To be perfectly honest, I find your style of writing to be unnecessarily verbose and academic - like you’re trying to make the simplest human processes, particularly those we all understand, into something highly technical. Often, after wrestling through long-winded paragraphs, I find myself wondering why - you’ve yet to tell me anything I don’t already know, and it’s certainly not presented in any novel or intriguing way, but you’re making me work so damn hard for it, all the same. It just seems so unnecessary.

I find the topics of discussion you bring up to be fairly interesting in themselves, but despite several attempts I just can’t be bothered wading through your writing to find your point. If this OP is you being succinct, then I’m afraid it’s as clear as mud. Sorry.

I was not addressing your desire, I was addressing your claim that "we" could do something about it. Some people would like to repeal certain laws outlawing public nudity and some people want to keep them, thus the "we" becomes a bit silly for me, this is not a helpful way to speak. — Judaka

But you are addressing desire here - what I’m referring to is understanding, regardless of law or will. So it makes little difference to the discussion whether anyone wants to repeal laws or keep them, and dichotomising in this way fails to take into account those who enjoy nakedness yet, regardless of laws, would not choose to knowingly subject someone else to an experience of nakedness against their will.

I think in individualistic societies like in the West, there's a balance between your freedom and your imposition on others. The key issue here is not whether you should want this freedom but there is an imposition on others, is that a reasonable way of looking at it and which should trump the other? Kevin says he doesn't want to be nude in public or see others nude in public and random nudist says they want to be nude in public and screw Kevin. A nudist beach seems like a compromise to me, you have a designated spot where you can be nude in public without imposing your nudeness on others. I don't feel as if I know enough about the issue to explore it in depth. — Judaka

Your opinion of the random nudist is showing as a blatant disregard for others - if that were the case, then having a nudist beach available would make little difference to their behaviour. A nudist beach is viewed as collaboration for some, isolation or exclusion for others. That you see this as an indication of what side of the law they’re on is interesting.

What's the difference between "wrong" and "inaccurate" and "imprecise" to add? As far as I can tell, you're on a path that takes you to meta-ethics, about the very meaning of right and wrong - the foundations of morality so to speak. You think that Adam and Eve caught but a glimpse of morality and from that brief encounter all they could discern was the what? (such and such behavior is good, such and such behavior is bad) but they failed to find out the why? (why is such and such behavior good and why is such and such behavior bad). The full extent of moral knowledge is yet to be revealed/discovered - a work in progress even as I speak. Am I on the right track? — TheMadFool

Yes, meta-ethics is where I’m headed, but I would argue that human experience is the foundation of morality - that it’s constructed as part of our conceptual systems, from a vague interoception of affect. All Adam and Eve could discern was a negative feeling, where there wasn’t one before. You’re assuming that ‘moral knowledge’ was out there to be ‘revealed/discovered’, but my view is that it’s a condition of our inter-subjective relation to the world, to be hypothesised, tested, refined and corrected over time - a work in progress as we speak.

Good analogy. Is the emphasis on a [moral] point of no return a reasonable approach to the issue of right and wrong? I guess it makes sense to red-flag extreme immorality - it dissuades us from going to those dander zones in a manner speaking. — TheMadFool

It’s not so much the point of no return, but the point beyond which our efforts to understand appear to threaten our own relative [moral] position.

I think there's only a thin line between aesthetic appreciation and sexual arousal as far as our bodies are concerned. I guess I'm speaking from a lack of experience than from experience here? I'd like to know what kind of experiences enable a person to disentangle aesthetics from sex. The two seem inseparable. If this is off-topic, please ignore it. — TheMadFool

You’re delving into a topic here that 3017amen and I have been discussing for some time on another thread - from which this thread is tangential. You’re welcome to join us there.

You said we're deeply concerned about exposing ourselves because it causes fear for the reason that in the nude we're vulnerable. I just took what you said to its logical conclusion - nakedness represents either the event horizon of our vulnerability or is the canary in a coal mine of our vulnerability - it demands immediate action, constant attention. — TheMadFool

It demands effort and attention, yes - but it needn’t be something to avoid. Do you see science giving up on understanding black holes? There is a path to be negotiated between fascination and fear, between increasing awareness, connection and collaboration and seeking refuge in exclusion, isolation or ignorance. I’m not suggesting we do away with clothing, that we march straight into the coal mine alone - only that we stop denying our own vulnerability by sacrificing canaries...

The tree of knowledge itself and lack thereof, provided a simple word picture for a metaphorical sense of finitude that we have only through our self-awareness. Meaning, as compared to lower life-forms who presumably don't have higher levels of consciousness and self-awareness, we have become aware of the concept of imperfection. And that speaks to the same sense of ignorance in all forms of temporal existence as presented to us in feeling our existential angst relative to the human condition. — 3017amen

Interestingly, we can also observe social animal responses to ‘imperfection’ or a sense of ‘less than’ at the level of value/potential, as if they too may be vaguely ‘perceptive’ of it (though not as a concept/prediction, and not in self-reference). This is the distinction between perception and apperception. It’s like anomalies that we keep excluding, until they’ve amassed enough that we can no longer ignore them, and recognise patterns starting to emerge.

To broad-brush it, whether it's a lack of perfection associated with our interpersonal struggles to seek satisfactory happiness, or deficiencies in our vocational needs or professional lives/science and a lack of knowledge and understanding about same, the natural world that we find ourselves in is in fact incomplete (Godel and Heisenberg). — 3017amen

In fact? The appearance of the world according to our facts is incomplete; according to our predictions, it’s merely uncertain. It’s because of a reliance on ‘fact’ as a foundation that this troubles us so much.

Then there is self-consciousness coming from that same source of self-awareness. In this instance, I am self-conscious of my body. And I feel vulnerable to shame because I cannot choose otherwise. Moreover, I am now selfish through my self-awareness. I now have insatiable needs and I live a constant life of striving (Maslow). A feeling of existential angst has power over me (Ecclesiastes).

You are not what you could be, and you are not what you ought to be. And of course, what you are not you cannot perceive to understand; it cannot communicate itself to you. The chasm between what you are and what you ought to be is as unreconcilable as unresolved paradox from the so-called self-referential statements of Being (Liars paradox).

Covering yourself with clothing is a right response to this—to conceal it, and some argue, to confess it. In any case, we're aware of it, self aware. Henceforth, you shall wear clothing, not to conceal that you are not what you should be, but to confess that you are not what you should be. We have now become humble. — 3017amen

It appears ‘right’ to an incomplete apperception - and somewhere along the way, we forgot how to be humble. Confessing it begins by stating “We were afraid, because we were naked, so we hid”, and continues with an answer to the question: “Who told you that you were naked?” Because it isn’t that we ‘just know’, it’s that we use the faculty of judgement without any practical or theoretical knowledge (ie. understanding) whatsoever - I have the capacity to judge potential and value based on how the world appears to me, including feelings I don’t even understand. So we judge, and in our false confidence of modernism we believe ourselves justified in this, because who’s going to say that we should be patient and strive to understand first? After all, who knows more about the world than we do? So, confess to whom? Each other?

You keep repeating this quote from Maslow, but I disagree - you can perceive to understand what you are not. You just can’t expect to achieve it alone, and you can’t always state it as ‘knowledge’. This is what imagination is for, why we share the depth of our experiences, expressing them in words, art, movement and sound. Not just to be aware or connect, but to collaborate with what we are not. We don’t need a full working knowledge necessarily, but just to keep in mind what my teenage daughter repeats ad nauseum: ‘don’t judge’. This generation are learning to go beyond ‘confessing’ to each other: recognising NOT that they are not what they should be, but that what they currently understand is incomplete, uncertain - insufficient for these judgements that close the door to understanding.

Fast-forwarding a bit, we do have opportunities to shed this facade (nudist colonies), in order to provide for a false sense of innocence. Hence my own personal experience (the foregoing thought-- experiment) of feeling joyful in that nakedness, and a feeling of no shame and no vulnerability. A liberation of sorts (both a discovery and uncovery of a truth/ Being), but a temporalness nonetheless... — 3017amen

I would argue that it’s not so much ‘no vulnerability’ - openness gives us a sense of increased capacity to anticipate and manage our physical vulnerability, or transcend this temporalness (and by transcend, once again, I don’t mean deny or escape - only to recognise that we are more than our temporal existence, and therefore not bound by it). It seems to me, though, that your preference is instead to regress your awareness, to retreat into ignorance and deny this vulnerability, and in doing so to retrieve a false sense of ‘innocence’. I’m thinking you might have missed the point of it being a thought experiment...

What "choices"? To go to the supermarket naked? It's against the law. What choice are you talking about? — Judaka

What, you don’t think it’s still a choice: to abide by that law OR to bear the consequences? Just because we longer make these choices consciously, doesn’t mean we don’t still make them as part of our process of determining action.

Nono, you cannot reasonably talk about "we" when talking about interactions between humans and their systems. Clothing isn't necessary but it's preferable for most people that things stay the way they are, what are you going to do about it? Talk about "we" when it includes people who do and don't want to challenge these norms? "We" needs to at least be a group within society — Judaka

Do ‘we’ need to define a position in relation to these norms? And who said I wanted to do anything about it? The question was simple enough: is clothing necessary? Your answer appears to be no, and I agree. This is about awareness of value and potentiality structures in relation to determining behaviour, regardless of moral position. Yes, most people prefer that things stay the way we believe it should be, which is not so much that ‘nakedness is bad’, but that I am not confronted with an experience of nakedness (mine or anyone else’s) against my will. But why is that? Is nakedness actually harmful in itself, or is it the potentiality perceived in nakedness that we find offensive or threatening? And on the flip side: if it is my will to experience nakedness that would cause no actual harm to others, am I denied that freedom on ‘moral’ grounds, and if so, how accurate is that judgement? How realistic is it to meet these demands, given that each of us has a unique will? And how open can we be to reasoning that positions our own will in a disinterested collaboration?

As an example...

I live in a little place in Florida with some silly nude beach between Daytona and Cape Canaveral. My observations of the local 'wildlife' here are going to lead me to be fairly unphilosophical, unthoughtful, un-self-critical...I just have zero interest in seeing the locals naked. — Kevin

Kevin says he has zero interest in seeing the locals naked, and yet there are enough with a strong interest in being naked at the beach to warrant a space that enables this. He might assume that they want him to see them naked, but many of them probably don’t care who sees - that’s not their aim. Even though they’re able to find the positive in being seen, I would argue that the real delight in nakedness comes from the intensity of being open to the entire experience.

I'm not assuming anything. Something happened to Adam and Eve that made them go from stark naked to strategic parts covered with fig leaves. That something was knowledge of morality. Am I wrong then to infer that nakedness is bad/immoral? — TheMadFool

It isn’t about ‘wrong’, it’s about accuracy. You’re inferring from the word ‘knowledge’ that all of it is justified, true belief. But is it? The knowledge they gain is of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, not about it. They know a distinction exists between their own ‘good’ feeling and ‘bad’, that’s all. Everything else is incorrect inference on their part - cognitive bias. Morality - as a set of principles or codes for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behaviour - is then constructed from this initial faulty reasoning, to be refined and corrected according to further knowledge, acquired through practical, theoretical and apparent experience over time.

Moral theories, all of them, are exceptionally clear and specific about the immoral (negatives) and are hopelessly vague about the moral (positives) indicating, by my reckoning, a greater familiarity and deeper understanding of the negatively valued than the positively valued. — TheMadFool

It often appears that way, but what moral theories do is clearly define the lower limits of unacceptable behaviour - the event horizon, so to speak.

I suppose the "positive" feelings Adam and Eve experienced were sexual in nature. That's not how morality works. Morality is, to my knowledge, marketed as something that transcends the physical, sexuality and all. — TheMadFool

Not all of the positive feelings would be sexual in nature; much of it would be aesthetic. But one would need to interact more with the experience in order to distinguish between these feelings, which would entail getting past this ‘nakedness is bad’ judgement.

Morality does seem to be marketed as an a priori knowledge that ‘just is’. After all, it’s grounded in interoception of affect (which we are only recently beginning to understand) and our many cognitive biases. When we get past this essentialist view of morality, and see it instead as a constructed system of value-attributed behaviour concepts, then we can engage in a disinterested harmony of our faculties (imagination, understanding and judgement) in relation to behaviour.

