A box fan blowing into my left ear, which is the ear that has hearing damage from running stage monitors as an audio engineer. So annoying.

Second, do you mean elude, as in evade, or illude, as in trick? Seeing as though you can't trick proper description, I'll assume you mean elude. It might not even be an important distinction. — Reformed Nihilist

I meant elude, sorry.

So why are it that there are all sorts of other concepts, like the concepts of "properties" or "consciousness", slippery concepts, that people can have disagreements about the finer points of, but that can be succinctly defined in one or two sentences satisfactorily? Why would you propose that spirituality would be different? How is that not just special pleading? — Reformed Nihilist

You continue to ignore the definition I offered in my first response to you. Maybe you missed it? Here it is:

Spirituality: The inner life of the outer experience of the world.

From that first post, I've argued that the definition is elusive, but I then (in that same post) proceeded to offer that definition regardless. You seem to be reading past all of this, or else I wasn't clear enough.

How do you know that you share the experience? What specifically did he write that made you say "yup, that's the same thing for me"? — Reformed Nihilist

Pretty much his whole post, but for instance:

It's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place. — darthbarracuda

The feeling of "almost-at-home" is an experience that I find myself having a lot, especially when writing music. I experienced it when I used to be a Christian (I have a lot of positive memories of that time as well as the negative). I've experienced it when reading other religious texts and philosophical texts, including atheist ones. I've experienced it in meditation (something I'm horrible at, but even still). I've experienced it in dreams, and, most poignantly of all, in the moments after waking up after a restorative, dreamless sleep. Laugh all you like, or analyze all you like. There's your answer.

I understand how metaphors work, thanks. — Reformed Nihilist

I didn't assume you didn't; I was explaining why I was placing importance on that idea, particularly with some ideas from Barfield that I assumed you wouldn't be familiar with because most people aren't.

I'm asking what's so dead about asking for someone to be succinct, and what's so alive about being vague and self-contradictory? — Reformed Nihilist

If you mean "what's so dead about asking for someone to be succinct, and what's so alive about words having elusive meanings", then I'll answer, but otherwise you're setting up an annoying strawman there.

Bah, as if the kudos of a spiritual-something-a-rather-ist means anything to such a staunch atheist. :P

Ok; kudos to you too then.

To the appeal that there's something to describe, outside of what can be described, I can only quote Wittgenstein "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". — Reformed Nihilist

It's a nice quote, but overquoted. It's actually a tautology. But I don't know, maybe that was his point. But I'm not saying that there's something to be described that can't be described; there's something to be described that illudes proper description in the way that rational or analytic philosophy demands. If these rational demands are the demands you place on experience, then the concept of spirituality will illude you, let alone the experience of it.

If it is part of a share experience, then we should be able to indicate to each other what it is that we share, put a word like "sprituality" on it, and voila! we have a meaningful word. — Reformed Nihilist

We do have that; I was affirming Barri's descriptions as something I share (that may not have been obvious). That doesn't mean we can define those shared experiences in the same way we define our experience of "when I hit my knee on the table, it hurts".

As far as the "dead dictionaries" and "alive concepts", it's a nice bit of poetics, but I don't see how it is actually a reflection of any state of affairs. — Reformed Nihilist

We think of concepts as things (that's a metaphor) that we grasp with our minds (the mind grasping is another metaphor). When we do this, we generally begin with the assumption that concepts are like the objects we grasp with our hands (we don't think this in a literal sense, but in order to think about concepts, we have to think about them as "things", which they are not). But the meanings of words change, which is to say that concepts change. Virutally all words have their beginnings in metaphor; see Owen Barfield's History In English Words and Poetic Diction. When I say words are alive, I'm just using a further metaphor, in the same way we use metaphors to think about anything at all. So, it may be nicely poetic, but so is the entire structure of thought. That's my point about "living" words and "dead" dictionaries. I think it applies when we're trying to pin down an illusive concept like "spirituality". As mentioned, the root of the word is "breath"; another metaphor, or an original likeness?

Seeing as though I have literally no clue what spirituality might refer to if not to a dualistic nether-world where our vaporous homunculus reside, I am asking for a definition that at least gives me a succinct and graspable starting point, and at the same time testing if whomever is answering has thought about the subject to the extent that they understand what they are proposing well enough to give such a definition. So far, I have not found that to be the case, but am always open to hearing it. — Reformed Nihilist

Fine, have you had a look at mine?

What is the meaning of death?

