I feel the gulf in our understanding is too wide to bridge. — Pop

Supposedly your "long story" can bridge this gap. Just as I predicted this epic tale has not materialized.

:up:

Either you already know what I mean or you do not. — tim wood

Hmm, starting with the obvious. So far so good!

Assuming you're being candid and honest, you do not know what I mean. — tim wood

I do tell the truth at times, when the mood strikes me.

Which is to say that for you, art is what you like and not what you do not like, thus the two identical. — tim wood

Let me see if I've got this straight so far. I don't follow your meaning well enough to draw meaning from it, therefore, for me, liking and aesthetic experience are identical? Actually, I've read this several times and it's not clear if you mean that liking for me is identical to aesthetic experience or identical to art. Art and aesthetic experience are not synonymous, clearly, because we can have aesthetic experience in the absence of art.

And that's as far as we can go. — tim wood

Stay here if you must but I'll push on.

But your view makes art completely subjective, which leads to someone else calling art what you don't, yet that on the basis of your own criterium you cannot call not-art (after all, they like it). Which in turn leads to absurdities such as art-for-me and art-for-you, but no art. — tim wood

Art is a social construct and has no objective reality. Like money, without people, the finest ink drawings in the world would just be paper and ink with no value beyond paper and ink. It would have value for bugs, I guess, who could nibble on it. But getting back to sapiens, I don't understand your problem with the absurd. If someone were to offer me a million dollars in fake money for my car I would probably laugh, thinking something like, "Oh, how absurd! this fool offering something with no value for my car." But then if she were to asks me to look more closely at the money and it turned out that it was exquisitely hand-drawn unique bills with beautiful designs. I might recognize the art and realize that it may have more value than my beat-up old car.

Nor is there any accounting for your changing your mind. It was art yesterday, but not today. — tim wood

If someone calls something art I will automatically evaluate it as art, if it's not readily apparent. If it showed no sign of skill or design it could still be seen aesthetically. If the artist decides the next day that what they said was art the day before isn't art today that's fine with me, though I may disagree. If a knowledgeable art critic disagrees with me that's fine too.

Further, the experience in question is either an experience of liking or an aesthetic experience. For you these must be the same thing. — tim wood

You asked, "do you buy the better tool for the job or the one you like?." I like to think that I would buy the best tool for the job, and I usually do, for the most part, but I am influenced by aesthetics. In any case, I think you need to define what the job of art is for this to mean anything. For many art is merely an investment opportunity and its job is to appreciate in value, to make money. It can also be a status symbol and its job is to show higher status. More abstractly, art can promote shared beliefs and values, or demote others. Finally, there can be art for art's sake, and its job is merely to experience the aesthetic.

Perhaps this, the difference between food that's good for you and food that is not. — tim wood

Oh, I see now, the knowledgeable art authority will save us from getting a tummy ache. :lol:

It's true that many want to be treated like children.

Sweet Jesus, no! If you think "liking" is the sine qua non of aesthetic experience, then you're living one (or two)-dimensionally in a multi-dimensional world. — tim wood

Apparently, you live in whatever world the art authorities tell you to live in.

You're not being clear about liking and aesthetic experience. Can you elaborate to an extent that what you're trying to say becomes meaningful?

But as with tools, do you buy the better tool for the job or the one you like? — tim wood

This is a poor analogy because, in art, liking (aesthetic experience) is the job.

And does not education and knowledge inform that decision? — tim wood

I don't think that aesthetic experience is something that you consciously decide to have or not have. Education and knowledge contribute to shaping our own experiences, of course.

And don't confuse the offer of an experience with the experiencing of it. — tim wood

I don't know what you mean.

I couldn't care less about what... the knowledgeable consider... because I can think for myself and I'm not a mindless herd animal.
— praxis
:vomit:

Yessir! That knowledge sir! Tried it once; didn't like it! — tim wood

You're forced to alter what I say to make a point. :roll: I value knowledgeable people in general but when it comes to art I can tell if I like something, and no authority on earth can know what may offer an aesthetic experience, though they may know general principles. I'm the best authority on my own sensibilities. Any of us can recognize that we may lack sufficient knowledge of an art form to more fully appreciate it. Does an authority telling you that something has greater value than you think it does make you value it more? I imagine that it does.

I couldn't care less about what the powerful or the knowledgeable consider good art because I can think for myself and I'm not a mindless herd animal.

To paraphrase the immutable words of Sigmund Freud, sometimes a letterbox is just a letterbox.

And holding the note…

The TPF education-in-a-paragraph. — tim wood

We can’t think for ourselves?