So, this is some kind of a psychological phenomenon in which we, for some reason, associate all our fears with our naked bodies? Our state of complete undress then perceived as us utterly defenseless? :up: If this is what you're getting at then, please ignore the rest of my post. — TheMadFool

What is it with subsuming experiences under ‘psychological phenomenon’, as if that justifies indeterminate reasoning? It’s not about defenselessness, but about being open to reality. We put up walls and make laws and employ police and lock our doors and put on clothes and restrict online access to our information, and convince ourselves that we’re not vulnerable because we have all of this - but we are. Because at the end of the day, we live only to the extent that we interact openly with the world - and none of this will actually stop directed, intentional and motivated harm, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What is moral judgement, but an attempt to define the event horizon of our vulnerability?

The choices you make are forced upon you, your preference for wearing clothing isn't required. Similarly, the types of clothes you wear are often not choices for you to make either, or rather, the consequences for defying expectations are too severe for you to sensibly decide to defy them. The "insistence" on clothing is actually just norms operating seamlessly created by people conforming to and following social rules and the law. Is there a practical incentive for anyone to want this changed? — Judaka

They’re not choices laid out for you, sure - but they’re still choices you make, whether you do so consciously, or according to socially constructed concepts you’ve integrated through language and experience (including avoiding threatened punishments).

It’s not about whether we want it changed - it’s about recognising that we can change it, and being honest about the real reasons why we don’t want it changed. It’s about evaluating behaviour that defies expectations, not on its deviation from the ‘norm’, but on the extent to which it alleviates/contributes to suffering, through awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion in the world.

My take on this is very simple. Adam and Eve underwent a change - that change has to do with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In essence, there's a before and an after as the far as the forbidden fruit is concerned. Before, Adam and Eve didn't care about their nakedness, After (consuming the forbidden fruit), they did. What caused this transition from not caring to caring about their nakedness? The tree of knowledge of good and evil. Ergo, this change in attitude in Adam and Eve toward their nakedness must be caused by knowledge of good and evil (morality). In other words, Adam and Eve discovered that nakedness is bad. — TheMadFool

You’re assuming the necessary truth of ‘nakedness is bad’, and then trying to justify the statement. You might as well be doing apologetics.

There are two main forms of ‘knowledge’:

1. facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

This type of knowledge is acquired through a temporal process. It requires effort, often repeated, over a duration.

2. awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.

This second type of knowledge is gained from an appearance. It requires attention (“their eyes were opened”) and can be instant, like an ‘ah-ha’ moment of sudden realisation or awareness.

So it seems clear to me that it’s this second form of knowledge that is gained by Adam and Eve: awareness of fear, gained from an appearance of nakedness. Their knowledge that ‘nakedness is bad’ is limited to singular situation. This is not knowledge of a ‘moral system’ as such. From awareness-type knowledge we begin to construct a moral system of value-attributed concepts, which we would test and refine in relation to the first type of knowledge, acquired through effort to interact (often repeatedly) over time. But only positive value-attributed concepts are refined in this way. When a negative value is attributed (eg. ‘Nakedness is bad’), we avoid future interaction, and any possible knowledge to be gained from a similar experience is then ignored, isolated or excluded, based on this singular experience (which I can almost guarantee would have consisted of a mixture of both positive and negative feelings, even if overall its quality appeared negative).

When we are naked, we have nothing to help us deflect or absorb the injury - we must bear it all, physically and emotionally.
— Possibility

Surely, then, by your own admission,nakedness is bad. Why else would you say "we must bear it all". Last I heard, we don't bear enjoyable experiences, they're not burdens to bear. — TheMadFool

Nakedness is not necessarily bad. Injury is bad - it is this we must bear if it occurs when we’re naked - but injury from nakedness is only bad as a hypothetical relation.

My argument is not that we’re afraid of nakedness, but that we’re afraid of our vulnerability
— Possibility

Why are we vulnerable? Because we're naked, right? — TheMadFool

It can seem that way: we feel vulnerable because we’re naked. But the truth is that we’re still vulnerable in so many ways, even when fully clothed. We’re vulnerable because we’re alive. It is in the appearance of nakedness that we so unavoidably perceive this vulnerability as a negative experience, which if we conceptualise as self-attributed ‘fear’ would only affirm it. So instead we attribute this negative quality to the concept ‘nakedness’, which we then strive to avoid, lest we are confronted once again with the truth that this vulnerability is inherent to all living beings.

Why is do you think "...this vulnerability is necessary.."? — TheMadFool

As an integrated temporal existence, our vulnerability is unavoidable. No life is impermeable, immune to the potential for damage, or for a death considered ‘premature’. By living, we necessarily open ourselves up to change, harm and death at some point. That’s life. But the potential that openness brings - to live, to become, to desire, connect, collaborate, delight, learn, understand and imagine - seems to me worth being vulnerable.

(In all honesty, even life is a limited perspective, but I thought this would be challenging enough...)

Clothing is"necessary" in the psychological, cultural sense. Long before the current cultural milieu, people started wearing clothes -- not just clothes, but clothes that were a a lot of trouble to make, at a time when survival was much more difficult than now.

I'm thinking of an archeological find of a cloth fragment preserved by chance in NW Europe; it was about 20,000 years old if I remember correctly, and it was woven with a plaid pattern--not exactly a rich plaid like Scottish clan plaids, but plaid, nonetheless--vertical and horizontal bands of colored thread incorporated in the warp and weft. The fabric required extra steps and more technology (like dyeing fibers), so the desire to wear haute couture has, apparently, been with us for a long time.

Going back to a slightly earlier time, a small carved fertility figure was found which incorporated a 'skirt' of knotted thread that was designed to reveal more than obscure. 5000 years ago the ice man who died on a glacier in the Alps was dressed head to foot in clothing which had been carefully made and patched as it wore out. Just guessing, but when we were troglodytes dressed in animal skins, I bet some animal skins were preferred over others, because they just looked good: "I have a very nice saber-tooth tiger fur while she has that hideous rotten mammoth skin.")

We can easily and effectively meet the survival aspects of dress, and have been doing so for a long time. For survival, we mostly don't have to wear clothes at all. But WE LIKE TO WEAR CLOTHES as a form of self-enhancement, and this seems to have been present for at least 25,000 years. Given a few thousand years of practice, clothing is probably not an option any more. — Bitter Crank

I appreciate you adding the scare quotes. I agree that clothing has been commonly perceived as ‘necessary’ for millennia within many cultures, for the reasons you touch on here: survival, diversifying to aesthetic value/potential, diversifying to intentional expression of ‘self’. I will concede that clothing is often judged as hypothetically ‘necessary’ within particular cultural experiences. But just because it is, does not mean it should be.

It is necessary that we observe cultural imperatives. We produce the culture and then we obey it, and feel bad when we don't. We don't have the option of dropping all culture and reverting to some sort of innocent animal existence a la Rousseau AND remaining human. Producing and reproducing culture is evolutionary. Take language: we can't remain human without language. So, the languageless animal that looks just like us but has no language wouldn't be human. The look-alike animal that has no culture is likewise not human.

Now, there are areas of San Francisco where guys walk down the street naked. They aren't at all free of culture -- they are as cultured in their nakedness as anyone wearing the latest haute couture. They are both making a statement (not the same statement, but not altogether different, either). "Vestis virum reddit!" the Romans said. Clothes make the man. Put a purple banded toga on that schmuck and he looks like a Senator."

You wouldn't want to see Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell walking around naked in the US Capitol. It would not only be a fatal breach of culture and couture, it would be an absolutely horrifying sight. Clothing saves us from all that.

Maggie Kuhn, the founder of the Grey Panthers (a senior citizen group) once said that they could bring the Vietnam war to an end by threatening to have a few thousand old people undress on the Mall. — Bitter Crank

My question is, though: how bad is feeling bad? Isn’t it less a question of whether dropping ALL culture is an option, but whether we recognise that a particularly hypothetical cultural imperative is really a choice that we make because we don’t like the alternatives? Do we even recognise the alternatives as such, or simply obey because it’s easier? We reconstruct culture every time we exercise this choice as a choice - not as blind obedience.

I disagree that a human-looking being without language cannot be human, and therefore need not be treated as if they were human. You’re drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, not for truth but for pragmatic purposes - which is fair enough, but I think it’s important to recognise that they’re not the same thing.

My argument is not to somehow get ‘free’ of culture, but to transcend it (again, not the same thing). To recognise that we do make and remake culture by understanding that the choices we make are not forced upon us. We have the capacity to increase awareness, connect and collaborate - and in doing so, to realise that covering up is only perceived as ‘necessary’ within a particular and hypothetical cultural construct. Covering up isn’t necessary to human experience in general, let alone to existence itself, objectively speaking. Then we can ask ourselves honestly why we insist on it, and if it holds us back to impose it on every potential experience of nakedness.

How did it come to pass that they "determined it (nakedness) was bad"[/i] if not by some criterion of morality? In other words, they had, at the very least, acquired some knowledge of morality, whatever system of morality it was that considers nakedness as immoral. — TheMadFool

The ‘bad’ I’m referring to is an interoception of negative affect in the body, and is not necessarily conscious. This negative valence would be sufficient to unconsciously establish a basic, non-linguistic conceptual structure against a repeat of this internal event. It’s a determination by action from feeling, without actual thought or self-reflection. Most social animals are capable of this. It is Adam and Eve’s apperception of this feeling as a goal-directed emotion concept (“We were afraid, so we hid”) that demonstrated what ‘knowledge’ they’ve gained, and what they’re still missing. They don’t know nakedness as bad or immoral - at most they know that they felt afraid, which caused them to hide (or that they intended/willed to hide, which they attributed to a feeling of fear).

I'm making an argument to the best explanation. There are no reasons other than a moral one why nudism isn't allowed during weather conditions perfect for some naked frolicking at the beach or wherever one fancies. — TheMadFool

Sure - it’s a case of subsuming any appearance of ‘nakedness’ under a moral judgement - but there’s more to an experience of nakedness than ‘frolicking wherever one fancies’. Check out 3017amen’s lengthy personal account above. The possibility of pure, non-conceptual delight enables some experiences of nakedness to transcend this moral judgement, rendering the statement ‘nakedness is bad’ as problematical.

You have a theory but I don't know how well it'll stand up to careful scrutiny. I mean, look, there are tribes in the tropics like in the Amazon and African rainforests who don't wear any clothes at all and then, moving toward the higher latitudes we have Eskimos in the Arctic who are, well, dressed in many layers of clothing from head to toe. What explains this pattern? Can your theory that we're fearful and feel vulnerable in a psychological sense, as you seem to be implying, explain this phenomenon? The best explanation seems to be that people aren't afraid of nakedness but they are afraid of hypothermia. For your theory to be reasonable, peoples everywhere, in the tropics, in the mid-latitudes and in the frigid zones, should have a clothing industry at some scale. This isn't the case. — TheMadFool

I think you misunderstand me, here. My argument is not that we’re afraid of nakedness, but that we’re afraid of our vulnerability. This fear of vulnerability (to the weather) motivates Eskimos to dress in many layers of clothing, while tribes in the tropics don’t bother.

If you think it's vulnerability and the associated fear that causes us to wear clothes then it follows that the Hijab is the perfect design to address that vulnerability and allay the fear that comes with it. — TheMadFool

My view is that our fear of vulnerability can motivate ignorance, isolation and exclusion, which contribute to suffering - but it can also motivate us to increase awareness, connection and collaboration, which alleviates suffering. So I disagree that our purpose is to allay this fear, but rather I believe this vulnerability is necessary, and that our fear is essential to human experience. It is how we interpret our fear that counts - do we subsume all fearful experiences under moral judgements, or have the courage to perceive the possibility of the sublime in human experience that transcends morality?

This is not necessarily a call to act on that possibility, but (pace Kant) to engage the faculties of imagination, understanding and judgement in ‘free play’ at this level, enabling a critique of conceptual, value and morality systems, for instance.

I would liken it to bathing. It is not strictly necessary for survival, although it certainly can play a contributing role to a longer life in most environments. It is also not strictly necessary for membership in a community, although its absence here is a much greater liability. — Pro Hominem

Thank you for your comments. I pretty much agree with your assessment here. We use clothing as a tool: for survival, for symbolic expression, for an appearance of value/potential. Culturally, we have come to rely on clothing less for protection (except in extreme climates) and more as a ready-reference for conceptualising social interactions - even though the information it provides is uncertain, and more indicative of wilful intention than ‘fact’.

On experiencing nakedness, without clothing to guide us, we are confronted with not only a form of ‘experiential blindness’ (we lack these conceptual ‘tools’ that enable us to position an appearance of potential/value in relation to social reality) but also a resulting experience of high arousal (a high prediction of effort required to resolve this) and indeterminate or conflicting valence (potential for delight and/or danger?). Depending on how we perceive our relation to surrounding potentiality and past experiences, we may conceptualise this ‘nakedness’ in a complex variety of ways, from a friendly invitation or expression of freedom, to an innocent mistake or threat of offence.