From a pragmatic standpoint, death clears up the limited habitat, making space for newer, younger, better suited designs to replace the outmoded, old life forms. For life, as a whole, to survive, genetic mutation is absolutely necessary - the environment changes with time and life must adapt and the only way to do so is through floating innumerable different mutations, a few of which make the cut and perpetuate the species.

Also, death, in terms of predator-prey dynamics, weeds out the weak and sick. Again, death has an overall positive effect on the ecology. — TheMadFool

But you're just indirectly describing a "meaning of life" here; you're assuming that clearing "up the limited habitat, 'making space for newer, younger, better suited designs", that life as a whole should survive, are all things that are predicated on a meaning. Why should life continue to propagate itself? What's the meaning behind the will for survival? You're still really just talking about an assumed evolutionary soft "meaning" here.

positive effect on the ecology. — TheMadFool

For instance, why is this positive? What predicates positivity in this situation?

2) Maybe there is something to it, and no one has been able to explain it well enough for me to grasp their meaning. If it is either complex enough or subtle enough, perhaps I just missed it.

Now it's a little self serving, but I have been pretty good with complex and/or subtle ideas in the past, and my personal experience also lends weight to the first hypothesis, so that's the one I favor, but I keep my mind open to the second, or the possibility that there's another explanation that I haven't considered yet. — Reformed Nihilist

Kudos to you for that; it's rare to find atheists around here with that mindset.

Here's the problem I have with this response.You haven't really clarified anything. When you use the word "spiritual" do you mean "feeling of belonging"? or "serving a higher purpose"? or "almost at home but not quite"(which seems to be a contradiction to "feeling of belonging")? or "a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about"? — Reformed Nihilist

I don't want to speak for , but I would say that all of the above are the definition that he's describing. The reason the concept might seem vague is because language has limits; human experience is wider than the scope of one single language's ability to describe experience. A concept that eludes a dead, musty dictionary definition is a concept that's more alive than most concepts.

But, if you'd like my (unsolicited) single-sentence definition of spirituality, I'd put it something like this: "the inner life of the outer experience of the world".

:B :B :B :B :B

Oh lighten up, it was a joke! Apparently my emoji's didn't properly express my feeling, as per usual. Try this: :-} >:O

Two of your favs!

:-*

Dear lord, do you have any response these days other than your choice emojis? :-} O:)

Australia, for sure. We have backyards, you see. — TimeLine

True. They exist here though, but they're kind of the holy grail.

Your bromance is appealing, but alas my preference has always been a backyard wedding with a handful of people and a cake I bake myself. And lots of fairy lights. No entertainment necessary. — TimeLine

Sounds like a plan; NYC or Australia? What kind of cake tho?

Just finished The Upanishads

Currently:

The Bhagavad Gita
Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis (re-reading)
The Man Who Was Thursday - G.K. Chesterton (re-reading)
Exploring Philosophy - compiled by Steven M. Cahn (Brooklyn stoop find!)
Dynamics of Faith - Paul Tillich
The Gay Science - Nietzsche

I have long sought the company of a man of true philosophical brilliance, the one who has all the answers and as I await collection for a late night sesh at the movies, ponder why I feel like I spend most of my time in the company of people I merely tolerate when it could be spent with you. — TimeLine

:-O (L)

Sometimes smooth jazz makes the world right. Why argue?

This totally doesn't fit here, but this video basically answers all philosophical questions. So, in a way, it's really The Last Word:

All I am saying is that I think an ability to re-enter the state of childlike innocence is necessary, but I am not saying sufficient, for artistic (and spiritual) greatness. — John

Agreed.

I don't see history as 'humanity's growth' being analogous to the growth of an individual through childhood, adolescence to adulthood.I don't believe in 'progress' for humanity as a whole as 'becoming ever better', but rather as a progression as in 'chord progression'. — John

Interesting thought. My addendum would be that not all adults grow up to be mature people (which is to say that they don't really "grow up", all though that's a metaphor, and it also has positive connotations). The idea of humanity's growth mirroring the growth of a person is just an intuition I've had for a few years that seems to work well for situating ideas about how thought develops in history. I can't really defend the metaphor other than that. By using it I'm not suggesting any coming Utopia or something (indeed, people are mortal; they die). The way I see the metaphor working is actually fairly neutral if you take into consideration our discussion about becoming like a child. Using the metaphor doesn't actually make any statements about which states of development (moments in history) might be better or worse. For instance, each stage of a person's growth (infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, etc) are all necessary for the growth of the person; one isn't more important than the other. On top of that, I think we live with the fallacious assumption that adulthood is somehow the "goal".

