Why do we still read Homer and other ancient writers? I think that there must be something timeless about them, something quintessential. Or, are we just recycling the canons of art due to someone else's tastes? I admit that with open canons we must agree that tastes play important roles in creating our interests, even if we end up opening our hearts and thoughts to other art. What say ye?

Homer's works, the Iliad & the Odyssey (songs) still enwrap our imagination, they take us into their world of magic, life & death, love and hate; all the human emotions, these works still 'sing' to me. Great works of art hit chords that reverberate in us, these works have a dynamism, a spirit that pierces our sense of reality and suspend it, they remain relevant in spite of the passage of history. These works jut out at us over the millennia, they retain their spirit, in spite of our progress, and technology because they reflect essential truths about what it means to be human in a way that can't be surpassed, can't be reproduced.

Art as a medium evolves/moves dialectically. What came before must be repudiated, overturned and surpassed, but in doing so what is surpassed is not lost. Society demands 'new', Rimbaud's "It is necessary to be absolutely modern" has always held.

Thinking about difference between socialism and fascism.

Socialism treats all men as equal, Marx's notion is not about equality per se, he says

"To each according to his contribution" and "from each according to their ability; to each according to their needs"

Fascism is all about the state. Men are not equal, their role in society is given to them by the state, the motherland. The state is an 'organic' whole (see interesting note about historic German geostrategy here) which is not totalitarian. Men's roles in such a society are similar to the role of a man as part of a medieval trade guild, at least as I understand it.

I assumed that the colours symbolised innocence just like the little girl in the red dress in Schindlers List. A child-like purity. But the difference is that symbol was represented in the moving image because it ameliorated the horror surrounding her symbol - that all the victims were innocent as she was - which is why paintings may be inadequate when discussing such horrors and the impact the violence has not just to the victim and his family, but to all those who belong within the social and political problem itself. It is no longer about the victim and thus more than just a mothers love in the eyes of those who claim authority.

"...which is why paintings may be inadequate when discussing such horrors and the impact the violence has not just to the victim and his family,"

No, how could you? A painting is far more complex than the reality it alludes to. The camera's glaze is inherently dumb. Give me David's Death of Marat (which not so incidentally is also idealized) over any celluloid pastiche...any day >:O

Great article, but it left me puzzled, not for the obvious reasons but rather why it did not mention anything about Synthetic Biology, and especially JC Venter. I understand that the people in the article you referenced are looking for the origin of life, how it could have happened and it sounds like it may be an emergent phenomena from what I read. I kept on waiting for the author to bring Venter's work his effort to create synthetic life, even if only in passing, seems like both searches ought to be related, but I don't know enough about it. So why, if you think there is a reason?

I agree that there is something about a work of art, which draws us toward it. I wouldn't say it's the aesthetic though, because "aesthetic" already implies a judgement of beauty or ugly. So I would say that something "strikes" us, it's striking. To take your example of music, you hear something and it attracts your attention, but right away, you may have made a judgement of whether or not you like it. The judgement is based on aesthetic value, but you do not necessarily make such a judgement. You may just hear the music and think, well this is different, and I don't really know if I like it or not. Then you are struck without judging the aesthetic.

My use of the term 'aesthetic' is that of our first experience with any object, it is of what is immediately presented to us, its surface. Any judgements we might make based on this experience are aesthetic judgements. It is the surface that draws us to the object, our experience of the surface, its aesthetic/surface is pre-judgemental. It is a matter of taste (desire/feeling) which is both subjective and normative, which draws us to the work. The surface draws us to the work, but our experience of the work only begins at its surface. A good work of art drives our imagination, it enables us to see what we weren't able to see or it discloses what we already know in a unique way that provides insights that would have been absent without the work. I am not sure anyone belonging to the same culture, with similar backgrounds can be indifferent to a truly great work of art, whether they like it or not.