The simplest resolution, of course, is to go with ‘all nakedness is bad’, and this is what usually occurs, particularly as an automatic response. But in view of the variety of possibilities, this is a cop-out, and only increases ignorance, isolation and exclusion (which in turn inflicts suffering). FWIW, if our aim is for accuracy in our interactions, and a reduction of suffering in the world as a whole, then I think it’s a worthwhile use of our energy and intelligence, for example, reserving judgement on nakedness (recognising that the will to cover up is not essential/necessary to the human experience), and being open to more of the potential information available, instead of subsuming predictions under moral judgement because it’s easier. And I’m not just talking about nakedness here. In a world where so many suffer needlessly, it seems to me worthwhile perceiving the potential for a little discomfort in ourselves in order to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with the world. I’m certainly not expecting everyone to do this - only those who recognise its value and potential...

Thanks for your comments.

You assert that ‘clothes are necessary for basic survival’, but many posters here have pointed out that clothes are needed to survive only in some circumstances, not all. There are, in fact, many human experiences in which nakedness is not even a health risk, let alone a risk to survival. Clothes are useful for survival, but not necessary.

As for Adam and Eve, there is a third option: ‘God’ is unhappy not because of the act of defiance per se, nor because Adam and Eve gained knowledge how or why (which they didn’t), but because Adam and Eve now possessed knowledge that - gained by awareness (their eyes were opened) - without any practical knowledge as such, and from that alone acted in moral judgement. It isn’t that they ‘knew’ that nakedness was bad, but that they determined it was bad from their initial experience. What they ‘knew’ was only that they were naked, that they felt vulnerable, and that they could respond. The how or why - knowledge gained only by experience over time, which was to be developed over thousands of years - was irrelevant to Adam and Eve in determining their interaction with the world. It seems to me that, for this reason, ‘God’ was unhappy.

So your statement that the reason nakedness is bad is because ‘most people think nakedness is bad’ only seeks to validate this error in judgement made by Adam and Eve, in an argumentum ad populum. The truth is that many people rather feel that nakedness is potentially bad in many situations, but it doesn’t follow from this feeling that nakedness is necessarily and inherently ‘bad’. The will to cover up is both problematic and hypothetical, if you think about it.

I want to clarify here that I’m not making an argument for doing away with clothing, as a rule. My point is simply to be aware that this will to cover up is neither necessary nor inherent to human experience. I don’t believe an experience of nakedness should necessarily be subject to moral judgement, but rather evaluated on practicality and potential health risks. That we continue to consider nakedness a moral issue seems to me a function of this inherent human fear of feeling vulnerable. Of course, I could argue that much of morality is a function of this deep-seated fear, but that may be another discussion.

With reference to the Hijab: there is covering up nakedness, there is concealing identity, and then there is protecting private property. These are separate issues. The potential threat of ‘negative ethical consequences’ still does not make this will to cover up necessary.

I do not concur with the view that survival is not objectively necessary. If existence is merely a peripheral, subjective concern, then none of this discussion -- and much else -- matters.

The fact that we will cease to exist is what makes existence sine qua non.. If our existence was now and forever more, things would be different. — Bitter Crank

I have no argument with existence as sine qua non. My issue here is with survival - a living, temporal existence - being as such. In my view, the latter is a relative, multi-dimensional aspect of the former: a peripheral, subjective concern in relation to existence itself (objectively speaking).

We should be aware that nakedness isn't the same issue for everybody the world over. Some people don't wear clothes. — Bitter Crank

I agree, hence the discussion.

We (first worlders) do cover up ourselves. There's nothing wrong with that; it works for us. Except when it doesn't. — Bitter Crank

Again, I agree. My issue is with claims that wearing clothing is deemed ‘necessary’, as if the will to cover up or adorn the body ‘just is’. I may not need to justify this choice to other ‘first worlders’, but that does not render it essential to human experience.

There is reason behind our will to cover up, conscious or no.

Sure, people choose to do what they have to do if they want to ___. And they could choose not to, and go without whatever that is. Maybe they choose not to stay alive if killing someone else is the only way to do that.

Of course people are choosing, but that doesn't mean their decisions are arbitrary or without reasons. — Srap Tasmaner

Agreed. It is this subjective ‘reasoning’ that sometimes eludes conscious awareness, but that doesn’t mean it ‘just is’. My suspicion is that asserting a will that ‘just is’ may conceal a potential error in reasoning.

Thank you for your comments.

I agree that we wear clothing under certain conditions to maintain bodily health, which is a function of our survival as a living organism. This is important to us, although not objectively necessary, as such. As mentioned to Srap, survival is a valued function of this temporal aspect of our existence, life, which isn’t necessary either, but merely a potential function of experience.

In the same manner, Nakedness garners moral disapproval when it transcends the function of sexual activity, for instance, which in turns garners moral disapproval when its potential transcends the function of procreation, which in turn garners moral disapproval when its possibility transcends the function of a loving relation. (@3017amen - this seems like a good moment for you to chime in...)

Which brings us back to Adam and Eve, whose newly acquired ‘judgement of good and evil’ was first exercised in realising their nakedness was just ‘wrong’ - with no justification, no divine revelation, no instruction. It’s easy enough to imply that they were punished by ‘God’ because they were naked, but a critical reading would suggest that their error was one of naive, ignorant judgement: their own negative feelings towards this appearance of fragile vulnerability moved them, with no other information, to judge this nakedness as ‘evil’, and will to hide it in ‘shame’.

Do you notice how you’re processing this, though? You’re looking for a purpose and situation to justify the function of covering your body. But can we admit that we cover our bodies as a choice - conscious or otherwise - and NOT a necessity?

Even for those who live in the Sahara or the Arctic, covering the body is a function of the survival for the organism, and so we then ask: is this survival necessary, or is it a function of something else?

Well, the ongoing duration of my ‘life’ is vitally important... to me...

And this is where it gets interesting. We expect any physical aspect of our existence to reject an awareness that we lack necessity as a ‘physical object’, even though we understand this to be the case intellectually. It isn’t that the physical object doesn’t exist, it’s that any particular knowledge (potential) of its existence is a function of my experience. So what would I consist of, then, if no physical aspect is necessary to my existence...?

Sensitivity or self-consciousness, as an acute awareness of potentiality in our relation to the world, can certainly feel like a curse. It can sap our energy to attend to all of this five-dimensional information, with little observable effect in processing it, except that we feel so much more than it seems practical to express.

The world seems so focused on the physical aspects of experience, that all this ‘extra’ experience we have can feel like a burden. But this information you are gaining about the world is precisely what we all need to understand better. Learning to balance your energy distribution, by choosing how best to interact with the world that enables you to make use of this information, takes time. Periods of isolation and self-reflection, where you have time to process five-dimensional information at your own pace, can help to cope with those situations that overwhelm, and enable you to map a future plan of attack. You may find autism or anxiety management strategies to be surprisingly helpful for your own self-management. The difference I have found between my sensitivity and those with autism/anxiety is the capacity I have to find my own balance.

Explore your creative capacity - learn the usefulness of both qualitative and quantitative potential information by practising rendering skills that employ both: from fine art to quantum physics. I found my home in non-profit marketing, where I can apply my ‘intuitive’ sensitivity to positive media communications.

I think we need to stop believing we are ‘too sensitive’, and start to embrace the idea that we possess a higher capacity to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with the world.

Good point, Srap.

To clarify my question, then: Is there any purpose for which the wearing of clothing is necessary?

Clothing can certainly be practical, expressive, isolating, or subjectively preferred - but what I’m questioning here is its necessity.

Incidentally, the question pertains to a disagreement centred around the apparent necessity of a ‘physical object’ in human experience. My point is that we commonly assume ‘necessity’ where it isn’t warranted - it helps us to feel more certain in the world. The reality is far less necessary than we like to think it is, and is therefore less certain.

It was not my intention to dismiss our so-called facade argument. Quite honestly I would welcome another thread that captures this phenomenon. The reason is because not only was I going to elucidate the same argument, but it has personal relevance in the spirit of putting theory into practice. I'll share more of the experience when you open another thread. The thesis consists of a thought experiment being put into practice by virtue of experiencing a visit to a nudist colony.

Accordingly, the pragmatic's of that experiment yielded some insights from both a philosophical as well as cognitive perspective. Much like this thread, a new thread might uncover some intrigue vis-a-vis human nature.

What do you think? — 3017amen

I’m not one for starting discussions, so don’t hold your breath on this one... we’ll see...

I'm not sure this is right for this website (I'm relatively new), but I suppose since it's a general "pursuit of wisdom" it will slide. It also has to do with ego and sense of self. The question I asked my self is "What's the best way to not care what others say about you?" To not be embarrassed or self-conscious in front of people, a crowd, etc. and feel in a way totally and fully relaxed. I think you'd have to let go of your sense of self, your ego, and your sense of pride in yourself. Letting go of the image you're trying to cultivate. Now we're told by scientists that this stuff is hardwired into our brains, so it's probably harder said than done to just let it all go.

Your focus would have to be on a task or goal you're trying to accomplish instead of on yourself. Focusing on other people instead of yourself. And having a short memory also I'm sure helps. When you cling on to a certain strain of thinking like "what are they up to" or "what are they thinking about me" or the like, it's like falling into that trap again. It's easy to feel calm and relaxed behind a computer screen with a random username and no information about yourself. But when your name and body is out there and visible it's a different story. — dimension72

It seems to me like you’ve observed others who don’t appear to care what others say about them, are not embarrassed or self-conscious in front of people, and wish you were more like them. I can relate. I’d argue that what you’re wanting here is to be less aware. Your capacity to focus on a task or goal as well as on other people and on yourself is a mark of efficiency in the brain’s structure - not something to be suppressed. Ignorance is not bliss - it only appears so from a position of painful awareness.

Humiliation is a natural part of the learning process: it’s simply a recognition that our prediction of reality doesn’t match the sensory input. Your brain, hidden away within the skull, relies for its decisions on a conceptual system it has gradually constructed from the sensory input of past interactions. It makes ongoing predictions and continually refines them according to a limited distribution of attention to sensory input, both external and internal. And the younger you are, the more you will experience prediction error that requires adjustment to your conceptual systems, and with them your tightly budgeted energy distribution structures, hence the experiences of pain and humiliation.

What you’re referring to, however, is an apperception of the conceptual systems themselves: an awareness of your capacity to experience humiliation in a given situation, regardless of it actually occurring. If you pay attention, though, you may recognise that you’re not only conscious of potential embarrassment, but also the potential for success - and that with practise and patience you can perceive (more clearly than most), and find a way to effect, the best course of action.

You won’t benefit from ignoring or even finding some way to dull your sense of self, your ego, or sense of pride in yourself. These are important to the learning process. You need to get past your fear of prediction error, by gradually increasing awareness of your capacity for experiencing humiliation or pain, and recovering. The high efficiency of your brain in apperceiving potential may make this easier for you than most: you can learn more from mental simulations and empathising with the experiences of others than some people manage over a lifetime of experience. Use this, and don’t let anyone tell you that your actual experience is more important.

I don’t know which scientist told you that your brain is ‘hardwired’, but current neuroscience would dispute this essentialist view. Read Norman Doidge’s ‘The Brain That Changes Itself’, and/or Lisa Feldman Barrett’s ‘How Emotions Are Made’ for constructionist perspectives backed by more recent neuroscience. And strive to understand quantum theory - I have a feeling you may find it surprisingly intuitive.

Just to clarify for you, the comments I think you’re referring to here were from @TheMadFool.

I think when we argue for average physical characteristics (such as size or strength) as the binary measure of a gender’s value/potential, not only do we exclude those individuals who may not fit this ‘stereotype’, but we also sacrifice accuracy in favour of probability. While it seems logical as a sweeping generalisation, as a prediction of individual interaction, it’s almost useless. Think QM as an alternative method...

Also, I suggest you use the ‘reply to’ option (click on the three dots below the comment and select the back arrow), so that they’re notified when you respond to what someone has posted.

Of course I disagree. Consider the necessity of clothing. That 'facade' is as necessary as your example of 'dressing for success' because people consider appearance relevant. And so we are back to the inescapable importance of the physical object itself. — 3017amen

‘Importance’ is neither necessary nor inescapable. You’re quick to dismiss the possibility that clothing is optional. I could get into a long, drawn out discussion arguing that the cultural standard against nakedness is mythologised in Genesis as emerging from ignorant human judgement, but that’ll take us way off track.