Within a more mystical view of history, it's interesting to take the metaphor of an individual, and indeed take it to it's conclusion; death of humanity could mean it's collective rebirth, assuming the possibility of an afterlife for the individual. In other words, the metaphor of the individual applied to history could apply all the way up until death, through to the possible afterlife. I like playing with those metaphors and imagining the possibilities, without necessarily laying down any definite philosophy about it. I like to think that way because it helps me move my brain around to different angles of view that I don't usually take.

I think you may have meant to write "I do not think we're in disagreement here", but I'm not sure. — John

I did; I thought I edited but it looks like I edited it to say the same incorrect thing lol.

I agree that it is possible that the culture as a whole may learn form mistakes, but it's just as possible that what has been learned will be forgotten and the same kind of mistakes repeated again at another time. — John

Yes, I agree; I neglected this point thus far.

I am just not convinced there is any telos to history; — John

I think this is our point of departure :P I don't have a strong argument for a telos (or I haven't taken the required time and thought/writing to articulate it); I just have an intuition about it. Maybe that intuition is wrong; who knows. I recently read through an excerpt of the Upanishads, and I'm working through the Gita right now. Aside from some great positives, I still get left cold by the cyclical cosmos of that philosophy; obviously Moksha is the telos, but I think I'm still too wrapped up in a Christian viewpoint to be able to shake the idea of a Messianic telos of some kind. I'm still working through it. I acknowledge that it could just be my upbringing.

or that we are somehow in a 'higher place' spiritually and creatively speaking than the ancients or the medievals or even the so-called 'primitives'. — John

Well, I don't think that either, per se. It's hard to explain, mainly because I need to do more reading and writing about these ideas; I'm just not educated enough. My problem is I can hold both ideas in my mind at the same time; I do think we've lost something to history; a more immediate experience of the divine; the holy (set apart [the meat offering set apart for the god]), the immanent experience. But I think that for what's lost, something else is gained. self-consciousness is a curse, but also a tool we can use. As is technology. Science. etc. As human thought develops, we lose clarity, but we develop nuance and accuracy. But then we lose accuracy to confusion, and then we need to gain more clarity...

it can go anywhere, end with a whimper instead of a bang, and then come roaring back; it is more like play, than programme. — John

I think I can agree with that.

I kind of get your usage of "apophatic" in this context, but I'm not sure it is really appropriate. For sure learning form a mistake is learning that this is not the way, that "not this"; but the "neti, neti" of Advaita is an all-encomapssing 'not this'. It is 'not anything' in a way similar to the God of apophatic theology. — John

I tend to use ideas as metaphors; I was more trying to refer to the fact that there's a similarity between the ideas. I just like using words in new contexts, which is more the songwriter in me, which tends to get a lot of disdain from the philosopher crowd around these parts... ;)

A return to the spirit which is always there even if obscured. — John

I guess I'm on board with that, but I don't think it's in disagreement with my concept of forward motion that I've mentioned in this discussion. A return to the spirit is the return, but there's a part of the process that always moves forward.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me like you're trying to articulate an intuition you have, but I'm not sure if you're saying it the right way. You seem to vacillate between the idea of "is evil good? sometimes it's attractive", and "why do we punish instead of rehabilitate? Isn't evil necessary for good to also exist?" Evil being somehow "good" and rehabilitating criminals are very different ideas.

I think the second idea here is a good thought, and worth discussing. I've made similar arguments here at various times that tend to be ignored for some reason. The yin yang relationship bears itself out over wide swaths of the human condition; apophatic vs. kataphatic theology, esoteric vs. exoteric mysticism, the recurrence of diametric political factions, the master slave dialectic, continental vs. analytic, dominant vs. submissive personalities, male vs. female...in my view it's a mystical concept, these opposite poles, and good vs. evil is really the archetype that "overarches" them all. So what I'm reading in your post is a natural intuition for this yin yang relationship, but I think you need to expand on what you mean that evil can be good or attractive. The only way I can see that working is for good and evil to be superseded and overcome in a way, as in Hinduism (via union with Brahman), but I don't think that's what you were thinking. Even (and especially) in Hinduism, a strict moral code accompanies the spiritual quest for Moksha.

in the subject, the object, in both or perhaps in their relationship. — Cavacava

As I mentioned earlier, I think art exists within 3 stages: the artist, the middle-man and the audience. All of those elements have to come together for art to exist in the way that we know it on a common basis.