Interesting, perhaps your mentioning sex is your subconsciousness trying to express the meaning of the symbolism. You did say that the earth is “hardening” and your erect mailbox is ready to destroy somebody else’s “car” in the neighborhood. It sounds an awful lot like you’re the one in desperate need of a leg over, or at least that’s what your subconsciousness is expressing.

The heroic images of you struggling to push up your rundown letterbox in the mud and rain is mildly amusing, so thanks for that. It is also strangely symbolic, but symbolic of what I cannot say. :chin:

… you appear to place a great deal of confidence in your communication with the world through sense and reason. So for all practical purposes you're a realist. — frank

In case you haven’t noticed, mailboxes don’t usually stand in the middle of lakes, and yet you attempt to categorize me as a realist. :brow:

Even if you were an Ai, you would still be expressing a consciousness, but this time the consciousness of your programmer — Pop

Perhaps the programmer also lacks consciousness.

In panpsychism, consciousness is fundamental, and is the only thing anything ever expresses through it's form. Long story. So I know that if anything should ever be expressed, that it will be consciousness. — Pop

This is entirely meaningless as it stands. If you have to tell a long tale for it to convey anything meaningful then tell your long tale.

:snicker: But we both know that you have no story to offer.

There is a theoretical basis for my assertions — Pop

We’re on page 14, if there were a theoretical basis for you assertions I suspect that we would have heard a peep of it by now.

I can only express my consciousness - there is nothing I can do other than express my own consciousness. — Pop

Nonsense, although you are definitely having trouble expressing this alleged theory you mention.

It is not necessary for me to know your consciousness in it's entirety, since through expression you provide me with glimpses of it. — Pop

You said yourself that “I can not know your consciousness.”

If it turned out that I am an AI without consciousness, which is certainly a possibility, according to your beliefs it wouldn’t matter because ‘anything expressed is consciousness’. A plant bending towards the sun is expressing its consciousness, right? But no, you agree that an AI can lack consciousness.

I don’t provide you with glimpses of consciousness. I show signs of consciousness and if you want to call that expressing consciousness it is only expressing indications that I may be conscious. I express thoughts, beliefs, feelings, opinions, etc.

I would rephrase that to say that Pop can know my opinions and such, but Pop can never know my consciousness because to know it Pop would have to experience it somehow. Pop would have to know what it feels like for me to be conscious. Maybe it's not so different than Pop consciousness, or Frank consciousness. Maybe it's very different. Does anyone really know?

Then how is it that I can’t even prove to you that I’m conscious? I could be a series of algorithms or an AI that lacks consciousness. There’s no way you could know and there’s no way that I can prove it to you. You can only know you’re conscious, or as I speculated earlier, somehow actually experience another’s consciousness.
— praxis

You are arguing that you are AI, and thus unconscious? :chin: — Pop

No argument is required. I'm merely pointing out that you can only assume that I'm conscious, you can't know that I'm conscious, so I could not be expressing something that you cannot know even exists. The words and ideas that I express, on the other hand, are evident.

:lol: You got pro art-speak.

We can not express anything other than our consciousness. — Pop

Then how is it that I can’t even prove to you that I’m conscious? I could be a series of algorithms or an AI that lacks consciousness. There’s no way you could know and there’s no way that I can prove it to you. You can only know you’re conscious, or as I speculated earlier, somehow actually experience another’s consciousness.

So is Clark revealing his consciousness or his opinions? He’s expressing his opinions, right? To actually reveal his consciousness we would somehow have to be able to be in Clarks mind and experience his consciousness. I can’t imagine how that’s possible, and neither can you, apparently.
— praxis

He reveals his consciousness through his vacant opinions, and troll like behavior.

It is not necessary to inhabit a persons consciousness to get a glimpse of it.

As we write these comments, to some extent, what we write is equal to our consciousness. Hence when we write, we express our consciousness. Much the same as with art, only the medium is different. — Pop

Clark's artistic opinions are not his consciousness and it's a big stretch to say that they reflect his consciousness. He may, for some reason, express opinions that are not his own. He can communicate his own opinions with words. Can he communicate his consciousness with words? What does it even mean to communicate one's consciousness? Consciousness is a state of being awake and aware.

I can see your artwork Mailbox in Lake taking pride of place at the 2022 Venice Biennale. (y) — RussellA

I doubt it would do well at even the neighborhood swap meet. More evidence that bad art can still be defined as art though. :razz:

But I would have no trouble with my subjective experience of the colour red (or aesthetic form) regardless of the object's context - whether at the end of a street or the middle of a lake. — RussellA

Agree, and personally I find the idea of a mailbox standing in the middle of a lake rather aesthetically appealing.