Too often we back ourselves into corners by equivocating ‘important’, ‘essential’ and ‘necessary’. It’s a narrow perspective of reality that fails to recognise just how free the Will really is. Take a look at the distinction Kant makes between categories of quality, relation and modality.

Our approach should not be to judge an apparent choice to be manipulated, nor to assume ignorance of alternatives - rather it should be to share our own positive experience of perceiving this broader potential in them.
— Possibility

Of course. But you're being too idealist and not realistic. In the real world, one cares about their appearance not only for health and beauty reasons (aesthetics) etc, but because it's appropriate in all of society. — 3017amen

In all of your society, perhaps. Appropriateness is a social construct that we choose to buy into, but we also play a part in its ongoing construction. Certain aspects of appearance are considered beautiful and appropriate in society because of the perceived potential for health, attention, energy and other value benefits. Other physical features or adornments that may once have been considered beautiful, are now less commonly perceived as a sign of health, potential or value. So, is a particular pattern of appearance really required, or can we view ‘social appropriateness’ as continually negotiable?

Think of it this way, it may make you feel better if a company has no professional dress code, yet the paradox of whatever standard that's endorsed or approved is nevertheless still a standard that's accepted. It's not that no clothing at all is used to cover the physical body (your 'facade'). That standard is called a dress code appearance standard. You know, customary physical appearance kinds of things, like the requirement to wear cloths and cover or adorn the object in an aesthetically pleasing way. — 3017amen

It’s not about making me feel better, and I’m not specifically advocating for no dress code, either. Your assumption that by ‘not necessary’ I mean ‘not preferred’ is false. A company makes decisions about dress code based on what potential they want those who interact with them to perceive in their appearance - just like I do. I can choose to buy into that appearance, or choose to work for a different company. None of this ‘customary physical appearance’ is necessary, though, really. It’s a choice we make, for our own reasons, to conform to standards that are set according to indeterminate, at best probabilistic, reasoning (like @TheMadFool’s argument - ‘on average’ - for instance).

I get that this probably gets your fear response going, as if I’m calling for anarchy. Recognising these standards as ‘unnecessary’ threatens to unravel all the boundaries that have been carefully constructed between what is acceptable and unacceptable in the world. Sshh!! Don’t let people think that! As long as enough people believe it ‘just is’, then they won’t critically examine the how and why, but continue striving to appear more or less the way we believe they should, despite the reality...

And those who find themselves, their appearance or ‘innate’ preferences on the wrong side of ‘accepted’...?

1. Possibility believes that the physical aspect of interaction is not necessary for Love. True, false, or something else? — 3017amen

Possibility believes that the physical aspect of appearance is not necessary for Love.

2. Possibility believes Love exists without anything occurring, or physically existing, for the self-actuality of Love, as part of an experience. True, false, or something else? — 3017amen

Possibility believes Love exists without anything occurring or physically existing.

An experience consists of more than empirical intuition, and more than consciousness is able to make sense of. Aspects of Love can be perceived in experience as feeling, without apperception of concept or object to which it can either logically or necessarily be attributed as a property. That doesn’t mean we don’t feel compelled to attribute it anyway, arbitrarily and without understanding why. We say ‘it just is’, as if that’s a satisfactory answer, when it’s merely a placeholder to understanding.

An experience of relation manifest as ‘self-actuality’ is not Love, mainly because it excludes the actualisation of that to which one relates. The sensory appearance may look and feel the same to you, but it is not the same experience.

If they are both true, am I to conclude that somehow Love exists as an innate metaphysical feature of consciousness? And if so, does that not give the metaphysical Will primacy? And if all that is accurate, does it follow that one requires apperception of a physical object, in order to manifest this metaphysical Will to Love? — 3017amen

Sure, Love can be perceived as a metaphysical aspect of a necessary consciousness, and as such appears innate. Perceived in this way, the metaphysical Will appears to have primacy. But Love is not only a feature of consciousness - it can and does transcend it, facilitating harmony between the faculties of understanding, imagination and judgement. Consciousness is therefore not a necessary existence - it is a potential manifestation of this harmonic possibility, contingent upon the relation.

The Will is a potential reduction of this possibility, that may or may not give primacy to judgement, by which one determines and initiates action, regardless of consciousness. It is an apperception of this determined, temporal action - as an arbitrarily physical event manifesting the perceived potential for judgement - that requires apperception of a ‘physical object’ as a relational structure beneath one’s level of consciousness, to which this action may be directed. But, given that the possibility of Love is the only necessary existence here, objectively speaking, then the Will is free to love without action, consciousness is free to love without judgement, and I am free to experience Love, Delight or Beauty without defining or conceptualising the object, occurrence, value/potential or purpose to which it relates. To that end, I strive to increase awareness of, connection to and collaboration with this existing possibility of pure relation without purpose. But if you’re looking for action, then this form of Love will elude you.

If the answer is no to the very last question, then there must be something that is exclusively non-physical from which you can manifest your love towards... ? — 3017amen

Sure: it’s a perception of value/potential, at the basic level. Beyond that, it’s understanding/imagining the possibility of relation in itself.

In simple terms, if there is no object to perceive, how does or should one manifest their Love? In other words, should I love your love? And if you are exclusively metaphysical, what are you? What does that look like? Using your words, what's the 'experience' involve or consist of? — 3017amen

What we often refer to as ‘Love’ is, like aesthetics, not always pure. Insofar as Love strives to manifests (or interact with) a particular purpose, value, event or physical object, it lacks purity. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t love this way - but I do believe that we should at least strive to increase awareness of the possibility of love that transcends our current apperception of reality, to look for it in how we perceive the world, and give it the opportunity to manifest change in us.

I don’t believe we are exclusively metaphysical - but, being metaphysical, both our object and concept are undetermined. So, not only is our physical appearance or action just one perceived occurrence of our existing potential, but our perception of potential is just one example of possible existence in relation to the world.

Experience, in my view, is that perception of potential: a five-dimensional structure of interrelating values. Consciousness seems to be a qualitative process to create a ‘potentiality wave’ of this relational structure - a three-dimensional rendering of four-dimensional information - with the purpose of determining awareness. The Will is another, with the purpose of determining action. Reason is yet another, with the purpose of determining knowledge. This is how we make sense of the world.

Once again, I agree. The 'facade' , like it or not, is apparently necessary. — 3017amen

It may appear necessary to you, but I understand that this is a choice I make freely, for my own reasons. There is nothing ‘necessary’ about it. It’s important to me in that situation, but I don’t agree that it’s necessarily important to everyone in every situation.

They perceive their potential for beauty only in their physical aspects of appearance as apperceived by external agents, rather than as part of their own potential, their own agency. And you seem more than happy to keep it that way.
— Possibility

There's the dichotomy. They should be happy with their own appearance as; good, bad or ugly. Yet, they allow themselves to be manipulated by 'external agents'. That's simply an old paradigm that you're propagating which in turn leads to an unhealthy manipulation of self.

Nonetheless, it proves the importance (psychological impacts) of the physical. — 3017amen

No - it only proves that it’s important to them. Once again, I’m not arguing that the physical aspects of appearance has no impact or no apparent importance - just no more than the perception of potential or meaning in that appearance. I’m not one to determine what one should or should not be ‘happy’ with - my concern is that they may be unaware of their capacity to choose. Our approach should not be to judge an apparent choice to be manipulated, nor to assume ignorance of alternatives - rather it should be to share our own positive experience of perceiving this broader potential in them.

They are not judging. They are simply gravitating toward or away from that which is intrinsically pleasing to them. Personally, I prefer dark haired Asian women. I have no idea why. You may prefer dark Italian men with beards, who knows. You can't use Thomism/Lisa Barret to justify your choices. Otherwise, you are with the person for some other reason (which may/may not be a good/bad thing depending on your intentions). But you still have to get past the aesthetics; there is no escape. (So why not enjoy!) — 3017amen

This supposedly ‘aesthetic’ preference of yours forms a prediction of affect (a four-dimensional render of value/potential for the organism as energy distribution), which manifests as determined action in relation to 3D reality. A judgement is not just a statement of words. There are apparent features that I find particularly desirable, yes - but that’s not aesthetic experience. The first moment of aesthetics distinguishes a disinterested character of feeling from a subjective interest in sensory appearance. This is a judgement of the agreeable: You’re not claiming that everyone ought to prefer dark haired Asian women - only that you do (at the moment).

It’s simple enough to get past the first and second moments of aesthetics in relation to a human being, by recognising that their appearance is an ‘indeterminate object’. No judgement or evaluation of your experience can be fully determined as an object, or subsumed by a concept, for every experience in relation to an appearance of that human being. If that were the case, then human behaviour would be highly predictable. Neither can you know for certain that you will always prefer dark-haired Asian women, even though you have defined yourself in this way now, especially if you have no idea why. You don’t need to justify your likes or dislikes to anyone - but nor do you need to state them as a definition or essence of your existence, because they’re not, even as they are an example of who you can be. You are not necessarily defined by what you will except in that fleeting moment of action - and it is this indeterminacy that we can recognise (and love), with disinterested pleasure, in every human being, not just those whose sensory appearance we find it pleasing to interact with. Pure beauty/sublimity lies in the inherent unpredictability of appearance - also referred to as ‘fascinating’.

Note: I’m not saying this is what does happen, or should happen. Rather, I’m describing an apperception of human potential.

Incidentally, I’m not sure where your reference to ‘Thomism’ came from. I’m not entirely familiar with his metaphysics as such, but there are many points argued by Aquinas with which I strongly disagree, so I wouldn’t consider myself Thomist, and don’t know why you do.

Correct. And that is the part you keep denying. Love is certainly more than that, but without that, no-thing occurs. How could it? — 3017amen

Why do you continue to assume that I deny this? You assert that a physical aspect of interaction is necessary to an experience of Love - I disagree. That’s all. Nothing needs to actually occur, nor physically exist, for Love to exist as part of an experience. That something often does occur, or is observable/measurable, is not denied by, nor does it preclude, my position.

When we interact with reality, the brain makes decisions based on very little present empirical information in relation to how we conceptualise reality.
— Possibility

There you go again plip-flopping. I agree. You are suggesting the Will precedes the intellect. — 3017amen

No - you assume that the Will and the intellect are temporally located. What determines and initiates action involves an atemporal interrelation of faculties, in which any empirical information is represented as a difference from existing conceptual structures (prediction), and the process of reconciling this difference may or may not require consciously engaging the intellect, depending on the structure of the conceptual system itself. But there is no human interaction with the world (including emotion) that occurs independent of its conceptual structures (save our reflexes), whether you’re aware of the process or not. This is an argument backed by the latest research in neuroscience. While Kant’s position is that concepts are an inherent spontaneity of intellect isolated from feeling, Barrett’s argument suggests that this ‘spontaneous’ existence is continuously constructed through interrelation of the faculties of judgement, understanding and imagination: amorphous, atemporal relational structures at the highest level of perception.

Nonsense. It's true not false. There is no escape from the physical object. If it was false, you wouldn't care to create a mini-me that resembles you. — 3017amen

I wouldn’t care to create a physical object that resembles me - that’s not love. I’d care to create a representation of this perceived potential for love that transcends the physical interaction. The object (mini-me) as you describe inspires an interested, agreeable type pleasure, but is unnecessary for love to exist - it is the perceived potential for love that matters, and that makes a squealing baby appear so beautiful, even if they look nothing like me. It is also what makes a premature loss so painful - that the experience of love for this potential remains, and can be invoked in the appearance of a cot, for instance, or someone else’s baby. What you believe should exist - the actual object - is not present (may never have been present), even as the experience of potential persists in relation to appearance. It is the perceived potential for love in relation to appearance that would inspire a bereaved mother to take another’s child, or to hallucinate a baby in the empty cot - so significant is her experience.

Hi Jack
Welcome to TPF, and to this discussion.

First of all, I have to admit that I’m not very familiar with your particular situation as a non-binary transman. I can only imagine what it would be like to feel such an incongruity between your gender appearance and identity, and I hope that you can find some peace with this relation.

I can understand that your impression from reading Kant’s first two critiques is that of detachment from experience, but that’s not what I get from his Critique of the Faculty of Judgement in particular. I don’t believe his aesthetics was detached from experience at all - rather, it was based on experience, and seemed to me to discourage any act of judgement on objects or concepts of experience without first relating (ie. being emotionally and intellectually open) to the entire experience itself, regardless of object or concept.

The main disagreement I’m having with @3017amen is the necessity of the empirical object in this experience. My view is not a denial of experience in favour of intellectualisation, but rather recognises that the subjectivity of experience - the appearance of it or representation in the mind, inclusive of our feelings and thoughts towards such representation - does not presuppose a particular objective, physical existence.