However, at the risk of sounding pretentious, I think the main "seed" of art exists within the artist's experience of what they create, and nowhere else. The husk of art, then, is the rest: the middle-man and the audience. But the artist knows the art best. However, what prevents the artist from being allowed to be an asshole about this, is that the artist is only the vessel through which art comes into the world. I personally think this process is a divine process. The irony, though, is that because it's a divine process is exactly why there's no room for the artist's ego. The art is divine: that means the artist can't take full credit. The artist has to defer to the divine in the exact same way that the art dealer has to defer to the artist (not that they actually do), or, more realistically, in the way that the producer or the band members have to defer to the solo musical artist. Or how actors always defer to directors when they find themselves heaped with praise. At the last analysis, the artist herself, the one who finds all the praise being heaped on them, has to defer to the divine inspiration. Otherwise they set themselves up as a self-made god. Which we've seen born out countless times, Kanye being the cream of this arid crop.

Maybe this is the wrong question and 'art' is not something stored on a CD or hung on the wall, but rather, similar to reading a book, it's an active experience that we enter into with our imagination. We suspend reality and we become 'absorbed in' a reality created by an author. — Cavacava

After my rambling paragraph there, I agree.

a kind of purposeless purpose or unfocused focus. — Cavacava

Right, I believe Cage had Eastern influences.

I'm not saying it would be a return to a specific past state, but a return to a state of health if you like. Think of having the flu. After you get over it you return to the state (health) you were in before you caught it, but you don't return to a previous version of yourself. That's why I said earlier that i don't have any idea of regression in mind here. — John

With this all being within the analogy of addiction, I think it's probably run it's course.

Was it inevitable that humanity went through the phase of conceptual art? — John

Based on the ideas I outlined, I think so. But I don't think that the specific outline of actual history is important; it could have happened 400 years ago, or 400 years from now. But the same princples would/will have been born out. The art would have been different; even the (vague semblance of any) aesthetic may have been different. But the underlying principle (generated by the human condition) would have been the same.

I was really trying to emphasize the feeling for the eternal that I think the innocence of the child consists in. — John

Can you elaborate? I see you did a little bit, but I'd like to hear the in-between points of your argument about that; you seem to jump from childlike innocence to great art here.

I find this in the great art, music and literature of the past, but increasingly less in (much of but by no means all) modern work, and the apotheosis of this absence is reached in conceptual art, as I see it, anyway. — John

Modern conceptual art is certainly not childlike; it's certainly the most egregiously adult art that history has seen. But as i mentioned earlier, I see it more as "pubescent" art. No mature adult is as self-conscious as conceptual art is self-conscious. What would true, purely "adult" art be? What would that mean? (I mean art that supersedes the "pubescent" conceptual art that I'm describing).

My point all along, though has been that it doesn't change the fact that those mistakes are mistakes, and they may be devoid of spirit; they may represent the spirit turning against itself, denying itself; and I don't believe that any specific movement of the spirit is inevitable. I also think there is always something of value to be gained form any movement, even if that value consists only in the wisdom gained by denying the movement and moving beyond it. I also think the moving beyond is always in a significant sense a return; perhaps something akin to Plato's idea of anamnesis; without memory we could have no compass. — John

Well, I do think we're in disagreement here. We just seem to need to talk about it differently. Mistakes are indeed mistakes, which has not been a focus of my argument. But, I think that if those mistakes are devoid of spirit, then that's an apophatic contribution to the development of spirit. This is what I think is lacking in so much popular discourse, and even philosophical discourse at large, and on this forum. Negative moments in history can indeed be apophatic; they can point to what needs to come into being; they can point to the elements of the divine that we so sorely lack. And, most importantly, without those apophatic experiences, we wouldn't understand the human condition in the way we do, and continue to discover. That's "inexorable" to me; or if you prefer a less weird word, it's inevitable, in the best possible way. It's necessary, in the way that the loving but firm discipline of a child by a parent is necessary.

So, when you say "I don't believe any specific movement of the spirit is inevitable", I would counter that with your further statement that "there is always something of value to be gained from any movement". Inevitability, again, is not determinism. Indeed, both words fall short; the latter more so than the former. To crudely wrench this discussion from it's philosophical depths, it really just comes down to Murphy's Law. Anything that can happen within the confines of the human condition will happen. That's really the crux of my argument. It's the crux because I think it's significant. I think the human condition hinges on this "bearing out" of it's own self; it's own inner spiritual content. Salvation, from a Christian perspective, or union with Brahman (I just finished an excerpt of the Upanishads), or what have you, is something that needs come about only once all aspects of the human condition have been actualized.