You seem to not be realizing the fact that good art need not "portray" anything. The artwork is a creative piece, it is made to "be" something, on its own, something stand alone, a piece of art. This is the reality of the art work. You cannot say that what it portrays is the reality, because it's not necessarily meant to portray anything, it is meant to "be" something. What it "communicates", is entirely a function of the audience, what "I get from it". That the artist intends to communicate is only true so far as the artist attempts to portray something. If the artist is attempting to portray something, then this may be, as you say derivative of the artist's society and culture. But I think it is wrong to look at any piece of art with the perspective of "what does the work portray", because the primary intention of the artist is to create something, not to portray something.

I agree with you to the extent that any work of art must communicate something, even Cage's 4'33 communicates something. From the earliest cave paintings, to the most disturbing atonal music, to the highest form of conceptual art, there is communication, an intersubjective component in every work of art. What is communicated encompasses the reality of the work. What is communicated portrays something about the world (which includes thought and matter), what the work is in itself is purposeless (pace Kant).

What do you think of this excerpt from the philosopher George Simmel's book?

“Valuation as a real psychological occurrence is part of the natural world; but what we mean by valuation, its conceptual meaning, is something independent of this world; is not part of it, but is rather the whole world viewed from a particular vantage point”

Capital is the way we measure valuation, how we commodify labor in the real world. Psychological valuation is how we idealize what we desire.

I think it's not so easy to separate the meaning from the aesthetic. When we look at art, we take it for granted that it was created by an artist, so that premise of meaning is inherent within the aesthetic of the art. I don't know about you, but I look at a natural beauty in a completely different way from an artificial beauty, because the skill and technique of the artist is always in my mind when I look at art. I'm usually looking at "what the artist did" so I'm looking more at the meaning than at the aesthetic. Being a musician myself, I find this to be especially the case with music, so your example is lost on me.

Art's aesthetic draws us to the work, the work's matter by way of its form strikes us (or not) as part of narratives that we understand. The value we give to of a work of art lies is in how we experience that work, which can be intimated but not fully explicated. I think great art has an enigmatic aspect, a remainder, something which can't be explained. At the same time our experience of a work of art follows the coherence and logic of the work, regardless of the intent of the artist.

I think all man made beauty depends upon natural beauty, aspires to natural beauty, is the mimesis of natural beauty. Music seems to me to be able to convey a sense of pure emotion and that's what I was getting at.

In most cases, I don't think an artist is trying to portray reality, so art in general is neither actual nor fictive, it's something completely different. The more abstract the art is, the more "different" it is. The "affect" which you refer to is just what the individuals of the audience get out of the art. So it's not the case that the artist is actively seducing you, you are allowing yourself to be "affected". You do not have to allow yourself to be so affected, you can ignore the art. Think of a logical argument, if it's very bad, you will not be affected by it at all, but if it's good, you may be affected by it. Even if it's good though, you can still choose to ignore it.

I disagree to the extent that whatever the work portrays is its reality, how it communicates and what it has to say is largely derivative of the society and culture that nurtured the artist. A good argument can be wrong, it can be knowingly wrong as in sophistry.

Of course we would not have a culture if not for cultural appropiation.

Why do you say:

("How She Sent Him and How She Got Him Back" is a much better work of art though imo

Can you explain why this is so. I think Lisa Whittington's painting is much closer to conveying the horrendous brutality of what happened to Emmett Till, for sure. But I like what TimeLine says about Schultz's painting:

In addition, art is also desirable, beautiful. It is a movement, perhaps, to challenge that stereotype. Her brush strokes - so thick and almost distorted - I feel is a great depiction of the confusion I felt when I saw the image, almost like I quickly looked away because of the abhorrence and her image represents that quickness. But, it is also colourful. The picture is not and that representation - whilst perhaps showing love - is probably not appropriate.

Perhaps Schultz's painting depicts the mother's view of her son, where he remained beautiful to her in spite of his brutal disfigurement, and horrendous death. She sees past the surface disfigurement to her remembrance of her son is all his innocence, the smiling boy we see in the photo prior to this heinous act. The passionately colored flower, symbolizing love.