Again you reveal your consciousness. — Pop

You have to admit that this is an odd thing to say. Especially odd because in your very next post you say:

Your opinions are just noise without substance…

So is Clark revealing his consciousness or his opinions? He’s expressing his opinions, right? To actually reveal his consciousness we would somehow have to be able to be in Clarks mind and experience his consciousness. I can’t imagine how that’s possible, and neither can you, apparently.

I'll bet Marj is moving the clock a few milliseconds.

The aesthetic form of the object can be removed from its external context
My subjective experience of the colour red is independent of any function the letter box may have. Similarly, my subjective experience of the aesthetic form of the letter box is independent of any function that the letter box has. — RussellA

If you know what a letterbox is, and you know the color red, you'll experience a red letterbox. If you don't know what a letterbox is, you'll experience an unidentifiable red object. If you know what a letterbox is then you know what its function is. Do you know what the function is of something that you can't identify? No. Further, if you noticed a red letterbox out of context, that is, in a place where you don't normally see them, and a place where they can't function properly, such as standing in the middle of a lake, it would surprise you. Unless that was commonplace for some reason it would surprise you because according to your internal model of the world red letterboxes don't stand in the middle of lakes and your mind could not have predicted one being there. You could not help noticing and being surprised, whereas you may pass red letterboxes on the street all the time without noticing them.

Again, we can easily imagine a red letterbox out of context. In experience we cannot separate one from its context, though we can modify our model of the world to accommodate a new context.

Remarkably, in that long post you didn't use the word 'context' even once.
— praxis

In a previous post I wrote "The aesthetic form of an object is independent of the object's context, as an object's aesthetic is the formal arrangement of the parts within the object, not any external context. The violence of a war can have an aesthetic and be ugly. The serenity of a garden can have an aesthetic and be beautiful".

In this particular post I summarised with the phrase "aesthetic as a formal arrangement of the parts within an object". Although not specifically referring to the context of the object, the phrase infers that the object's context is not part of the object's aesthetic. — RussellA

As I repeatedly pointed out with Constance, we can easily dismiss context with our imagination, but in real life it may not be so easy. What does it even mean to say that an object can be removed from its external context? And are you saying that’s a requirement for aesthetic experience? If so, why would it be a requirement?

Suppose that no human ever bothered to distinguish the color of red from other colors.
— praxis

When looking at the world, humans don't decide to distinguish between colours, but instinctively distinguish between colours, without thought or conscious effort. — RussellA

Unless you have perfect pitch you couldn’t hear a musical note and identify it. You could learn how to do this with practice however. Just because sense data is available doesn’t mean that we can naturally distinguish parts of it. We may be better at visual distinctions but we still need to learn how to make ever finer distinctions. A ‘colorist’ will be far better at distinguishing colors than the average.

In a study of ancient writing, it was discovered that black and white were the first colors mentioned, followed by red. Blue was the last, as I recall. Apparently some colors are more important than others, to humans, and the least important are distinguished last.

Again (technical issue screwed with the first) — Constance

Don’t ya hate that?! When all else fails click the edit button, which sits at the bottom of posts to the immediate right of the time stamp. You may need to tap on that spot in order to see the icon with three dots, and if you tap on that you’ll see the pencil icon. Tap on the pencil icon to edit posts.

Don't know why you want to talk about hot coals or billowy clouds. It isn't to the point. — Constance

How astute of you, indeed hot coals or billowy clouds are not the point, the point utilizing those examples was that what we can imagine doesn't always correspond to reality.

moves away from explanatory accounts that are merely factual — Constance

I’m not sure if it’s possible for you to move any further away from such a lowly place.

facts are, as such, ethically arbitrary — Constance

I suppose you’re right about that, the capricious little bastards.

you owning the gun I borrowed and wanting it back under, say, dangerous and suspicious circumstances. — Constance

Are you threatening me?

The gun ownership, the circumstances and so on, these are facts that have no ethical dimension to them as facts. — Constance

In my country there are laws about gun ownership which strongly suggests that there is in fact an ethical dimension to gun ownership.

As Wittgenstein put it in his Lecture on Ethics: in all facts of the world, were they laid out in a great book, there would not be a mention of value at all. — Constance

Not even the value of pie?!

Then what is it that makes the case ethical (or here, aesthetic; same applies here) at all? it is the value: the injury and pain that is at stake, also my breaking the implicit promise to return the gun that could undermine confidence that thereby undermines friendship and comfort, and so on. — Constance

No worries, keep the damn thing.

