The Art Instinct


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This looks intriguing.

The Art Instinct

Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution

Denis Dutton (2009)

Introduction


1: Landscape and Longing


2: Art and Human Nature


3: What Is Art?

4: "But They Don't Have Our Concept of Art"


5: Art and Natural Selection


6: The Uses of Fiction


7: Art and Human Self-Domestication


8: Intention, Forgery, Dada: Three Aesthetic Problems


9: The Contingency of Aesthetic Values


10: Greatness in the Arts

This book will be the topic of an Author-Meets-Critics session of the Central Division Meeeting of the American Philosophical Association in Chicago (Feb. 17–20, 2010) at The Palmer House. The session will be 1:45–4:45pm, on Feb. 17. The Critics will be:

Mohan Matthen

Robert C. Richardson

William P. Seeley

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Speaking of that... Jane Jacobs pointed out that hunter societies ("Guardians") have highly evolved decorative arts. Decoration is how the hunter keeps his mind sharp when he is not out there tracking. Tatoos are perfect examples, but she also touches on the Greeks and the Renaissance, as examples. Traders, she notes, have different kinds of artistic expressions.

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Speaking of that... Jane Jacobs pointed out that hunter societies ("Guardians") have highly evolved decorative arts. Decoration is how the hunter keeps his mind sharp when he is not out there tracking. Tatoos are perfect examples, but she also touches on the Greeks and the Renaissance, as examples. Traders, she notes, have different kinds of artistic expressions.

And to carry further, it is the mindset behind decorative arts which evolved into the 'non-objective' arts [and 'art for the sake of art' mentality]...

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  • 1 year later...

.

Louis Torres has commented on The Art Instinct here. Torres is co-author, with Michelle Marder Kamhi, of What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand.*

The Torres-Kamhi book has been the topic of a symposium in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (V2N2). The contributors include in their comments substantial engagements with Rand’s esthetic theory and with her own works of art.

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Louis Torres has commented on The Art Instinct here.

Dutton replied to Torres here (scroll down; the reply is accompanied by a jpeg of a Sylvia Bokor painting).

Torres replied to the reply here.

Torres says:

Dutton asserts that Rand's definition of art--"a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments" (or "fundamental values," in my revision in What Art Is)--is "absurdly limited." In what respect? He does not say, except to note that the book cites "dolls, toy cars, model ships, billboard advertisements, magazine illustrations, children's play-acting, and celebrity impersonations" as examples of non-art. Each of these examples is a "selective re-creation of reality" in which factors such as marketing or entertainment value govern the selection process, as distinct from works of art, which are based on the maker's personal values, conscious or not. This is a crucial distinction which Dutton ignores in declaring that he "would happily include any of the items on that list as potentially art." Well, of course he would. From his perspective, anything can be art, its potential realized as soon as he declares it to be so.

In the above, Torres doesn't seem to consider the obvious idea that an artwork can be created for more than one purpose, that its serving of a utilitarian or other purpose doesn't necessarily conflict with its also serving a spiritual purpose (such as being created according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments), and, therefore, that, depending on the specific circumstances, each of the things that Dutton listed could indeed be art. (Rand contradicted herself on the issue of art and utility, and, if I recall correctly, during the Q&A session of her final Ford Hall Forum appearance, she briefly began to establish a line of reasoning which left room for certain utilitarian objects to qualify as art). Contrary to Torres's claim, Dutton did not appear to come from the perspective that "anything can be art." His perspective just seemed to be that many things beyond what Rand and Torres thought could be art can be art.

Anyway, Torres might begin to understand in which ways Rand's definition of art is "absurdly limited" if he were to attempt to answer Dutton's question, rather than avoiding it (and perhaps trying to wish it out of existence?):

"Personally, I find Rand's definition of art absurdly limited. By the way, exactly what reality is 're-created' in a Bach fugue?"

J

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Speaking of that... Jane Jacobs pointed out that hunter societies ("Guardians") have highly evolved decorative arts. Decoration is how the hunter keeps his mind sharp when he is not out there tracking. Tatoos are perfect examples, but she also touches on the Greeks and the Renaissance, as examples. Traders, she notes, have different kinds of artistic expressions.

In which book?

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Thanks for the additional links, Jonathan. I see from one of them that Mohan Matthen’s APA commentary on Dutton’s book is available here.