I like paradoxes, but I fail to see how "the moving beyond is always in a significant sense a return". Probably because I'm very focused on our experience of the forward-moving motion of time. I have little of my own time to give to hypothetical states of history, or even worse, the thought-experiments of the analytics; the p-zombies and all their ilk. I have no time to even try to come with arguments as to why these hypotheticals are so useless. Time moves on as these philosophers stroke their....

We seem to agree about the important details anyway. :) — John

Despite some of what I said above, yes, I agree!

the fact that we're so self-centered at times. We even have a word ("history") that only refers to our story about ourselves, and there's no comparable word for the set of events that occurred prior to our story about ourselves. — Terrapin Station

What's self-centered about that? Assuming you're using the word negatively.

See 's comment

really do not think that Jesus ever claimed to be Son of God. To my knowledge, he referred to himself as Son of Man. — Metaphysician Undercover

There's a long tradition in rabbinical teaching of the teacher asking questions rather than providing answers or statements. Jesus eludes to the idea of being the son of God. He also refers to his "father in heaven" in the context of describing God. So these were things that were understood at the time, but the significance of Jesus' approach to teaching gets lost to history pretty often.

I'm just responding to your thread about belief in God; I'm not saying anything about agnosticism. But I agree with you; I think it's important to acknowledge that all beliefs have an irrational element, each to varying degrees. So again, I'm therefore unclear what this thread is about. It doesn't seem to be about why people believe in God.

The question is "is it art" or perhaps "how is it art"? Cage was chasing the pure experience of silence, if you remove the aesthetic from a work of art all that remains is the form of the work, the score, the three piece movement here the comprehension of the work is only available through thought. Cage's choice of work was based on his desire to recreate what he heard in the sensory deprivation tank he had tried. — Cavacava

More or less, but my interpretation is that the experience of the piece should alert you to what you're not generally conscious of. Our brains automatically filter out sounds that they deem unimportant; otherwise we'd be flooded with unnecessary auditory information. So the piece is meditative; instead of focusing on musical notes, you focus on ambient sounds around you; the audience rustling, a leaky drainpipe, your own heartbeat...of course, the problem is that the piece was/is so "meta", that it's hard to get past the novelty in order to experience Cage's goal for the piece in a direct way. So this is why 4:33 is conceptual: the value of the piece exists solely in the concept because the concept is so self-conscious that it prevents a direct, immediate experience (an aesthetic experience). It has an aesthetic goal, but the aesthetic is only achieved through apprehension of the concept, not through direct experience. The aesthetic is the idea, as I think you alluded to at some point.

Isn't minimalism a natural consequence of conceptual art,? — Cavacava

I'm pretty sure early minimalism in the art world was concurrent with conceptual art, so I don't know. In classical music, minimalism was a consequence of what I would consider early conceptual music: 12 tone music, basically. That's just from memory though, I might be hazy on that.

I think art tries to be original (even when it cannot be good) its movement seems to be best described as dialectical and perhaps Conceptual Art arose from Art's :P need to be original, and not be associated with the past. — Cavacava

I think agree, and I would say this is similar to the argument I've made about the "spiritual drive" behind art remaining a constant, which I think is how and I got into the discussion we're having.

Conceptual Art's reaction is very unemotional, indifferent to emotion. I think that Conceptual Arts ability to disrupt (as when Warhol's Brillo Boxes hit Danto over the head) makes itself art by its ability to disrupt the way it does. Perhaps the dignity in all art lies in its ability to disrupt and change or challenge the way we experience life. — Cavacava

Agreed. This is ultimately why I have mixed feelings about Conceptual Art. I used to hate it, until I researched it and experienced some of it. Now I have a feel for it's place in history and whatnot, and there's some pieces that I appreciate, but I'll always love symbolist harmonies more than anything else. I need emotional content in art! But I think it will come back, and it already is in some places. It's surely remained a constant in the world of popular art.

I think human beings have certain psychological needs that lead to the belief in God. Probably the biggest one is that we fear death and we need to find comfort in the fact that we are going to die.

After all, what could be more comforting to someone fearing death that, in a sense, you don't really die, but that you instead live forever. With God, that become possible.