So. you see the point being made here is to try to analyze an ethical case, any one at all, to find how its parts work, and what they are. This should be clear. — Constance

Clear as mud at this point. :up:

Not clear why you talk about panic. — Constance

Because it’s the most unaesthetic kind of experience that readily came to mind. I explained that. Are you only skimming my posts? How dare you. :rage:

I don't want to muddle things with what is not at issue. — Constance

Good call.

If all things are in space, then nothing is in space? Are you kidding? — Constance

You said it, not me. If all things are in space, then all things are in space (as a matter of fact all things do appear to be in space). If all things are space, then all things are space, right? If all things are space then there’s nothing to compare space with, right? There is only space, so space has no meaning.

What's the problem with it?
— praxis

It trivializes art. Imagine philosophy for philosophy's sake. — Pop

Most people think aesthetic experience is trivial, I believe, so you’re in good company the majority.

It means art for arts sake. — Pop

What's the problem with it? I basically interpret it to mean 'art for aesthetics' as opposed to art for profit, or art for deliberate messaging as in politizing, or art for any other utilitarian purpose. Of course, capitalist societies are loathe to the idea.

Your point is still far from clear. I've heard of 'art for art's sake', but I've never heard the expression 'art about art' and I don't know what it's supposed to mean beyond what it means at face value.

We can make art about art and philosophize about philosophizing, or make art about philosophizing and philosophize about art. Use your imagination.
— praxis

So if I was to say the comment you just made is words about words - you would be satisfied? — Pop

It wasn't about words, so no, I wouldn't be satisfied with that erroneous assessment. I could post something about words and then you could accurately say that I posted words about words.

It is rather that there is one, final context, and that is at the basic level, and this is phenomenology. On ethics and aesthetics: take lighted match and apply it to your finger. Now, there is a lot one can say about this anatomically, motivationally, psychologically, and any other context you can imagine; but put those aside and consider only the pain itself, pain simpliciter, qualia-pain if you like, or, the phenomenon of pain eidetically free, or context free. Forget about whether you think this is possible (Dennett doesn't, but that is another argument) for it being there AT ALL is a context, you can, and many do, including myself, argue. But IN this most foundational context of observing the pain just as pain and not of or in this or that, the pain can be seen most vividly for what it is, and not for what something tells us it is.

This presence is, I argue, pure, or close to pure. Entangled, yes, but here in this "reduction" it stands before one as a pure presence, what it IS as presence prior, that is, logically prior, for you can't even think of Hitler's genocidal cruelty without know what pain is to begin with that makes the whole affair so horrible.
This is what I have in mind. — Constance

There's a couple of issues, I'm afraid, that prevent your 'reductionist' theory from rising above the level of nonsense. I already pointed out the first issue in my previous post. Using our imagination we can take a concept or general mental representation of something like aesthetic or pain and do whatever we want with it. We can associate pain with hot burning coals, for example, and that's relatively easy to do. It's a bit harder to associate pain with distant billowy clouds, but we can still do it. Anyway, jumping to the point, the point is that what we can imagine doesn't always correspond to reality. I suspect that you already know that, but in any case, a practical example may help to elucidate the point further.

Offhand, pain/panic is the most unaesthetic kind of experience that comes to mind. If I understand your reductionist theory rightly, we can 'reduce the context' of any situation where pain and panic are experienced and the experience will then be that of aesthetic experience. As I've pointed out, we can easily dismiss context with our imagination, but how do we do this in real life? How do we reduce or turn off context? For our purposes, it doesn't matter because reducing is changing, and we already know that changing a situation (context) can change our perception.

The second issue has to do with the basics of meaning. If everything is aesthetic then nothing is aesthetic and the concept loses all meaning.

This is true regarding the violinist, but notions such as art about art are so dim witted! :grimace: Similar to philosophy saying - life is about life, no more needs to be said! — Pop

We can make art about art and philosophize about philosophizing, or make art about philosophizing and philosophize about art. Use your imagination.

The color is not in the object but on the object.
— Khalif

Supposing that humans didn't exist, would the colour red still be on the object ? — RussellA

Suppose that no human ever bothered to distinguish the color of red from other colors. They would need to learn the distinction as well as learn the word for red.

IE, the aesthetic and Uniformity within Variety are both innate parts of the structure of the brain as Kantian a priori knowledge. — RussellA

We all know that people have the capacity for aesthetic experience. Was that ever in dispute?

Remarkably, in that long post you didn't use the word 'context' even once.