The "meaning" which lies within a work of art is often vague, ambiguous, or obscure, art often being of an abstract nature. The meaning is a representation of the artist's intent, what was meant by the artist. I don't think it is appropriate, or correct, to say that the meaning of the art is a "fictionalization of reality", it is more like an obscured reality. The artist may take a little piece of reality and, with the use of obscurity, attempt to create a wide range of meaning from that little piece of reality. Through the use of obscurity, the artist allows one's own intentions to be interpreted in many different ways. What the art means to me, and what the art means to you, may be completely different, due to that use of obscurity.

"...Cleanth Brooks, W. K. Wimsatt, T. S. Eliot, and others, argued that authorial intent is irrelevant to understanding a work of literature. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley argue in their essay "The Intentional Fallacy" that "the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art."[/quote] Wikipedia

And I agree that first and foremost a work of art must stand on its own, it must be aesthetically valuable in-itself. (I am not sold on the intentional fallacy, but I agree with them this far). What a work means as you indicate may be abstract and obscure, but that is not what draws us to the work. What draws us to it is its aesthetic, the affect of its surface. The "meaning" of a work of art is I think secondary, and perhaps incidental to its affect, to its aesthetic. Music can be an example of pure affect.

The artistic portrayal of reality must be fictive, it is not the actual experience, not the actual apple, not the actual body in the casket, but rather the way or manner of narrative that enables a unique view of reality. The problem with this is that the aesthetic itself can be bias, prejudice, unjust, but very effective in seducing its viewers/readers/hearers by its affect, which is why propaganda (and rhetoric) can be powerful.

Well, I've been reading and thinking about this work of art, what is meant by cultural appropiation and how art represents reality.

While I am not a fan of the theory of authorial intent especially as it could be applied to philosophy & other works, I do think that each work of art is susceptible 1st & primarily to criticism on its own basis aside from other outside considerations. Here the problem as Hanover suggested is "It simply doesn't convey the horror of the event in any real way". The emphasis, at least for me is on the "real", to what extent a painting, song or any other work of art needs to maintain allegiance to the reality of the situation, especially any art-historical painting. Part of Picasso's genius was his ability to convey the horror of the bombing of the small town of Guernica in northern Spain by the Nazi's. He did it in a very abstract way, but it has more emotive force than any other such historical rendition has accomplished, at least over the last 100 years, if not ever.

I really like what Cathy Young (a well know writer & feminist) has to say about this work. http://forward.com/opinion/367198/why-fury-over-emmett-till-artwork-at-whitney-biennial-is-so-dangerous/
She points out that other works of art are similarly problematic, that the idea that you have to have same origin, background, culture, class or racial character to be able to convey feelings in empathy is specious. She noted that "“cultural appropriation” in the sense of supposedly illicit use of themes, styles, or practices from cultures not one’s own — or, at least, from the cultures of less powerful groups — is a pseudo-offense based on the pernicious idea of tribal ownership of culture."

She also noted that

The activists protesting a “racist” kimono exhibit in Boston in 2015 ignored the Japanese-Americans who loved it. Today, the charge against “Open Casket” is led by a Berlin-based artist born in England to an Irish-Caribbean father and a Russian Jewish refugee mother (whose probably could have told her a thing or two about the dangers of ideological diktat in art). Yet Black, whose American experience is mostly limited to two years in an art program at the Whitney, feels entitled to speak for black Americans supposedly hurt by Schutz’s work — African-Americans like Goldberg, or Michael Edgill, the 29-year-old teacher attending the exhibition who told The Daily Beast that “there’s only one race: human.”

The issue is the fictionalization of reality. Does, can, ought any work of art come close to representing the reality it is supposed to portrait? Isn't there a danger in fictionalization of what has occurred, in that it may not convey the harshness of the reality that it's supposed to represent, instead it may suggest a stance that is far removed from being honest to its origin, as TimeLine and mcdoodle seem to suggest.

I wonder about the Dana Schultz's work, I don't think it has to represent reality clearly, in the manner of the stark photo. The sheer brutality of what was done to Emmett is difficult to look at, but we are used to seeing horrendous visions of reality almost daily from the Mid-East.