I think perhaps that your situation as described may be relevant here. How do you believe one’s gender identity develops? If it is an inherent essence of the ‘soul’ to be discovered, then the incongruity you experience with your physical existence supposedly should not occur. And yet it does, and some ‘subjective, universal truth’ suggests that there is something inherently ‘wrong’ either with how you feel or how you physically appear, which must necessarily be ‘corrected’ by making your empirical object, with its appearance, match the representation with which you identify. I disagree with the assumed necessity of physical ‘correction’ (not with your decision to ‘correct’), and with any assumption that anything is ‘wrong’ with your situation - although I am likely in a minority, and I recognise that my personal view doesn’t change how you feel.

The way I see it, our gender identity concepts are not inherent, but constructed multi-dimensionally by the sum of our experience - most of it unconsciously. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s research on emotions points out that affect - the positive/negative valence and high/low arousal that is an ongoing interoception of the overall moment of experience - builds the relational structure of all our concepts, including how we interpret feelings as emotion, and other concepts that we would consider ‘essential’ to the human experience. I’m certainly not suggesting that this incongruity you feel can be blamed on the environment, but I do believe that the more society embraces the multi-dimensional indeterminacy of gender in our language and social constructs, the less incongruous a non-binary identity might feel in relation to physical appearance. Granted, that doesn’t help you today. We still predict gender identity and sexual interest based on learned patterns of appearance - although younger generations are much more receptive to adjusting perception of gender and sexuality based on non-binary information, and even accepting gender indeterminacy as an initial impression, despite the complexities of language that some older minds still struggle with.

The question of ‘what am I?’ seeks to position the self in the socio-conceptual system we share with the world. In my own experience, how I understand myself has always been much more fluid and wave-like than the ‘particle’ I determine for external observers. This has been my experience, and it has taken me many years to recognise that most people don’t perceive themselves or others this way, and they certainly don’t consider that I might be other than how I appear to them. Most people are confused when they see me outside the context in which they’re accustomed to interacting with me, because I will often appear as if a different person. As a result, I felt for a long time as if no-one really ‘knew’ who I was - even me. It wasn’t until I came across quantum theory that I felt understood as an entity by anyone except my husband (ironically, he’s a specialist mathematics teacher). And my daughter, now a teenager, shows a similar ‘wave-like’ apperception - a conscious awareness of one’s potential existence as other than how they appear. For her sake as well as my own, it is this reality that I am striving to understand, and articulate in the context of most socio-conceptual systems that seem to only vaguely perceive my existence...

It is simpler (not an intellectual concept that you keep arguing) than what you make it out to be; don't conceptualize it. You're trying to make metaphysical will and intention into an intellectual exercise that determines the emotional experience.

The will determines what ideas the intellect turns to, and thus in the end determines what the intellect comes to know. In that sense, the will determines which objects are good, and the will itself is indetermined. Think of it as a contextual sense of the will to live and not die. It's an innate desire to be.

In contrast, you seem to be giving the intellect primacy in that the choices of the will result from that which the intellect recognizes as potentially or intrinsically good; the will itself is determined. And I'm saying the will is indetermined, much like Kant's emotional experience for aesthetics'.

The will itself being indetermined just is. Kant, particularly his doctrine of the "primacy of the practical over the pure reason" argued that humans are incapable of knowing ultimate reality. In this case, it is truly both an existential and phenomenological thing-in-itself. And that thing is the subjective-object; you. Yet we apperceived joy from viewing the object. We simply don't know why or how our own physiology is impacted by both the observer and the observed. We just know it feels good (or bad) upon initially viewing the object. — 3017amen

It is this essentialism of Kant’s doctrine that I’m arguing against. We may not ‘know’ the reality of existence, but we at least have the capacity to understand it much more than Kant appears to give us credit for (of course, his writing is not only pre-Darwin, but also pre-QM, psychology and neuroscience, so I won’t hold that against him). I don’t agree that the will ‘just is’, that emotion concepts are inherent and therefore universal, or that their indeterminacy is an excuse to not engage the intellect in judgement. It is our capacity for ‘free play’ of imagination and understanding that allows us to then predict, create or hypothesise an aesthetic or emotional experience without presupposing the actual presence of an empirical object.

To that end, humans are fully capable of initiating a genuine, physical act of love towards a “physically abhorrent, undesirable Being” without needing to have sex with them. We may not behave this way very often, but the capacity is there to be perceived.

Granted, for the most part the will is engaged unconsciously (then we rationalise the appearance of our actions by subsuming them under concepts and in relation to ‘physical objects’), but only because we let it. The will is the faculty by which one determines and initiates action, and the indeterminacy of this faculty does not preclude a probabilistic and/or qualitatively potential determination of the relational structure (in five dimensions) from subjective experience.

So why wouldn’t we make use of the intellect in developing an understanding of this faculty of the will - without assuming the necessity of either concepts or empirical objects? Isn’t that what philosophy is?

1.Like it or not, people reject or accept other people (each other's aesthetics) usually within minutes if not seconds. True or false? — 3017amen
Subjective interpretation. Just because people do this, does not mean it’s definitive of human nature. This is not all we’re capable of. First impressions are rarely accurate,
— Possibility

It has no relevance as to whether they are accurate. They can be arbitrary, inaccurate and subjective. The feelings themselves exist and are real. The ability to reject or accept a subject's aesthetics is a real phenomenon. — 3017amen

What is it that you’re arguing? What do you think occurs when people ‘reject or accept a subject’s aesthetics’ this quickly? They’re not physically rejecting/accepting them. Rather, they are judging the subject by a feeling of predicted pleasure that is far from disinterested - presupposing, as it does, the actual presence of the object - with no claim to universality. And then they are determining and initiating action based on that prediction. This is NOT pure aesthetics. If you believe you are avoiding conceptualisation by focusing on the ‘feeling’ as if it is a phenomenon, then I would argue that you don’t understand Kant’s aesthetics. Kant’s title is Critique of the Faculty of Judgement - the capacity, not the act.

I agree - I think Kant takes us to a certain point and then appeals to the ‘soul’ as a source of knowledge - we just ‘know’ that it’s beautiful, and ought to appreciate it as such, without being concerned with the why.

As regards the relation category of ‘inherence’ in particular, Kant argues for a representation or form of ‘purposiveness’ in the relation to existence, without presupposing an end or purpose by which the existence is taken to satisfy. Inherence refers more to essence than to necessity (my mistake there) - that it is the very relation (or relational structure) that is the reason/purpose.

My own view is that we can take this further - that Kant was on the right track, but that his essentialism was holding him back, in a way. Modern neuroscience and QM can help with the paradigm shift Kant was looking for - once we recognise that two consecutive ‘Copernican turns’ were needed from his position; the first offered courtesy of Darwin. But that may be another discussion.

On this point he’s admittedly referring to its modality, but his explanation of relation in aesthetics is not as clear (he talks about a form of purposiveness without purpose).

In Section 18: “I can say of every representation that it is at least possible that (as a cognition) it should be bound up with a pleasure. Of a representation that I call pleasant I say that it actually excites pleasure in me. But the beautiful we think as having a necessary reference to satisfaction. Now this necessity is of a peculiar kind. It is not a theoretical objective necessity; in which case it would be cognised a priori that every one will feel this satisfaction in the object called beautiful by me. It is not a practical necessity; in which case, by concepts of a pure rational will serving as a rule for freely acting beings, the satisfaction is the necessary result of an objective law and only indicates that we absolutely (without any further design) ought to act in a certain way. But the necessity which is thought in an aesthetical judgement can only be called exemplary; i.e. a necessity of the assent of all to a judgement which is regarded as the example of a universal rule that we cannot state. Since an aesthetical judgement is not an objective cognitive judgement, this necessity cannot be derived from definite concepts, and is therefore not apodictic. Still less can it be inferred from the universality of experience (of a complete agreement of judgements as to the beauty of a certain object). For not only would experience hardly furnish sufficiently numerous vouchers for this; but also, on empirical judgements we can base no concept of the necessity of these judgements.”

It seems to me that "having" has mostly to do with the Prime mover then, whether or not this is impersonal or personal. — Gregory

I wouldn’t say that. ‘Having’ refers to the result of being acted upon by any agent, including itself. The agent is irrelevant, the description is of existence as an observable result. Examples Aristotle gave included ‘shod’ or ‘armed’.

The main difference I see between these sets of categories is that Aristotle describes an observation/measurement, whereas Kant describes an appearance of quantity, quality, relation or modality in existence, without necessarily assuming existence (let alone knowledge) of a thing-in-itself. For me, it demonstrates an evolution of dimensional awareness.

I wonder what a relation would be in the Kantian world which was not cause and effect — Gregory

In Kant’s Critique of the Faculty of Judgement he argues that one’s pleasure exists in necessary relation to an appearance of aesthetic beauty.

I’ve been exploring Kant recently, so happy to give it a shot, FWIW...

Unity (universal) describes quantity in existence perceived as if one - treated together.
Totality (singular) describes quantity in existence perceived as the only one.
Plurality (particular) describes quantity in existence perceived as one of.

Infinite describes quality in existence perceived as impossible to measure or calculate. Zero has an infinite quality, for example, being neither affirmative nor negative in itself, but rather describing a limitation.

Inherence (categorical) describes relation in existence perceived as an essence, or the purpose itself.
Cause & Effect (hypothetical) describes relation in existence perceived as contingent or potential (if/then).
Community (disjunctive) describes relation in existence perceived as possible or arbitrary.

Aristotle’s category ‘relative’ is different to Kant’s category of ‘relation’ in that the latter describes the type of relation, but the former describes an existence as relative to another. This also differs from ‘having’, which describes the existence as a result of being acted upon.

The appearance conceptualised as ‘free will’ seems to derive initially from a perception of ‘will’: what determines and initiates action. In the body, this is an awareness of directed energy in interoception - the body acts in a particular way because it will, it has been provided energy specifically mapped to do so. An emerging view in neuroscience is that this interoception can be apperceived as a prediction of energy distribution (valence and arousal) by conceptual systems that are informed by limited sensory input, which leads to a recognition of the will as an ongoing (not necessarily conscious) determination of effort and attention based on rational (but not necessarily cognitive) structures of qualitative potential.

Freedom is often misunderstood as an objective absence of limitations. It isn’t that there are no limitations, but that we don’t feel limited by them. And it isn’t that this freedom is a property of the individual organism, but is exercised in one’s individual awareness, connection and collaboration with reality. Freedom of the will begins as an apperception of variable potential, inspiring imaginable possibilities in these conceptual structures that determine and initiate action.

I still don't have clearly in view how to take the application of a method. A method should be a procedure that can be mechanically followed, and may need to be for purposes of reliable reconnaissance, but the sort of "pathologies of method" you describe are failings at the, I don't know, monitoring and supervision level, maybe what you mean by "methodology". — Srap Tasmaner

Methodology, for me, refers to multi-dimensional processes that are not just mechanically followed, but depend on conceptual re-structuring.

The point I guess I’m trying to make in application of a method is that we take for granted that these methods of putting on socks are easy enough to follow mechanically, and that we can evaluate them in terms of speed and efficiency. At the level of philosophical problems, efficient, convenient and error-free methodology in application often seems less important than describing knowledge of ‘a method’ in a theoretical sense. When application is first conceptual and then practical, when it requires a specific way of thinking about or perceiving the problem first, the distinction between knowing ‘a method’ and knowing how to deal with the various incarnations of the problem in a practical sense becomes more pronounced.

This is all a bit abstract -- hence the socks! -- but I think what we're talking about is finding a reliable approach to making use of formalization without becoming beholden to it, without letting it dictate terms ("looking where the light is best" and related problems).

Is this how you see it? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. It relates in a way to the ‘scientific method’ (on principle): that the aim is not just to have a formal method, but to be open to refining any formalisation towards the most accurate methodology.

What complicates it is that a more accurate methodology is found to be irreducible to a practical method without limiting the broadness of its application. Such is the uncertainty principle.

Coming in late to the discussion...I would agree with @creativesoul that Method 2 (and the mentioned hybrid) seem to be revisions of Method 1, reducing the probability of errors that require more attention and effort to correct late in the process.

The frequency of practical application, the availability of effort and attention, an apperception of variability in aspects of the process, and whether one rationalises or refines when practical issues occur, all contribute to awareness of, connection to and collaboration with proposed methodology.

In relation to problem solving in general, a lack of practical application limits awareness of inaccuracies in the method. An abundance of effort and attention limits the need for more efficient methodology. Ignorance, isolation or exclusion of alternative methods limits critical analysis. And the rationalisation of practical issues points to the preferred aim being knowledge of ‘a method’ rather than the development of accurate methodology.