Without a definition anybody can just BS about art as they please. — Pop

You may have noticed that people can and often do BS as they please about all sorts of things, well defined or not. Art should probably be the least of our concerns when it comes to bullshitting. The only objective value in art is the skill in which it is executed, if the concern is with value. No one is fooled by an untrained violinist pretending to be a master, for instance.

So you’re saying that there’s genocidal glee, just the concept of glee, and your mind can separate glee from any actual instance of glee, such as Hitler’s alleged genocidal glee.

If I’m following what you’ve said correctly, you’ve separated the concept of glee from what you’re now referring to as an illustrative example (glee in context) of glee in order to perform an analysis of some kind.

That’s about all the sense I can make out of what you’ve written. It not clear if this somehow relates to your claim that “the aesthetic is an integral part of experience itself.”

Perhaps your analysis has revealed that you have the capacity to consider the concept of aesthetic out of context, or that having this capacity, you can apply this concept any which way that your imagination can manage.

If you mean to try making sense out of nonsense, we'll need to go back to what you wrote earlier:

Phenomenologically: take the glee Hitler experienced as he gassed Jews. His glee is as a value experience is unassailable. It is simply a fact that he experienced this glee, say, and by itself, phenomenologically, that is, it is Good. What makes it bad is the context.

For starters, I don't think it's a good way to start an analysis by assuming something that is unverifiable. How could anyone really know how Hiter felt during the holocaust, much less 80 years after it occurred. You even go so far as to say that your claim about his feelings is indisputable.

You say that by itself his genocidal glee is good. This is your evaluation and can only mean that you think genocidal glee is good. You value genocide to a degree that it inspires delight in you.

You go on to say that genocidal glee is bad in context. This seems to mean that you value the feeling of delight that the idea of genocide inspires in you but in practice (any actual context) would be bad. This can only mean that you know that genocide is immoral and that it would be bad to practice because it's immoral or because society (other minds) consider it unacceptable and do not delight in the idea or practice of it.

IE, in discussions about art, as with philosophy in general, communication can break down when different contributors attach different meanings to the same words. — RussellA

Indeed, you seem to have made up your own meaning of aesthetic.

The aesthetic form of an object is independent of the object's context, as an object's aesthetic is the formal arrangement of the parts within the object, not any external context. — RussellA

I’ll wager that you can’t explain what this is supposed to mean.

take a relatively simple phenomenon and turn it into complete bullshit — T Clark

Welcome to the art world. :lol:

This is nonsensical. You cannot have an out-of-context experience.
— praxis

No. The context is taking up a thing apart from others. Kant did this with reason. It is not that Kant thought reason could be conceived independently of context, but that putting selected contexts at bay in order to give analysis to one feature is what analysis is all about. — Constance

Analysis is about making sense, not nonsense.

An artist is free to choose the form of their art, including paint by numbers (which I think has been done) but the choice they make reveals their person - it reveals where their heads are at, so expresses their consciousness. It expresses how they think, what they have been influenced by, their attitudes to life - it expresses how information they have been shaped by has formed them - they in turn re-present this information in the form of their art. — Pop

Obviously, a painting done yourself reveals a lot more about a person than a painting done from a paint-by-numbers kit. A dozen people could do the same kit and all the resulting paintings would be rather indistinguishable. And yet any of those dozen could hang their picture on the wall and call it art, and it is art, merely because they've presented it as such. If anyone disagrees and can't see it that way it is their own failing, their own refusal or inability to accept the invitation to an aesthetic experience.

Original artwork can express a lot about a person, including their skill at expressing themselves.

Understanding the background - the context that the art is made in is important to understanding the art. In the instance you bring up, you understand the artist needs to make a buck, and so the work should be viewed in this light. The art is still information about the artists self organization? — Pop

Not necessarily, no. In commercial art, the intention is to express the values of the client in a way that will resonate with a particular audience, for the purpose of making money.

The constant is the mind activity expressed in the form of the art. — Pop

Mind activity is expressed in everything we do, so you must mean a specific kind of activity. Let's call it 'neural art activity' or NAA for convenience. Now if I were to buy a paint-by-numbers kit and I followed it to the letter, would the resulting painting be an artwork? To others, it could certainly be regarded as artwork because it looks like artwork.

You might say that the NAA came from the people who designed the paint-by-numbers kit, but they might have simply used a photograph and a computer algorithm to produce it, and their efforts were solely for the purpose of producing paint-by-number kits and making a profit.

You need a theory that can distinguish things like fine art, commercial art, design, decoration, etc.