Schelling (1800) tells us “esthetic intuition is simply the intellectual intuition become objective,” where intellectual intuition is “the capacity to see the universal in the particular, the infinite in the finite, and indeed to unite both in a living unity.” My initial response would be, “Yeah, well maybe you’re onto something there, it does sound roughly like something that might be part of my experience of some works that we typically call art.” If I can isolate to which (if any) art Schelling’s conception truly applies and to which aspect of the experience (or creation) of such art it applies, then I may have a segregation worth knowing about. Schelling may have wanted to say that only works falling in the segregated group should be called art. To that I’ll likely be tempted to say “Run along and play now.” I’ll simply put a qualifying informative adjective(s) in front of art to designate the worthwhile segregation of works I have found under the Schelling criteria.

I do think substantive the arguments back and forth about what does or does not fall within Rand’s definition for art and what definition would better state the essence of the class of works she was trying to capture. There are also substantive drill-down questions, such as one mentioned by Randall Dipert* in the JARS symposium. He had written:

There is much that I like about Ayn Rand’s esthetics. Perhaps most of all, I like the simple, bold and almost unarguably true claim that greatest art proposes a “sense of life” and conveys “metaphysical value-judgments.” . . . I think one could reasonably depart far from (or at least quibble with) Rand’s own view about the best sense of life and metaphysical value judgments, and still endorse her central claim. (2001, 387)

The drill-down issue that I note in Dipert’s piece is his idea—a challenge to Rand’s express account of novels—that some novels portray neither a “realistic” view of nor an ideal positive model of good character and good life. Rather, some fine ones portray things about what those goods are not, leaving open the positive model(s). Some metaphysical rejoinders may be in order, but that will have to wait. (Distinct from that good issue, I should say I do not share Dipert’s response to or estimation of Rand’s own literature.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ted,

I think the reference is to Systems of Survival. Go with art in the Search Inside box.

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By the way, exactly what reality is 're-created' in a Bach fugue?"

If you have read Rand you will know that she answered this question.

From the Rand that I've read, the answer is that music can't re-create reality – it "cannot deal with concretes" and it "cannot convey a specific existential phenomenon," etc.

J

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By the way, exactly what reality is 're-created' in a Bach fugue?"

If you have read Rand you will know that she answered this question.

From the Rand that I've read, the answer is that music can't re-create reality – it "cannot deal with concretes" and it "cannot convey a specific existential phenomenon," etc.

J

Rand specifically identifies what she says music does recreate. She is quite explicit. You seem to be taking a rather narrow materialist metaphysics for granted, and missing her point. Do you not even have a guess as to what her answer is?

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Rand specifically identifies what she says music does recreate. She is quite explicit. You seem to be taking a rather narrow materialist metaphysics for granted, and missing her point. Do you not even have a guess as to what her answer is?

No, I think you're missing the point, which is that Rand employed a blatant double standard. When eliminating art forms that she didn't like, she used a very 'narrow materialist' definition or standard of what is a "re-creation of reality," but when discussing music, she used a much wider and subjective definition/standard. Certain Objectivists often gripe that "anything can be art" according to others' loose definitions and standards, ignoring the fact that the same is true of the loose double standard that Rand selectively applied to music.

Abstract art, which she disliked and didn't want to be an art form, was declared to be non-art because it does not present identifiable likenesses of physical things which exist in reality. It, and all art, was declared to be required to present objectively intelligible subjects (that which "does not present an intelligible subject...ceases to be art"). Abstract art was deemed to be non-art despite the fact that it does exactly what Rand claimed that music does: it "conveys" and "communicates emotions" and "concretizes" man's "sense of life" and his "method of cognitive functioning," etc.

A work of abstract art was required by Rand to objectively present the same re-creation of reality to all viewers. It wasn't enough that viewers reported individual emotional and "sense of life" responses to it. Such responses were not considered to be re-created or concretized in the art, but to be the irrational or dishonest claims of a "special insight possessed only by the mystic 'elite.'"

But, then, when it came to music, which Rand liked and wanted to be an art form, she suddenly switched to a much different definition/standard of "re-creation of reality." Music was magically exempt from presenting identifiable aural likenesses of physical things which exist in reality. It wasn't required to present objectively intelligible subjects or meanings. It was enough that it made people feel emotions and have "sense of life" responses to it. Their feelings were said to be communicated through the music rather than being special insights possessed only by the mystic elite.