I really like "How She Sent Him and How She Got Him Back" by Lisa Whittington, it displays some of horror of what was done. It addresses the violence of the act in a way that Schultz's work does not. Perhaps the story of Emmett Till is strong enough to be interpreted in a number of different ways and in a variety of media. Here is Bob Dylan's 1962 rendition (cultural appropiation) in his ballad:

Karen Armstrong presents a coherent historical account of religion and violence here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/25/-sp-karen-armstrong-religious-violence-myth-secular

She contends that religion violence over a long history of spectacular violence has always had secular impact and eventually became separate from secular violence over the course of the last 400 years, in the West. The heretic, became the ethnic rebel. Fighting, and dying for one's faith became fighting and dying for one's country.


William T. Cavanaugh also asserts the myth of religious violence. The following from Wikipedia:

Religion is not a universal and transhistorical phenomenon. What counts as "religious" or "secular" in any context is a function of configurations of power both in the West and lands colonized by the West. The distinctions of "Religious/Secular" and "Religious/Political" are modern Western inventions.
The invention of the concept of "religious violence" helps the West reinforce superiority of Western social orders to "nonsecular" social orders, namely Muslims at the time of publication.
The concept of "religious violence" can be and is used to legitimate violence against non-Western "Others".
Peace depends on a balanced view of violence and recognition that so-called secular ideologies and institutions can be just as prone to absolutism, divisiveness, and irrationality.

There are people who think that some countries are ill-served by encouraging them to set up democratic governments. "the people are not ready for self-government" the theory goes. A given country might have too many competing ethnic groups within its border -- ethnic groups that had never wished to live together--for democracy to work. These kinds of states are better off, the theory goes, if a strong man rules over them. A dictatorship, authoritarian rule.

I think democracy is difficult in many countries because of their tribal orientation. Places where your role in life is first seen as a member of such and such a family. Of course we all have families and family histories, but in many countries this information if more than idle curiosity, it forms the basis for social status ethnic biases, hates, likes and so on. A family hierarchy--tree with all its heraldic baggage What you do, your role in society...may not be fully determined by your familial status but its influence is strong, and it influences how you and others see yourself. There are typically very few extended families, or associations outside of family in these types of society.

Not being able to name the good seems like a small price to pay for not having to suffer.

The conception of such world, a utopia, is dependent on our conception of our world as we experience it. It is an idealization we base on our experiences of good and evil in this world, along with love & hate, pleasure & suffering, life & death. A world where only good actions are possible is impossible in principle because if it were so, we would no longer be capable of making a mistake, we would no longer be human. Instead of free agency, we would be fully determined to act in a certain manner.

Yet the God of monotheistic religions is said to permit this sort of behavior from us because of free will. Slavery, genocide, war, child soldiers, rape, etc. is allowed to take place, even though God is good and able to prevent them.

Maybe the problem is not with these religious notions about God, but rather involves our how our conception of what's good is possible. The term 'good' losses its meaning without the concept/experience of 'evil', they co-implicate each other. Imagine that you were in a world where only good could possibly happen, if so then what's good would be the way things are, it would have no differential

.

We do not define "good" and then ascertain whether God satisfies that definition, we ascertain what God is like and then define "good" accordingly.

Sounds to me like:

"Is the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?

Thus "man is the measure of all things", Kant's fundamental categories of thought and the unknowable noumena beyond it, and the resulting correlationism, as Meillassoux puts it,

Kant maintains that our conceptual access to the world structures the world as we perceive it. "Kant claimed that in traditional forms of epistemology the mind was conceived as a mirror that reflects being as it is in-itself, independent of us. He argues that mind does not merely reflect reality, but rather actively structures reality." * Consequently we can never know the world as it is in-itself and the correlation between subject & object cannot be broken, and we have no independent access to either subject or object.

