any US city, even in a blue state, and you are assaulted by Trump flags, Trump signs, enormous pickup trucks sporting 4 trump flags, etc.

But as always, we can find interesting exceptions. Satie claimed that his "furnishing music" was strictly pragmatic -- it was meant to add to the decor (great quote from him on Wikpedia: "Furnishing music completes one's property"). This sounds like he wanted it understood as non-art, but no one agrees! — J

I don't see this as an exception at all. Decor serves no pragmatic function, it is perfectly possible to live in an abode with no decor at all. Decor serves only to modulate the emotional state of the inhabitant; this is thoroughly, unproblematically art.

Frankly, Im ready to abandon all this talk of "artworld" entirely, and institutional theories of art. It seems oriented around the question of "what is fine art" rather than "what is art". Perhaps this was the interesting question in Danto's day, but today, to me at least, it seems far too elitist. What separates "fine art" from everyday art frankly doesn't seem as philosophically interesting as what separates art as a whole from non art.

I disagree with premise 1 -- I think people spend money on all manner of useless things. Tarot readings? Cigarettes? Kellogs Frosted flakes? — Moliere

It seems a very dour usage to call everything unpragmatic "useless". All these things may be unpragmatic, but they all serve needs.

By "art industry" I was mainly referring to the entertainment industry, which is exclusively in the business of producing art (I'm assuming we are past "mass art isn't art"). It seems odd to say that a multi trillion dollar global industry consists in creating useless things. Games are useless? Novels are useless? Music is useless?

I'm hesitant to justify art by its purposes. If anything I think it's entirely useless, and that's sort of the point. — Moliere

People do not generally spend useful money on useless things. Yet, the art industry (inclusive of Pop art) is booming, as always. Art is full of purpose: to stimulate thinking, expand perspectives, gain insight, to entertain, to feel, to beautify spaces, to occupy idle time.

The difference is that it has no pragmatic purpose. Take a piece of purported art, and subtract away the pragmatic purpose: what remains, if anything, is the art.

In general tools modulate the world while art modulates the viewer.