So that's the psychological aspect. — Brian

Psychology is a development of the past couple of hundred years, and it's a constantly changing field like the other soft sciences. So if you're going to talk about a psychological need for God in a broad way, you would need to use that idea as a metaphor, because you're applying it to ancient (and even pre-historical) peoples that had no conception of the world in that way. You would be consciously using the metaphor of psychological need as a way of imagining how those ancient peoples were interfacing with reality and their experiences. Or you would need to argue just how the psychological principle you're referring to is an objective principle that applies to all of humankind throughout history, without exception. Otherwise it's a projection of a modern way of thinking on past peoples, and it't not a sufficient argument for why "people need to believe in God".

I think a more accurate approach would be to read ancient texts, interpret them, try practicing the practice, read literature about the texts and the traditions, study how language interfaces with meaning and how it shapes how we view experience...in other words, a wholistic approach that takes everything into account; a study of how human thought has unfolded, instead of using modern ways of thinking to try to extrapolate some answers about what people in the distant past were doing. In other words, we can't know the "zeitgeist" of that time in the way we may be familiar with our own, but that's what we should be trying to get a glimpse of. Using limited psychological ideas, logical arguments about God's existence, and the rest, all fall short of trying to create a picture (via creativity) of what existence might have been like, and so, to begin to address the question of why a belief in the divine (or similar concept) is so prevalent in early history.

Prophets can be profoundly wise one moment and stupidly dumb the next. Wise teachers can have funny episodes when they go completely weird and then go back to being wise teachers — Cuthbert

Where are you getting this from?

Isn't a return to health a return to a pre-addiction state? — John

Not mentally or emotionally, or spiritually. That's the analogy I'm trying to make; human thought (in how it's inherited through culture; how people in general perceive the world) is constantly changing because of the human condition (which is addiction in the analogy, weirdly. Not the most accurate analogy).

I don't see it this way at all. I think the idea that when one comes through an addiction one is better for having been addicted than one would have been had one never been addicted is based on false reasoning. Equally one cannot say that one is better for never having been addicted. — John

But what about suffering in general? The gospel itself actually communicates what I'm trying to communicate: Christ had to suffer and die in order to bring about salvation. Regardless of anyone's belief or lack thereof in the actual gospel, to me that concept is still very robust. Not least of which because it assigns meaning to suffering; it alleviates the meaninglessness we often feel within suffering. I think there's an esoteric truth in there; esoteric because it remains ungrasped by so many people. The argument of "if God exists and is benevelent, then why does he allow suffering?" still remains very common. But you can look at the gospel as a mythical narrative that communicates that esoteric truth about our experience of suffering.

I think this is the meaning of Christ's: “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven". — John

I take that concept to be the fulfillment of the concept of necessary suffering that I'm outlining. To become like a child again means a childlike joy, wonder, and trust (towards the divine) without the tantrums, ignorance about the world, naiveté and selfishness of a child. It's the difference between childlike and childish.

Perhaps you are thinking of spiritual constraints, ethical constraints? There is no freedom without constraint, I would say, so any kind of a "logical extreme" along these kinds of lines could not be freedom at all. — John

That's what I mean.

as I said before I don't think it is exhaustively determined by time and experience, which is what I thought you wanted to say by calling it "inexorable". — John

No, I don't mean exhaustively determined by time and experience. I mean inexorable in a much more positive way. It's hard to frame the idea well because the formal concept of determinism gets in the way; what I mean almost plays by different rules. I think the genesis of human thought has a oneness to it; the idea of "everything in it's right place". This is what it is: human thought needs to grow to maturity. The structure of human thought thus far throughout history has never been such that any teleological goal of the human spirit could actually be realized. So I'm not talking about determinism in how thought unfolds over history, but I am saying there's an inexorable path which moves by it's own logic. It's not possible for thought to have gone a different way that avoided post-modernism, or conceptual art, or whatever. Or if a different path was possible (because of different individual decisions being made differently; Hitler becoming a successful artist instead of a failed one and having an art career, for instance), then the same principles would eventually be laid out, just in a different way or a different historical context; sooner or later, or whenever. That's because the human condition remains a constant. The human condition is what bears out how thought changes, and the particulars, the concepts and the beliefs, will all inexorably be born out in history. That's how I view it.

Edit: so the different eras of human thought are all gradations of a maturing process within thought. Once a certain tipping point is reached, it's possible that the actual nature of the human condition could change.