Correlationism rests on an argument as simple as it is powerful, and which can be formulated in the following way: No X without givenness of X, and no theory about X without a positing of X. If you speak about something, you speak about something that is given to you, and posited by you. Consequently, the sentence: ‘X is’, means: ‘X is the correlate of thinking’ in a Cartesian sense. That is: X is the correlate of an affection, or a perception, or a conception, or of any subjective act. To be is to be a correlate, a term of a correlation . . . That is why it is impossible to conceive an absolute X, i.e., an X which would be essentially separate from a subject. We can’t know what the reality of the object in itself is because we can’t distinguish between properties which are supposed to belong to the object and properties belonging to the subjective access to the object.

Meillassoux attempts to develop a view which enables knowledge of the objects independent of the subject. While his method of access (going back to the conception of primary and secondary properties of things, where primary properties can be described mathematically thereby providing independent access) may have it's own problems.

*see https://euppublishingblog.com/2014/12/12/correlationism-an-extract-from-the-meillassoux-dictionary/

I like Fredric Jameson's thought that Postmodernism is a historical period, one that started in mid fifties around the time of the Civil Rights movement in the US, after Abstract Expressionism, after Sputnik. This period changes how things are conceptually framed, it denies any master narrative.

He looks at the role the curator plays in our museums. The following is from his “The Aesthetics of Singularity: Time and Event in Postmodernity”

“The collective avant guard has in our time and in postmodernity been replaced by the single figure of the curator who has become the demiurge of these floating and dissolving constellations of strange objects we still call art. Maybe we don’t have great artists anymore, we have great curators”

I read an argument about G's supposed foreknowledge a while back. It went along the lines that God sees all of time: past, presence and future, but it is all past to him, and since he is perfect he can't change what he remembers, therefore we are free to act any way we want.

Yes, that's right, if you can only do good, then what you choose for lunch, who you associate with and whatever acts you do or don't must conform to goodness...it suggests a mindless society of do-gooders, which sounds impossible as well as incredibly boring & robotic, where no one eats bacon.

Well, sure if I had the power I would give creatures there the freedom to err, I would not make a world of p-zombies, where all thoughts and actions are rigidly determined, a world without creativity. It's not possible to make a world where only what is good can be chosen because in such a world there is no freedom.

Suppose that G had no choice, he had to create evil to justify his creation, to create the best possible world, even though we may question how it can be the best. Socrates thought evil is a form of ignorance...perhaps that's what Lucifer symbolizes, the anthropomorphization of cosmic ignorance, which allows for freedom in the universe.

How do you differentiate faith in a supernatural being/power or what have you from superstition, both seem to me to be magical ways of thinking.

Superstition = black magic?

Well I have always disliked behaviorism, I think behaviorists tend to treat the data as the answer, which seems to be what the behaviorists are trying to do in the case you have cited. If the birds are that hungry, they will try to please in whichever way they recall (if squirrels can remember where they buried 200 nuts...) produced good results last time they were fed, if so. then then the Pigeon's remembered a simple dance step.

It was not superstitious behavior, it was successful behavior.

I am not quite sure what the scientific study of faith would tell us about faith, faith is magical thinking...no?

"The idea of trying to explain a [religious] practice seems wrong to me"
"It will never be plausible to say that mankind does all that out of sheer stupidity"
"Error arises only when magic is interpreted scientifically"

Wittgenstein 'Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough'

I am not sure about G's existence, but I wonder if the moral concept 'good' does not also require a concept of 'evil' (like 'light' & 'dark'), but where what is 'good' is necessary and what is 'evil', is contingent. I would like to say that genocide is evil wherever and whenever, but if G isn't around to confirm my intuitions, then this judgement is my opinion, and ultimately (beyond norms) it has no more validity than 'I like ice cream'. Is there a better foundation..something more, something that grounds the necessity of the Good for men.

Perhaps some form of necessary moral transcendental is needed by man to make sense his existence, to be able to unequivocally say genocide is evil, whenever & wherever.

R.I.P

Suppose Im parting from the premise that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-malevolent.