No pun intended, but I'm being hard on you because of your denial's. You keep talking all around the obvious. Case in point, you just said she doesn't need to wonder about concepts, yet you just posited same ("ideas, experiences, thoughts"). Why is she wondering about "her own ideas? What are those ideas? What are her "thoughts"? Are they erotic emotions involving desire? Is his/her junk not joyful to look at? — 3017amen

I’m not going to pretend that this kind of discussion is simple. We can’t really discuss non-material aspects of reality without conceptualising them through language terms (such as ‘ideas’, ‘experiences’, ‘thoughts’). I could refer to them collectively as ‘phenomena’, but it doesn’t do justice to the distinction between aspects of experience that are in accordance with concepts, and what transcends them. What I’m referring to is a non-conceptual aspect of reality in which concepts (as particular patterns of ideas, thoughts, feelings about our experiences of Love, Beauty, potentiality, etc) may be determined - but not necessarily so. This six-dimensional aspect is a possibility experienced beyond conceptual reality - where imagination interacts with understanding - and concepts may be arbitrarily determined from this experience by a subject, or not.

Accordingly, isn't she looking at the objects (penis and vagina) because it gives her personal pleasure to look at them, together. ? Why does she shave or not shave? Why is she concerned about her appearance in general? Does she care? She must have strong feelings for her own object and her partners object, no? The only thing I think you got right there are her "feelings". And in this case, as previous illustrated, it's the act of procreation and the Will to create another person, a subjective-object (a baby). — 3017amen

That she has strong feelings I would agree with. That those feelings are attributed to ‘physical objects’ in the way you describe is neither objective nor necessary. We rationalise the attribution of feelings as suits our understanding of purpose or meaning, but we are capable of simply delighting in the pleasure of the experience without necessarily attributing those feelings to any concept, object or physical aspect. Our capacity for this delight is dependent on relation neither to physical nor to cognitive aspects of reality: it merely requires a relation.

It's kind of amusing Possibility, you keep talking about 'potential'. Those are concepts. The nature of beauty is what you keep denying. I'm puzzled as to why you are intimidated by questions or statements about the nature/purpose of beauty. As an ancillary note, have you studied late 18th century Romanticism? I would urge you to check it out. — 3017amen

There is no necessary nature/purpose to pure aesthetic beauty, except that which we arbitrarily attribute to aspects of our experience. This is what Kant points to. Potentiality itself is just as conceptually indeterminate.

As for early Romanticism, I haven’t specifically studied it, but it doesn’t appear to have been as dependent on the ‘physical’ aspects of beauty as your view seem to be.

Aesthetic pleasure, particularly, is a non-determining mode of reflecting on the relation, not between a particular subject and a particular object, but between subjectivity and objectivity as such.
This rational but non-cognitive nature of feeling, in general, and of aesthetic feeling, in particular, is perhaps the central feature that renders aesthetic feeling an attractive ingredient in addressing the epistemic and metaphysical concerns that occupied the romantics. For while all cognition is determination through concepts, Kant’s aesthetics suggests a mode of reflective awareness that is not determining, but yet a way of being aware of and responsive to aspects of the world. This is exactly what the romantics have been looking for—a non-discursive, but rational and normatively governed mode of awareness. — SEP: 19th Century Romantic Aesthetic

Maybe putting some of them into propositions would help (true/false, or something else):

1.Like it or not, people reject or accept other people (each other's aesthetics) usually within minutes if not seconds. True or false? — 3017amen

Subjective interpretation. Just because people do this, does not mean it’s definitive of human nature. This is not all we’re capable of. First impressions are rarely accurate, and the majority of relationships are formed not on initial aesthetics but on a predicted structure of this potential information formulated from previous relevant interactions. People have the capacity to make, test and refine predictions of how much attention and effort to expend on interactions with other people as part of their ongoing interoception of affect. That a reductionist methodology for many people is to judge on first impressions only demonstrates that they interact with their conceptual reality (the predictions they make based on past experiences) more than an empirical one.

2. He/she does not like tall/short men/women just because, period. True/false?
(He/She does not like baldness; likes dark haired men/women, small feet, hair on back/face...) — 3017amen

Subjective interpretation. ‘Just because, period’ is an insufficient answer (weren’t you told this as a child?). Just because you can’t explain it, doesn’t mean no information is available.

I’ll admit that I have preferences with regard to appearances, but I don’t think I’ve ever considered any of them a deal-breaker. Granted, if you’ve been in the game a while (and you assume physical desire to be the foundation of any romantic relationship), I imagine you might establish a clear pattern of aesthetic probability calculations to save time. But given that so few of these are consistent aesthetics, it doesn’t seem to be a reliable gauge to find Love, in my opinion. It’s just another example of judgement from predictions based on atemporal aspects of experience, more than present empirical data.

3. We live in a world of matter and non-matter. In physics, matter matters; in metaphysics, non-matter matters---together there exists a phenomenon called Love. True/False? — 3017amen

False. We live in a world that can be more accurately understood in terms of a metaphysics which incorporates physics, rather than parsing reality into matter or non-matter. The resulting dualism simply excludes one from understanding the other, rather than recognising the binary relation as a fundamental fabric to the universe. This ‘phenomenon’ called Love, an attraction that you seem to think is only relevant as a human, physical feeling, refers to what matters in any level of awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion. It is an underlying creative impetus to the metaphysical universe - not a force between physical objects.

4.The object itself, is essential to the physical aspects of Love (admiration of a new-born, etc.). True/False? — 3017amen

False. You seem to insist on keeping the ‘physical’ subject-to-object aspect of Love isolated. Love as an apperception of attraction towards the physical aspects of an ‘object’ is only one part of a multi-dimensional phenomenon. You won’t understand Love by defining it so narrowly.

When we interact with reality, the brain makes decisions based on very little present empirical information in relation to how we conceptualise reality. The admiration one feels in looking at a newborn is simply a positive valence attributed to the new information, that attracts our attention and effort to look and be rewarded with more new, positive information about this appearance of reality.

5. The Will to have physical romantic love is dependent upon the physical object? True/False? — 3017amen

Sort of true - the Will to render a physical act from an experience of romantic love is dependent upon relating the experience to an apperceived ‘physical object’. But the relation to this ‘physical object’ is dependent upon the metaphysical Will to love: to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with a multi-dimensional relational structure; to relate transcendental aspects of appearance. This Will to love is reduced by ignorance, isolation or exclusion to a Will to love ‘romantically’, and reduced again to a Will to love ‘physically’ from the same position. To ‘have physical romantic love’ is to isolate the physical aspect - to render romantic love (an interaction of mutual potentiality) as an interaction with only the apperceived physical aspects (‘physical object’) of a particular appearance, and then attempt to possess the unattributed perceived potential (‘love’ as a phenomenon) in relation to that appearance, in order to manifest your own pleasure/purpose.

I agree that this is what many people think ‘love’ is - it’s an observable, measurable aspect of an experience of love that they can apperceive in the world. But it’s not love in my book, it’s judgement. And while a perceived capacity for judgement is necessary to the Will to love romantically, an act of judgement is not.

6. "I can't wait to see you again", is dependent upon the seeing of the object. True/False? — 3017amen

False - although I get how it seems true in your classical understanding of reality. The verb ‘to see’ (like the concept ‘love’) refers to multiple ways of interacting with reality that ancient Greek metaphysics always distinguished, but English have not. The Greek language distinguishes seven different concepts of ‘love’, and at least three different concepts of ‘seeing’. In English, we say ‘see’ when we mean look (the act of obtaining visual sense data), as well as when we mean perceive (the intuition of objects/concepts), and when we mean understand (the process of engaging the intellect in structuring predictions of experience). The first meaning is dependent upon obtaining visual sense data from a physical interaction with the actual object, but the other two are not.

When a child first learns to read, she reads ‘See Dora run’: she looks at the words and accompanying image, she perceives the objects/concepts, and she understands the structural relations of the experience - in that order, and at the levels of story, significance and language. When we talk or read as adults, the structural relations are not dependent upon any ‘physical object’. When I say “I can’t wait to see you again”, I could mean any or all of these forms of ‘seeing’ - and what I think I mean may in fact differ from what feelings prompted me to say it. Such is the complex nature of love and language. This ambiguity in language has allowed us to gloss over inaccuracies in how we make sense of reality.

7. Women purchase cosmetics because they want to look beautiful. True/false? — 3017amen

Subjective interpretation. I purchase cosmetics to wear for work and for social events. My aim in wearing make-up is to enhance a potential perspective of validity by those with whom I interact on these occasions. In relation to work, it isn’t that I want to look ‘beautiful’, but that I want to appear ‘professional’. A woman who doesn’t wear make-up appears to lack a certain perceived ‘value’ in an office environment. It’s a facade, but a few minutes spent in the morning is a shortcut to making an initial impression. In relation to social events, my aim with cosmetics is to appear more ‘beautiful’, younger or generally more valued than I would otherwise feel in certain company. But I certainly don’t believe that I need cosmetics to BE ‘beautiful’, ‘professional’ or ‘valuable’ in any objective sense. An existing potential of beauty, value and professionalism is not dependent upon the physical aspects of my appearance - but I can increase the probability of someone else perceiving and interacting with this potential.

Of course, there are some women who rely on cosmetics, clothing and compliments - limited by social/cultural ignorance that conceptualises ‘beauty’ only as a property of physical aspects of appearance, and attributed according to the limited capacity of the product or the subjective Will of an observer. They perceive their potential for beauty only in their physical aspects of appearance as apperceived by external agents, rather than as part of their own potential, their own agency. And you seem more than happy to keep it that way.

8. People go to the gym because they care about health/well being and their subjective-object. True/False? — 3017amen

True, but there is more to ‘caring about’ health/wellbeing or strength than the physical aspects of an appearance. Like beauty and love, wellbeing is not the subjective property of apperceived physical aspects we commonly think it is - it’s a perception of additional aspects of appearance. The physical appearance of health is not always an accurate indication of actual health - drug or steroid abuse among sport and fitness professionals and models is a clear example of the ‘shortcuts’ that people take to ‘appear’ healthy, ignorantly assuming that their value/potential/strength is dependent upon apperceived physical aspects of appearance. As long as they fit the social/cultural aesthetic pattern of ‘healthy’, they must be healthy, and any negative feelings (pain, etc) they experience can be ignored or rationalised with some other purpose/meaning.

As an analogy: energy is a perceived potentiality, whose physical aspects - such as 4D work and 3D matter - act as measurable/observable evidence of its existence. It is a mistake in the age of quantum mechanics to assume that the existence of energy is dependent upon an apperception of work or matter. Rather, it is more accurate to say that work and matter are manifestations of the interacting potentiality (entropy) that we perceive as energy.

My approach to objective reality is along the lines of ontic structural realism: there exists no real ‘object in itself’, only a relational structure as a goal or focus of intuition (attention/effort) for integrated information systems (agents). Objects are heuristic: pragmatic devices used by agents to orient themselves in reality, and to construct approximate representations of the world. Bear with me while I try to explain where I’m coming from...

I’m okay with referring to this focus of intuition as an ‘object’, but I think we need to clarify the transcendence of this term. Language (English language in particular) has an ambiguity to it that allows us to refer to ‘objects’ as if they transcend the relational structures that determine awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion. When we talk about a baby as an ‘object’, we’re referring to one goal/focus of both sensible (empirical) and intelligible intuition. Parsing this ‘object’ into physical and subjective only perpetuates the dualism that we’ve been trying to reconcile. It’s not the relational structure itself that shifts between ‘physical’ and ‘subjective’, but one’s perceived orientation within the broader structure of reality, in relation to what we’re focused on. The way we focus on and interact with a particular relational structure appears different as our awareness shifts - it’s not a different ‘object in itself’.

This shift is influenced as much by our dimensional awareness as it is by our position. When we imagine the relational structure of objective reality as six-dimensional, a perceived three-dimensional relational structure (a ‘physical object’) is assumed ‘objectively’ definable in terms of its spatial position, but is relative in terms of time, value and meaning. These latter aspects are definable in relation to a local observer position, but only for those systems that are integrated beyond each of these structural levels of complexity.

So an integrated four-dimensional system - any basic lifeform - is able to vaguely perceive three-dimensional structure, but would evolve apperception: identification of a particular 3D relational structure as a goal or focus for the attention and effort of the system in a static observation/measurement. Non-conscious lifeforms can identify gradients or ‘shapes’ of 2D information, but not 3D ‘objects’. Space and volume at this level of awareness evolves as a property of, a force acting upon, or a container-world for, these informational ‘shapes’.