Like many of her followers, Rand seems to have been quite angry about the fact that others possessed aesthetic knowledge, sensitivities and capabilities that she lacked. She seems to have been very resentful of the fact that others could experience in abstract art what she could not, and she seems to have been unwilling to even consider the idea that such differences between her and others indicated a deficiency in her rather than in the others. On this issue she was rather solipsistic: To her, her emotional responses to music were real and rational and valid and were "communicated" through the artform, where others' emotional responses to other art forms, which she happened not to share, were not.

J

Edited by Jonathan
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Rand specifically identifies what she says music does recreate. She is quite explicit. You seem to be taking a rather narrow materialist metaphysics for granted, and missing her point. Do you not even have a guess as to what her answer is?

No, I think you're missing the point, which is that Rand employed a blatant double standard. When eliminating art forms that she didn't like, she used a very 'narrow materialist' definition or standard of what is a "re-creation of reality," but when discussing music, she used a much wider and subjective definition/standard. Certain Objectivists often gripe that "anything can be art" according to others' loose definitions and standards, ignoring the fact that the same is true of the loose double standard that Rand selectively applied to music.

Abstract art, which she disliked and didn't want to be an art form, was declared to be non-art because it does not present identifiable likenesses of physical things which exist in reality. It, and all art, was declared to be required to present objectively intelligible subjects (that which "does not present an intelligible subject...ceases to be art"). Abstract art was deemed to be non-art despite the fact that it does exactly what Rand claimed that music does: it "conveys" and "communicates emotions" and "concretizes" man's "sense of life" and his "method of cognitive functioning," etc.

A work of abstract art was required by Rand to objectively present the same re-creation of reality to all viewers. It wasn't enough that viewers reported individual emotional and "sense of life" responses to it. Such responses were not considered to be re-created or concretized in the art, but to be the irrational or dishonest claims of a "special insight possessed only by the mystic 'elite.'"

But, then, when it came to music, which Rand liked and wanted to be an art form, she suddenly switched to a much different definition/standard of "re-creation of reality." Music was magically exempt from presenting identifiable aural likenesses of physical things which exist in reality. It wasn't required to present objectively intelligible subjects or meanings. It was enough that it made people feel emotions and have "sense of life" responses to it. Their feelings were said to be communicated through the music rather than being special insights possessed only by the mystic elite.

Like many of her followers, Rand seems to have been quite angry about the fact that others possessed aesthetic knowledge, sensitivities and capabilities that she lacked. She seems to have been very resentful of the fact that others could experience in abstract art what she could not, and she seems to have been unwilling to even consider the idea that such differences between her and others indicated a deficiency in her rather than in the others. On this issue she was rather solipsistic: To her, her emotional responses to music were real and rational and valid and were "communicated" through the artform, where others' emotional responses to other art forms, which she happened not to share, were not.

J

You are going way off track here. I simply asked you to state how you thought Rand would answer your question, which you presented as if it hadn't been answered.

I don't begrudge people their emotional response to various types of art which Rand would have belittled. And I don't remember Rand saying that abstract "art" cannot serve some purpose such as decoration. So what if she thought that people who enjoyed Mozart were simpletons? Does that worry you personally?

Rand would probably have done better to distinguish between the aesthetic in general and high art in particular. But she still provides a whole host of very useful conceptual tools one can use to understand, criticize, and appreciate various artistic pursuits.

Arguing strictly over definitions seems about as beside the point to me as the warning on the Q-tips box that the contents are for cosmetic use and are not to be used within the ear canal. A tool is a servant, not a master, and humans are entitled to use them in whatever ways they find rewarding. Rand's tools are very useful.

Music recreates the emotional response to the melody of the spoken voice and the rhythm of purposeful repetitive bodily motions. Rand is absolutely correct in observing that music affects the mind directly on the sensory level. (Had she denied the status of music as art because of a literal-minded adherence to a definition she would have been guilty of rationalism (adherence to idea over evidence) and conventional thinking.) A comparison of good music with abstract painting - since both might evoke emotions (a supposition I find dubious in regard to monochrome canvases) - misses the point that well done music does have progression, conflict and resolution, elements which link it to drama. A blob on a canvas lacks this, it is analogous to at best a single note or chord.

And, indeed, consciousness itself is musical, with the sequential and harmonic firing of neurons being what binds thought into unity. Music entrains the mind in a way that no other art form can. The closest one can come to a visual analog of music is watching a flame or some other simple moving fractal form.

Hence my posting the hypnotic animated liquid surface which works in a way similar to music but on the visual center of the brain.

Shallow_water_waves.gif

Edited by Ted Keer
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You are going way off track here. I simply asked you to state how you thought Rand would answer your question, which you presented as if it hadn't been answered.