Augustine and, Aquinas more specifically, thought that evil is a privation, not just the absence of good but the deprivation of good, G creation is good. They also thought along with the Bible that man's ability to see what G's plan is is not possible. G asks Job, where the hell were you when I put this all together, G sees all that is, was and will be, we don't know how evil events may fit into his plan.

If the essence of G is perfection, perfect power, perfect knowledge, perfect evil (?). I wonder if perfect evil is logically possible. Is perfect evil a coherent possibility, or does the idea fail. If the essence of evil is imperfection itself, then the notion of perfect evil fails itself. Aquinas quotes Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethic "Therefore, the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 5) that "if the wholly evil could be, it would destroy itself"

this style of philosophy claims to be both

I) Resolutely pyrrhonian in being explicitly against advancing controversial or speculative metaphysical doctrines and "leaving everything in its place", making no attempt to interfere with how humans behave, communicate or form beliefs, and refusing to take sides in philosophical disagreements.

II) Therapeutic and hence normative with cognitive and behavioural implications.

My questioning concerns this apparent tension within this conception of philosophy.

How can philosophy leave everything in its place if philosophy is supposed to have therapeutic value?
[/quote]

I think the analyst role in therapy should not be an attempt to interfere or change with how the analysand behaves. The analyst aim, which is difficult, is to mirror what the analysand says so the analysand recognizes what he said. The aim it is not to change it, only the analysand can do that. The problem here is that the patient expects the analyst to solve their issues, and they tell their deepest secrets to a stranger. The analyst becomes an authority figure, one that the analysand tries to please, which hinders the process.

Psychoanalysis, CBT and other therapeutic approaches are talk therapies, dialogues in which the analysand explains their problems and together they search for a solutions. Typically in psychoanalysis the analyst searches for origins and enables the patient to understand these origins, many times the understanding of source of issues points to ways to resolve them. CBT is different in that is not so much concerned with origins as it is to develop a structured approach to problems, by helping the analysand to construct normative goals which help lead the analysand out of their problems.

These approaches work, they achieve results for people with psychological problems, some are more effective on certain problems than others, but they all work.

CBT is highly regarded for a few reasons. It is short, while Psychoanalysis can take years, CBT is typically takes less than a 6 months, the fact that it is quick, highly structured, makes its results much easier to be objectified by data which lends to its scientific status. It is also typically much cheaper and it can even be combined with online sessions.

I think it is tougher for the analyst in CBT to maintain a passive attitude.

What is a "duty"?

I think that's a great question. If duty is defined as 'a task or action that someone is required to perform' then the question who requires and why it is required come up. There are many answers to this question from our need to survive to our need pay taxes...ultimately (I think) it is my acceptance of a duty that makes it a duty for me.

I think there is a difference between societal imperatives/norms and individual duties. While individual duties may evolve from societal norms, it is my take on these norms that I manifest in my actions. If there is any objectivity to duty, it may lie in this structure, which seems applicable to all societies. If there is a utility to the actions of a society then can't we judge a society's morality on utilitarian principles or perhaps by virtue theory where justice would be societies most valuable virtue (Plato).

Governments create, insure and maintain order. They create normative behaviors in its citizens, so that for the most part laws do not have to be constantly enforced because the majority normatively behave in according with governmental intent.

I wonder if Panpsychism, in board terms, doesn't entail teleology as an inherent characteristic in nature. The dilemma between nature's steady progression towards (?*) versus the theory of emergent phenomena. All of nature chugging along, with thought as just it latest manifestation, versus life and the mental or thought as abrupt emergence out of raw nature (but isn't this spookier than a natural progression.) Mustn't reality be a-conceptual in some regard (as pre subject/object, pre correlationism), as it must have been prior to man.

If it's natural progression, then some sort of panpsychism should apply, if pure emergence is possible, then no panpsychism, rather a kind of divine command theory (IMHO).

* if mind/life is a possible end for matter and life and mind seem to have taken a tenacious hold on matter, then perhaps nature aims at an ultimate mix of matter/life/mind

Loved ones, family.