A five-dimensional integrated system - a basic conscious being - is then structured to identify or render these three-dimensional relational structures persisting in time, and perceive (ie. respond to) four-dimensional relational structure (events), but most are not yet able to identify or render an event as anything but a ‘property’ of an ‘object’. They may be able to recognise and interact with a metaphysical ‘force’ as distinct from these objects, but would attribute this force to themselves or hypothesise another similarly ‘conscious’ system as cause (which they then attribute necessarily to an object). This evolution is evident in the ancient and unconscious manifestation of social, cultural and religious rituals (events). Time at this level is perceived as a relational property of, force/phenomenon acting upon, or container-world for, these objects. ‘Shape’ at this level also evolves from being an ‘inherent’ property of an object, to a typical or possible pattern of 2D relational structures.

The evolution of a six-dimensional integrated system - a basic self-conscious subject - is structured to identify or create events (based on patterns of 3D relational structures) and perceive five-dimensional relational structures (value/potential concepts), and evolves an apperception of this value or conceptual structure as more than a relational ‘property’ of, or metaphysical ‘phenomenon’ acting upon, an ‘apperception of object’ - or any other event/appearance/intuition. A ‘physical object’ at this level evolves from being an ‘inherent’ property of an appearance, to a typical or possible pattern of 3D relational structures.

So when you talk about an ‘aesthetic object’ of empirical intuition, you’re referring here to an ‘apperception of object’ - a four-dimensional relational structure or event, in which a particular 3D relational structure (the ‘physical object’) is relatively determined by a particular five-dimensional integrated system, within a six-dimensional reality. This might seem unnecessarily complex, but I wanted to point out the relativity of the term ‘object’, and the amount of potential information surrounding the apperception of a ‘physical object’.

In your view, the intuition of someone looking at a newborn baby includes the conscious subject (observer), an apperceived event (‘object’) and perception of a ‘feeling’, which you attribute as a metaphysical ‘force’ or phenomenon acting upon both subject and apperception, of which a physical object is an ‘inherent’ property.

My view is that we first recognise the relational structure as consisting of two interrelating 4D events (consisting of variably apperceived ‘physical objects’) within a five-dimensional structure of intuition (superposition). This effectively de-centralises the conscious subject, and recognises the variable interactive nature of both apperception and observant system (this is a methodology effectively employed by quantum physicists such as Carlo Rovelli - see his book ‘The Order of Time’). The ‘actual’ newborn baby is then a possible pattern of 3D relational structure within the appearance, but need not be identifiable as such for a particular mental appearance to occur in relation to an observant system. An entomologist can develop a passion for insects without ever having been in the presence of a physical insect, just as a child can develop a passion for unicorns.

Having acknowledged a metaphysical, five-dimensional structure - and recognising ourselves to be aware of ‘self’ - I suggest acknowledging intuition or aesthetic experience itself as a five-dimensional relational structure in relation to a five-dimensional conscious subject, within an imaginable six-dimensional metaphysical reality. This remains essentially consistent with Kant’s faculty of aesthetic judgement, referring to the process by which imagination and understanding are in ‘free play’: that is, one recognises the variable, interactive nature of both the manifold of intuition and the conceptual structure of ‘self’ within a metaphysical container of objective reality.

That’s more than enough to digest for now - I will try to more specifically address your questions when I have more time...

Barrett’s book is written for the lay reader, sure, but her research in neuroscience and psychology is not. Try this article.

While she's correct that feelings can effect our physiology, and that past experience helps identify that which we see, we still have to appreciate the object first for what it is (its physiology). — 3017amen

Only if the ‘object’ is undetermined - that is, aesthetic in appearance. If you conceptualise the experience as ‘woman’, then no other judgement needs to be made. It is that there is more to appearances - to the aesthetics of the experience - than what can be subsumed under the object/concept ‘woman’, that inspires the faculty of aesthetic judgement. At this point you are no longer just appreciating the physiology of the object as instances of the concept ‘woman’, but the metaphysics of the subjective experience as it affects appearances in which this ‘woman’ can be intuited.

But the subject-object perspective limits your ability to fully engage this faculty of aesthetic judgement. Kant applies the faculty only to inanimate objects, enabling the aesthetics of the experience to be easily attributed to either the object as a property or to the observer’s intellect as a capacity, as if this is the only possible relational structure. In trying to make your experience of Love fit this relational structure, you’re excluding the possibility of attributing the aesthetics of the experience to the intellectual capacity of the observed - seemingly because it complicates your understanding of relational structure as a consequence of interaction between necessary objects. So long as you ground reality in the necessity of the object, Love will remain for you an unexplainable phenomenon, a mystery. But I suspect that you prefer the magic, the bliss of ignorance, and are not willing to give that up to understand how it really works. Blue pill or red pill? What do you really want out of this discussion?

The question for her or you would be, if the perception of the object/concept known as woman is apperceived upon seeing the/her physical appearance (physiology/aesthetics), what from experience determines whether one should engage in a romance with the object known as woman? — 3017amen

You’re missing the point. I think we can agree that what determines whether one should engage in a romance cannot be fully conceptualised from experience or attributed to an object. The indeterminate element is what I imagine you refer to as the phenomenon of Love, but for me it isn’t something separate from the objects/concepts, like a mysterious, attractive ‘force’ between them. There is no ‘force’ here that determines whether one should engage in a romance with an object that has certain physiology/aesthetics.

You refer to Love as a phenomenon - a ‘mysterious’, qualitative relation that just IS - like gravity, perhaps? So long as we’re talking about the classical, Newtonian view of necessary objects in space and time, gravity makes sense as a ‘mysterious’ force acting between those objects. Bring QM into it - the recognition that relational structure, not objects, exists necessarily - and the notion of a ‘force between objects’ no longer fits. Gravity needs to be reframed as a qualitative aspect of the relational structure by which ‘objects’ and immaterial ‘properties’ appear and interact. It’s a paradigm shift that would force qualitative relations into the realm of quantum physics.

In a similar way, Barrett’s research applies neuroscience to bring quantitative relations - and with it more rigorous scientific methodology - into the study of emotion. The result is a reframing of emotion as a quantitative aspect of the relational structure by which constructed ‘concepts’ (as probabilistic patterns of past instances) influence our perception of and interaction with ‘objects’. She shows that ‘feelings themselves’ originate from our interoceptive network, which continually predicts the body’s energy distribution requirements - a quantitative relation of valence and arousal known as affect - constructed into an ongoing information event.

In your classical view, matter (the object) matters/exists necessarily, and relational structure is a consequence. Ideas, feelings, thoughts, etc matter only in service of, or in relation to, the object. It seems impossible in this view to conceive a relation - an idea, thought or feeling - that is not grounded first in an apperception of objects and their aesthetic properties. I get that this assumption results in a solid sense of reality that can be validated with a high probability of certainty and intersubjective agreement. There’s an element of comfort in that. As this validated reality interacts in space and time, the relations are understood as physical laws or mental ‘phenomena’: subjective aspects of experience that consist of immaterial ‘concepts’ - relational properties extending from a ‘concrete’ reality of actual ‘objects’. The aim is then to formulate a systematic arrangement that predicts how forces and laws govern the way objects with certain properties are supposed to relate to each other from a logical (ie. anthropic, semiotic) perspective.

But this process doesn’t quite fit our experience, if we’re being honest. Parsing the notion of Love into ‘physical’ (material) and ‘metaphysical’ (immaterial) subjective relations ignores the metaphysically integrated and irreducible nature of the human organism. Kant’s aesthetic faculty of judgement is not the act of subsuming objects or appearances under concepts, but a capacity to apperceive aspects of experience that transcend and deconstruct objects/concepts - inspiring us to re-imagine and re-conceptualise reality - and in doing so, improve the accuracy of our faculties of imagination, understanding and judgement themselves.

In my view of six-dimensional metaphysics, it’s the relational structure that matters/exists necessarily, and the ‘object’ is a consequence. It supposes the necessary prior existence of possibility and potentiality as complex relational structures that reduce to the foundational binary concepts of the universe such as energy/entropy, matter/anti-matter and information/noise. Relations of energy-matter-information evolve through interaction in time to manifest increasingly complex, diverse and multi-dimensionally integrated relational structures, some eventually capable of apperception. The aim is to predict, test and refine our imagination, understanding and judgement of these relational systems as perceived at each level of integration, recognising the ‘object’ as a consequence of relational structure, and our own logical perspective as but one possible position.

Further, your foregoing comment only substantiates my argument, in that your 'unexplained feeling' is that very phenomenon that is mysteriously known as Love. While you can love the person's intellect, you can also love their subjective-object, their subjective beauty. For some reason, you deny such wonderful experiences. Romance (the desire for men/women who want to see and be with each other) for you, seems like an irrelevant, indifferent and even stoic, consequential relationship between man and woman, seemingly tantamount to a need that is ancillary at best. In fact, I don't think 'need' is on your radar there. — 3017amen

Incidentally, that ‘unexplained feeling’ could also be the flu...

Seriously though, I’m not talking about loving a person’s intellect. Aesthetics refers to perception beyond what is apperceived. In an aesthetic experience, one perceives a potential for delight in appearances beyond any object as apperceived. By continuing to determine a woman as an ‘object’ in this experience, the observer believes this perceived potential to be his own - his desire - which he may think he is attributing as a property to the object as ‘love’, even though a woman is indefinable as an object. Instead, he apperceives her actuality (object) as a mere instance of this potential - BOTH his own potential to experience pleasure (or love or beauty) AND her potential to delight as she will (and whom she will). Once he apperceives her potential beyond the concept ‘woman’, then she is no longer simply an aesthetic object, but a metaphysical experience, an aesthetic phenomenon such as Love or Beauty. This is romantic love: not a denial of our own potential, but the apperception of indeterminate potential in another, from which many pleasurable instances may be manifest through awareness, connection and collaboration.

I’m not denying the experience of actively manifesting our own perceived potential (to experience pleasure, love or beauty) by interacting with the actuality of another, but I disagree that this desire for a physical object is essential to ‘romantic’ love, let alone to the full potential of Love between human beings. I get that this seems counter-intuitive - that for you, the object exists necessarily, and so such a desired (potentially pleasurable) experience perceived in relation to an object constitutes a need. For me, the perceived potential is of more consequence than any one manifest instance of ‘object’ one may take pleasure in. The aesthetic appearance of an object may vary dramatically, with little change to your desire - why? Because the potential for pleasure is perceived in the experience, which you then attribute to an ‘object’ with each interaction.

(I'll be brutally honest and excruciatingly graphic; during passionate, romantic love-making, why does my partner like to look down at my junk going into her junk--my object in her object--do you think she's turned on by the object/objects? And a boner or excuse me, bonus question: while my partner is watching the object(s) during love-making, is she wondering about " Lisa Barrett's concepts" ?) — 3017amen

Your partner doesn’t need to consciously wonder why she’s aroused by specific visual elements of the act for her relation to be metaphysical - that is, to be more about her own experiences, ideas, feelings and thoughts in relation to you or love-making in general, than about your actual junk or hers. That she attributes her feelings to certain objects might make sense to either or both of you after the fact, but the neuroscience of romantic love is less reliant necessarily on the physiology of ‘objects’ than you’d like to think. Sex, after all, is only one of many ways to ‘make’ love romantically, despite what you might have been led to believe.

An unconscious perception of potential in subjective experience that has yet to be conceptualised contributes to an ongoing interoception of affect (a prediction of valence and arousal) in probabilistic relation to aesthetic aspects of experience - allocating effort and attention by the body towards this new information. Positive valence and high arousal is attractive, and the system is primed to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with the perceived potential for pleasure in experiences, even as they point to more than our conceptual structures can determine.

The integrated system of a human organism is capable of delighting in non-conceptual relations between possibility (imagination) and potentiality (understanding) that can transcend any notion of self, subject or object, as well as attributing that delight to a momentary instance of physical caress or the person you wake up to every morning. Just because I prefer to focus on non-conceptual relations, does not mean I’m denying physical relations. It’s like accusing me of denying the existence of a mosquito when I’m talking about the planet’s ecosystem. Yes, they exist. Yes, if none of them existed, the system would not be the same. But no, mosquitoes are not essential to the system. And neither are physical relations essential to the phenomena we call Love.