If you're asking "why do people believe in God?" And then proceeding to say that you're only interested in logical reasons, then I don't know if you'll get far; the average Chritian or Muslim or Religious Jew doesn't necessarily have a conscious logical proof in their mind that allows them to participate in their religion. So unless you meant "theist philosophers" instead of "people", then I'm not sure what the use is of the discussion. The fact that average believers haven't logically reasoned through their beliefs in great depth does not delegitimize their faith, nor is it an argument against the existence of God.

I would not classify either Cage's or Ive's music as "conceptual" in the sense I was talking about. Cage, for example I take to have been exploring radical formal possibilities, in a way more analogous to minimalist art than conceptual art. — John

Ok, but at least for 4:33...it's a purely conceptual piece, right? It does explore form as you say, but ultimately the idea is "Listen to what you hear. Is what you hear music?" That's conceptual.

I can't see how someone fighting addiction can do it without hearkening back to the time before they were addicted. — John

Because overcoming addiction means acknowledging the events that lead up to addiction, and the mental and emotional states that perpetuated and encouraged addiction. These mental states have built themselves up, and now, the way forward is...forward. The state before addiction can manifest itself to the addict as an ideal time, but this is a lie because that state was a state of ignorance. Addiction now has the positive quality of lending perspective. A post-addiction life, is, by definition, a life of richer meaning and content. So, take that analogy and apply it to the development of human thought (with all of it's "addictions": it's neuroses and obsessions).

how else could they know the state of being free from addiction? — John

Just to emphasize my point: they can't know it until they are free from addiction. The state of pre-addiction is not the same as the state of post-addiction. Apply that idea to human thought broadly to get a sense of what I mean.

On the broader scale, going forward would be impossible without drawing on tradition. — John

I'm not saying otherwise; but if we take my analogy here, then "tradition" might be synonymous with "pre-addiction". I realize the analogies are getting a bit hairy.

If the "nature of human thought" was "inexorable" then I can't see how it could be free. — John

If the nature of human thought was not inexorable, then what would freedom exactly mean in this context? I don't mean to move the goalposts, but the problem is that if we take this idea of "freedom" to it's logical extreme, it turns into a nihilistic nothingness. Freedom becomes meaninglessness. Freedom has to exist within Meaning. How does freedom "obtain", as they say around these parts? I see a demarcation between a primordial concept of freedom that isn't bound by time and experience (Berdyaev/Tillich/The Tao/probably others), versus a concept of freedom that exists only within experience and time. Freedom only within time and experience is by definition limited, and then we can make the argument that it isn't freedom at all. So, where does freedom obtain?

So, for instance, when I say human thought is inexorable, I'm constraining it within it's proper bounds: time and experience. Human thought doesn't reach beyond these. But does this mean human thought is "not free"? No. If freedom is a state that exists outside of these bounds, then freedom is a primordial metaphysical state upon which concepts like the development of human thought are predicated. So freedom is the genesis of human thought, within this conception.

There is always a true freedom and spontaneity at work, and the way things will turn out in the future is by no means pre-determined by the past. The element of truth, though, is that things are perhaps determined in their broadest outlines. — John

So are you saying that freedom exists on an individual level, but not on a broad level?

Also, there is nothing that precludes the possibility that epochs may be more or less spiritually healthy, insofar as they are more or less consciously in touch with the divine. There is nothing to preclude the possibility that the human spirit will find itself in a cul de sac and need to backtrack to regain its compass. — John

Here's my issue with this. Think about it from an individual level: someone struggling with an addiction or unhealthy activity, on an individual level, cannot literally backtrack to regain their compass. The reason for this is the inexorable forward motion of our experience of time; an individual trying to beat an addiction can't take themselves back to the mental state in which they existed before the presence of the addiction. Beating an addiction means fighting through the addiction until you've reached the other side: sobriety. Applying this to human thought on a grand scale... and I see the same things at play. This is also the answer to the age-old question of "why does God allow bad things?" There's no backtracking with the divine; there's only the single way forward. I don't equate this singularity of motion with determinism, either. I equate it with capital T Truth. This is a creative apprehension of reality, and not an empirical one. The inexorable nature of the movement of human thought is a function of Truth and not a function of determinism on the one hand, or freedom on the other. Freedom is primordial; it's the basis of human nature.

Platonism. Eh. It's fine. Really more of an existentialist with humanist/Christian theist/mystic/taoist leanings.