Komo Sambe Kong Kong!
Woo wooo woo

My question is when exactly can't you compute new experiences?

Computers can only compute, they act syntactically, not semantically. Think about Searle's 'Chinese Room' thought experiment. [detailed description: http://www.iep.utm.edu/chineser/] He asked us to imagine a man in a room with a rule book that tells him how manipulate symbols in a certain manner, in this case Chinese figures. The man does not speak a word of Chinese, but he becomes very adept at receiving and transmitting answers according to his guide book, to the extent that no one could tell the difference between his answers and a native speaker's answers, but he does not understand anything about the messages he transmits, which is a lot like a computer. Computation is syntactically formal, that's why computers are so powerful, but they lack any semantic meaning.

Computers can't store experiences. They store data in binary code.

Yes, but we can imagine it being the case, for the purpose of discussion, that is why I said
If. An Australian Philosopher Frank Jackson [he latter distanced himself from the argument, but it sounds pretty strong to me] came up with a pip of an argument, another thought experiment. It's called Mary's Room:

Mary lives her entire life in a room devoid of colour—she has never directly experienced colour in her entire life, though she is capable of it. Through black-and-white books and other media, she is educated on neuroscience to the point where she becomes an expert on the subject. Mary learns everything there is to know about the perception of colour in the brain, as well as the physical facts about how light works in order to create the different colour wavelengths. It can be said that Mary is aware of all physical facts about colour and colour perception.

After Mary’s studies on colour perception in the brain are complete, she exits the room and experiences, for the very first time, direct colour perception. She sees the colour red for the very first time, and learns something new about it — namely, what red looks like.

So yea, our experiences are not downloadable by computers, and can't be encompassed except by our actual experience.

If your experiences were downloaded onto a computer do you think that the computer, regardless of how fast or massive, could get your memory of the aroma and taste of your mom's fresh baked apple pie just right? Do you think you would retain personal identity without your specific body?

Anyway, it sounds like your talking about the computational theory of the mind, which is often discussed hereabouts. Take a look at the following for an overview:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/

Frank Miller

Dramatic effect

Looking at these, I have a theory about your triptych:

a) The crack looks like a crack.
b) It looks like you inserted the McDonald's cup after working it over with filters. Not sure, but I like it.
c) Baby's breath? [best tonal range of the three]

The way nature wears somethings making them unappealing, like the oil stained crack, but not always, as you show with your McDonald's cup, and in the end it is the breath life adds which suggests renewal spring is coming.

Anyway, that's what I got out of it.

Panpsychics have no clue how the subjectivity imputed to individual fundamental particles might combine to form the unified subjectivity of a person.

I think the intentionality that all life and some animals demonstrate was not around 5 billion years ago. So how could it have arisen? My guess is that matter is capable of sustaining life and is capable of evolving into what we current experience. I don't believe in creation ex nihilo.

If that is the case, then unless you think god came down and did his thing, the properties of intentionality and thought evolved out of matter, so matter has the potential to evolve in this manner. That's just the way it is, I think. I think this approach might be better than dualism, and there are several philosophers (Brassier, Grant, Harmon, Meillassoux, et al) working along these lines.

Here's the thing, fundamental particles don't have a history. Electrons are not even distinguishable in principle.

It's hard to believe that any matter can stand outside of time, but I don't know much about these particles, I do know there are a lot of scientists working on it. I always thought those graphic images we see generated by machines such as particle accelerators, track particles such as electrons, protons and so on, each particle leaving kind of a quick history.

Hey Bert....yea, I didn't get it...maybe you can explain it some more. Like "one substance", what is meant by that.

If you don't agree with panpsychism then I think you ought to be able to explain how intentionality and thought floated into the world from nowhere.

Isn't it simpler to suppose that these are properties are all actual or potential properties of matter. Perhaps 'human exceptionalism' is not nature's radical departure, but rather part of nature's natural progression.

Not sure I agree with electron's inner life, but an electron as well as all other matter must have a history, and perhaps history is all that matter as such can relate to us.