So that we are all on the same page, we need to define "purpose" and "consciousness" to answer this question. "Consciousness," is defined herein is that quality that you, the reader, has and that forms your belief that you exist. "Purpose" is defined as a thing which we commonly refer to as a thought or idea that desires or drives action. The question is whether "Purpose" can exist in any other form, other than a thought. — Ash Abadear

Purpose is meaning attributed to existence - including life, being, activity, object, etc. Meaning is a relational property of anything that ‘matters’. Purpose is therefore a property of any meaningful relation. This ‘thought or idea that desires or drives action’ is one process of attributing meaning, of judging purposiveness, but is not the only process by which this occurs.

So, yes - purpose can exist without consciousness - just not in the form of ‘thought’ or ‘idea’, not even as a ‘thing’. Without consciousness, purpose is not even a question - there would be no awareness of any relation without purpose. Either a meaningful interaction occurs, or no relation exists.

The question is more ‘without consciousness, can a life, being, activity or object even lack purpose?’

Agreed. But it requires the object itself to be apperceived, otherwise, nothing happens — 3017amen

Not necessarily the object itself, only an appearance in which this property of the relation - the sentimental value - is perceived as a potential loss/lack. That would be sufficient for the feeling. The mind then makes sense of that feeling by attributing it to what is apparently missing - so it’s only at this point that the conceptual object is apperceived (this sequence is evidenced in recent neuroscience - see Lisa Feldman Barrett’s book ‘How Emotions Are Made’).

So without the object being apperceived, it’s not that nothing happens, rather it’s that nothing is understood to happen - except perhaps an unexplained feeling or emotion.

But you keep getting stuck on old-school paradigm's of objectification when the truth is that aesthetics (itself) is an objective truth.

Here's where you get stuck with when you literally conflate the two:

Objectification: 1.the action of degrading someone to the status of a mere object.
"the objectification of women in popular entertainment" 2.the expression of something abstract in a concrete form. The objectification of images may be astonishingly vivid in dreams

Aesthetics: a set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art.
•the branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste.

You see where item 2 of objectification and aesthetics line-up? That's kind of what we're talking about, no? — 3017amen

Nope - I don’t see how you can refer to aesthetics as a justifiable form of objectification in reference to a human subject. That may have been how you studied it in reference to art, but in my view, Kant’s theory of aesthetics - particularly in view of Feldman Barrett’s research on emotion and in relation to the human subject - suggests that the perception of a potential aesthetic experience is not contingent upon apperception of any determinable object, and the imagination of a possible aesthetic idea is not contingent upon understanding of any determinable concept.

Are you not treating the ‘object’ as it appears in isolation from the human subject, of which it is only a single ‘form’ of expression? This is what I take issue with here, not the parsing of appearances from extrinsic properties of the viewing subject. You’re applying Kant’s theory of aesthetics to a human subject reduced first to appearance, to the status of mere object, which then becomes the concrete form in which this ‘something abstract’ is expressed. But a ‘concrete form’ in dreams is a perceived potentiality, and bears no necessary relation to any actual ‘object’ in itself.

I get that aesthetic principles assume the existence of ‘objective’ physical material as a priori. Structural Realist metaphysics challenges this, particularly in view of QM. I’m applying Kant’s theory to a human subject perceived as an aesthetic experience in itself - of which appearance is an indefinable form of expression, a collection of interrelated instances in which an ‘aesthetic object’ may be apperceived, but not determined relative to the human subject. When we recognise that the potentiality, the aesthetic experience, is a property of relational structure, not accurately intrinsic to either subject or object as such, we can dispense with the subject-object dichotomy as an inaccurate construct in approximate representations of relational structure between Kant’s notions of aesthetic idea, experience, expression and appearance. Understanding Beauty and Love in the context of human relations should acknowledge the indeterminacy of both viewed and viewing ‘subject-objects’, and aim to construct a reductionist methodology that reflects this - inclusive of relation to the physical aspects of reality.

I agree. I think the term you often use is indeed appropriate. That term being possibility. But I think it's more Freudian in nature in that it's more than likely a subconscious phenomena. Meaning, the desire (in Eros) is based upon the aesthetics (judgement of physical objective beauty) of the subject's-object first, then there may be a subconscious perception of possibility that equally involves the intellect in hopes of subsequent and ensuing true compatibility, along with other relational and rational criteria. — 3017amen

While I acknowledge that this is a classical view, I disagree that it is an accurate sequence, and I refer you again to Barrett’s theory of conceptual emotion. Modern neuroscience demonstrates that this perception of possibility (unconscious or otherwise) occurs prior to judgement in every human action, both internal (thoughts, feelings, memories) and external (verbal or physical expression and action). Self-reflection and non-judgemental, inter-subjective discussion/research enables us to map empirical evidence of these perceptions and increase our understanding of the process.

No. It's what I consider in your macro theory of compatibility, for which I take no exception. But again, we're parsing the distinctions here. — 3017amen

Well, I’ve made no reference to ‘compatibility’ as a component of my theory. That’s been your misinterpretation - it’s certainly a more complex relational structure than ‘she’s really cute but unfortunately a bitch’. That many relationships occur in spite of this judgement (as well as ‘he’s a really nice guy but we just don’t have that spark’) or breakdown despite ‘she’s really cute and a really nice person’) should suggest that there’s more to it than that.

But I'm not talking about Platonic love. I'm talking about the traditional definition of Eros; romance and passion, and how existential those needs are to the human condition. If I had the understanding necessary to write a romance novel, perhaps that would be meaningful to you. Nevertheless, I appreciate all that there is associated with same. — 3017amen

First of all, the traditional definition of Eros may be ‘passion’, but is not ‘romance’ - this being a 12th century notion. It refers to love as desire, seeking to receive something from another, and is merely one component of Love, even in this ancient sense - self-absorbed and objectifying the other when considered on its own. FWIW, an erotic novel and a romance novel in my view focus on two different notions of love, despite modern conflations of the two.

My point of summary is that from Kant's initial (phenomenal) experience of beauty : First, they are disinterested, meaning that we take pleasure in something because we judge it beautiful, rather than judging it beautiful because we find it pleasurable.

And so judging is a secondary process. The object itself is apperceived initially. We can't escape it. It's existential in its implication. — 3017amen

Ok - If the ‘first moment’ is as far as you go into Kant’s aesthetics, then your misunderstanding of my approach makes more sense. Judgement at this level lacks purity - without claim to agreement, any aesthetic experience is subsumed under a subjective judgement of beauty as a concept of the object. There is no recognition of indeterminacy in your concept of an object’s beauty. You’re not even considering existence of a human subject as an aspect of the aesthetic experience at all.

All you can manage at this first level is to recognise desire in relation to an aesthetic object as unnecessary in judgements of beauty, but you haven’t even realised that...

I suddenly feel like I’ve been wasting my efforts here...

When you recognise that this initial judgement of ‘beauty’ has nothing at all to do with realising a human potentiality for Love, then get back to me.

Not according to Kant's theory of feelings associated with aesthetic value. Consider the same inanimate object (car) being sold by the owner because it was breaking down. What if the car was rusty and unappealing to the owner who only used it as a commuter vehicle and who didn't care about its aesthetical value? Would he or she cry upon selling it? Or would they say good riddance, I never really liked it anyway? Either way, the object itself would have sentimental value. — 3017amen

The object’s sentimental value is still a property of the relation, not of the actual object itself.

Or imagine an artist or otherwise a creative person designing a soap box car. He or she enters a contest which includes aesthetic's and creativity. And as such, it is judged and scored accordingly. What do you think the criteria of the object would consist of? Aesthetics? — 3017amen

Is the prize awarded to the artist or to the soap box car? The criteria would not consist of properties of the object itself, but of a demonstrated relation between artist and object: the aesthetics and creativity of the car’s design. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one. Beauty pageants and models are another story - the aesthetics is a form of objectification: the perceived isolation or separation of an object from the subject of which it is a property, by another subject.

An artist need not be successful at expressing themselves through an object/medium for the aesthetic experience to exist for the artist.
— Possibility

How is that possible? — 3017amen

There is a step between the aesthetic idea and the produced work of art, which Kant puts down to a genius’ ‘natural capacity’ only because - not being an artist himself - he has no means to understand it. It is the capacity to perceive an aesthetic experience in one’s own potential relation to an object, prior to its actual expression/exhibition. In my view, Michelangelo depicts this process in his unfinished ‘Prisoners’ (intention notwithstanding), having fully expressed the notion of self-perceived potentiality in ‘David’. Apperception at this level - a recognition of the extent to which that potential is realised - can be a source of torture to an artist who lacks the discipline or resources to hone their craft. Their approximations will always pale in comparison to the potentiality, exposing the limitations of the artist.

What you’re referring to here is not aesthetics - it’s desire. T
— Possibility

The desire of what, the subject's-object, or some other desire? — 3017amen

The desire of the appearance. Your reference to the ‘subject’s object’ suggests a dualism that renders the object a property of the subject, but I’m struggling to understand the nature of the relation as you see it. Given that an ‘object’ is a goal or thing external to the thinking mind or subject to which a specific action or feeling can be directed, there seems to be some confusion as to which ‘object’ we’re referring to - object of which subject’s mind? In my view, reference to the subject’s object suggests either self-perception, or objectification.

I recognise that Kant’s aesthetics doesn’t consider the possibility of more than one subject involved in the relation, but I’m pretty sure any attempt would be more than simply isolating an object.

The appearance of interaction with a human being is in truth an ‘undetermined object’ whose quality and quantity transcend subsumption under any particular concept. That we desire a determined object is irrelevant to the disinterested pleasure that inspires the process of aesthetic judgement. That we can neither qualify nor quantify what it is we find pleasing in an appearance leads us from an ‘indeterminate object’ of intuition to consider an ‘indeterminate concept’. That we can determine neither purpose nor necessity in the pleasure of this appearance sufficient to conceptualise the aesthetic experience inspires free-play between imagination and understanding.

The appearance remains undetermined - not an object, not a concept - any judgement or expression of such an appearance is an approximate rendering at a reduced level of awareness. To then confine that aesthetic idea to the determined object of our desire is to ignore the transcendent extent of empirical intuition that inspired this aesthetic experience in the first place. The determined object of our desire is only one instance of perceived potentiality in the aesthetic experience, which is itself only one possible expression of an aesthetic idea, which is one representation of the imagination.

I’m not suggesting we ignore this determined object of desire - though recognising it as one instance in a perceived potentiality and in a broader understanding of Beauty and Love as aesthetic ideas does diminish its significance somewhat.

Because we live in a physical world, you think? — 3017amen

As opposed to what? A metaphysical world? I think you missed the point of my question.

Let's consider your indeterminate concept in this scenario. Let's assume a male sees a female who to him is highly physically desirable. He pursues a relationship with her initially, for that reason. His choice to make a decision of sustainably would rest in the compatibility needs from the intellectual component. At that point it becomes determined that there is either compatibility or non-compatibility. The subject's-object is part of the criteria either way. In other words, one outcome from your potentiality calculation could be that she was really cute but unfortunately a 'bitch'. — 3017amen

Is that what you consider an aesthetic judgement?

Romantic love is considered ‘successful’ in a modern context only when it is reciprocal, resulting in a mutual instance of desire
— Possibility

Absolutely agree, but it doesn't support your theory. — 3017amen

No, it doesn’t - I’m citing this as a common misconception of romantic love, resulting in more break-ups than ‘happily-ever-after’s. Pursuing a romantic relationship from an instance of physical desire may not be the worst idea, and it can be physically pleasurable short term, but it’s a low-percentage strategy for love. Your view seems to be that desirability or physical passion is the essential first step to love, but it’s just one way of recognising value/potential in attending to appearances. An instance of desire is the interoceptive manifestation of realising our capacity for attention and effort. It’s a pretty common experience, and although we’re eager to attribute this perceived potential (pleasurable) as the property of an apperceived object, that may not turn out to be the case. When we ‘fall out of love’ or realise that we may not have really loved someone after all, in my view we have mistakenly attributed our feeling of pleasure as ‘love’ to be a property of the perceived object, when it’s actually a property of the perceived relation.

Kant’s aesthetics is a process of suspending judgement in attributing the property ‘pleasurable’ - first to a determined object, and then to a concept - before engaging the full capacity of the intellect. This is compatible with the Platonic notion of Eros, the purpose of which was to inspire transcendence from physical passion towards Beauty as an ideal. It is recognising that there is much more to appearances than objects/concepts and their properties.

When you isolate the intellectually compatible and physically desirable components from each other (as you appear to have done in the scenario you described above, then you’re not adhering to Kant’s process of aesthetic judgement. Perceiving an aesthetic experience recognises an irreducibility of appearances to phenomena (or object/concept/properties), NOT a separation of physical and metaphysical/intellectual components. This seems to me a misunderstanding of Kant’s aesthetics. Idk