I don't think it is possible for music (without vocals) to be a conceptual art; — John

Cage's 4:33 is all concept and no music. So it's possible, in a sense at least. Cage was kind of the Duchamp of music, and I think there's some music that is pretty conceptual. But (and I'm biased) some of the more conceptual classical music is, to me, more profound, because, as you say, it retains an aesthetic. I wasn't a fan of Charles Ives music until I read this quote form him. He would write music that was supposed to sound like two different groups playing together at the same time:

"In the early morning of a Memorial Day, a boy is awaked by martial music--a village band is marching down the street--and as the strains of Reeves majestic Seventh Regiment March come nearer and nearer--he seems of a sudden translated--a moment of vivid power comes, a consciousness of material nobility--an exultant something gleaming with the possibilities of this life--an assurance that nothing is impossible, and that the whole world lies at his feet. But, as the band turns the corner, at the soldier's monument, and the march steps of the Grand Army become fainter and fainter, the boy's vision slowly vanishes-his 'world' becomes less and less probable-but the experience ever lies within him in its reality.
Later in life, the same boy hears the Sabbath morning bell ringing out from the white steeple at the 'Center,' and as it draws him to it, through the autumn fields of sumach and asters, a Gospel hymn of simple devotion comes out to him--'There's a wideness in God's mercy'--an instant suggestion of that Memorial Day morning comes--but the moment is of deeper import--there is no personal exultation--no intimate world vision--no magnified personal hope--and in their place a profound sense of spiritual truth--a sin within reach of forgiveness. And as the hymn voice dies away, there lies at his feet--not the world, but the figure of the Saviour--he sees an unfathomable courage--an immortality for the lowest--the vastness in humility, the kindness of the human heart, man's noblest strength--and he knows that God is nothing--nothing--but love!" - Charles Ives, Essays

One of the striking aspects of response to conceptual art is just how "mysterious" it appears to many. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The average person doesn't find conceptual art "mysterious"; they find it nonsensical.

Conceptual art is more about what is understood to be art than a change in the "mystery" of how anything is art. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This doesn't make any sense. What quotes form John or I can you site where we were talking about "how" verses "what"?

Many times an artist will have taken some simple form, a found object, a clear white canvas, given some detailed personal account of their work, only to have half the audience respond with, in all this knowledge, "How can this be art?[/i]..." The "mystery" remains no matter how much is known about an artwork. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This also makes no sense.

The "mystical" quality of art taking the soul to a world more profound then the everyday remains. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This also makes no sense and is grammatically confusing.

Conceptual art (believing it is following Duchamp) wants to say just the opposite. On this 'conceptual' view, in principle at least, everything about individuals, society, culture and history can be analyzed, explicated and commented upon; there is no room for any genuinely intractable mystery. I think this is a huge mistake, with catastrophic potential for the arts, and by extension, for humanity. — John

Interesting. I'm not sure I agree, but I'm also not sure I can argue with that. Again, I think the same spiritual drive exists beneath conceptual art. The impetus hasn't changed. I know you'll disagree because of how you view the development of human thought, but I think there's a necessary quality to each stage of artistic development (and development of thought in general). I think there's a specific spiritual (/esoteric/inner...etc) theme at the core of the development of human thought. It's hard to explain. Every phase seems to follow after the other within the bounds of their own unique logic; Conceptualism had to follow the symbolists and early modernists. It's tied into the human condition. We can look back at eras that we particularly liked, or felt were closer to our own ideal of what art should be, and we can criticize how art evolved, but we need to be realists and look at how art evolves in relation to the state of the human condition. Indeed, the human condition is that inner spiritual drive that directs how thought and art evolve.

The spirit of the work, in my estimation, is how the artist's idea for the work gets sorted out by the materials the artist uses in execution of his idea. — Cavacava

It sounds like you mean something else than what I (and presumably ) meant with the word spiritual. For my part, I mean that there's a real spiritual drive that causes us to make art. To me, making art is a more direct path towards the sorts of things philosophy, and even religion in a way, are after.

I think the characters in Hamlet took over the play, and forced its conclusion on Shakespeare, — Cavacava

So the characters have their own life? They exist independently of Shakespeare?

So, I think it's relevant to note that although the spiritual is individually, socially, culturally and historically mediated (and mediating) it is not exhaustively determined by (or determinative of), nor constructed by (or constructive of) individuals, society, culture and history. — John

This is honestly a very confusing sentence; I see that it's grammatically correct, but what exactly are you saying? It sounds to me like you're saying "the spiritual is mediated in many ways, but is not exhaustively determined by those many ways". Is that what you mean? Could you elaborate in a different way?