It hasn't been answered. In selectively altering her criteria, Rand didn't address the issue, but avoided it. Using double standards is not a means of answering a question or challenge. It's more like an evasive maneuver.

I don't begrudge people their emotional response to various types of art which Rand would have belittled. And I don't remember Rand saying that abstract "art" cannot serve some purpose such as decoration. So what if she thought that people who enjoyed Mozart were simpletons? Does that worry you personally?

Not at all. I couldn't care less about her personal opinions of art, or of her judgments of others for liking what they liked. This isn't about her personal judgments, but about her philosophy of aesthetics. It's about my expecting consistency in applying definitions and standards to the various art forms, or, if the definitions and standards can't be applied consistently, then being open to the possibility they might need to be reevaluated as being "absurdly limited." That which Ayn Rand did not like should not have a standard applied to it which is much tougher than the standard which she applied to the art forms that she liked. Her personal emotional responses, or lack thereof, should not be the basis behind determining what is or is not art.

But she still provides a whole host of very useful conceptual tools one can use to understand, criticize, and appreciate various artistic pursuits.

I agree.

Arguing strictly over definitions seems about as beside the point to me as the warning on the Q-tips box that the contents are for cosmetic use and are not to be used within the ear canal. A tool is a servant, not a master, and humans are entitled to use them in whatever ways they find rewarding. Rand's tools are very useful.

I'm not arguing over definitions. I'm arguing that Rand was inconsistent, and that she subjectively and selectively deviated from her own standards.

Music recreates the emotional response to the melody of the spoken voice and the rhythm of purposeful repetitive bodily motions.

Is that Rand's theory or yours? It sounds like pure speculation rather than an objectively demonstrable fact. The fact that you personally might vaguely associate melody and rhythm with the general idea of vocal inflection and bodily motion in no way leads to the conclusion that vocal inflections and bodily motions are "re-created" in music. 

Rand is absolutely correct in observing that music effects the mind directly on the sensory level. Had she denied the status of music as art because of a literal-minded adherence to a definition she would have been guilty of rationalism (adherence to idea over evidence) and conventional thinking.

But it was okay that she was guilty of the rationalism of literal-mindedly adhering to a definition when it came to requiring visual art to present identifiable likenesses of things in reality?

A comparison of good music with abstract painting - since both might evoke emotions (a supposition I find dubious in regard to monochrome canvases) - misses the point that well done music does have progression, conflict and resolution, elements which link it to drama. A blob on a canvas lacks this, it is analogous to at best a single note or chord.

Speak for yourself. A specific abstract painting may lack those things in your opinion. Your opinion, however, is not the universal standard for determining which emotional responses a painting evokes or does not. Others don't share your limitations. They may see things like "progression, conflict and resolution," etc., in paintings that you don't. They may have a more sophisticated understanding of color and form than you do, and may experience something analogous to a symphony where you are only capable of experiencing a single note.

And, indeed, consciousness itself is musical, with the sequential and harmonic firing of neurons being what binds thoughts into unities. Music entrains the mind in a way that no other art form can. The closest one can come to a visual analog of music is watching a flame or some other simple moving fractal form. Hence my posting the hypnotic animated liquid surface.

Again, speak for yourself. Others are not limited to experiencing your responses. The closest that "one" can come to a "visual analog of music" will differ with each person.

J

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You are going way off track here. I simply asked you to state how you thought Rand would answer your question, which you presented as if it hadn't been answered.

It hasn't been answered. In selectively altering her criteria, Rand didn't address the issue, but avoided it. Using double standards is not a means of answering a question or challenge. It's more like an evasive maneuver.

I don't begrudge people their emotional response to various types of art which Rand would have belittled. And I don't remember Rand saying that abstract "art" cannot serve some purpose such as decoration. So what if she thought that people who enjoyed Mozart were simpletons? Does that worry you personally?

Not at all. I couldn't care less about her personal opinions of art, or of her judgments of others for liking what they liked. This isn't about her personal judgments, but about her philosophy of aesthetics. It's about my expecting consistency in applying definitions and standards to the various art forms, or, if the definitions and standards can't be applied consistently, then being open to the possibility they might need to be reevaluated as being "absurdly limited." That which Ayn Rand did not like should not have a standard applied to it which is much tougher than the standard which she applied to the art forms that she liked. Her personal emotional responses, or lack thereof, should not be the basis behind determining what is or is not art.

But she still provides a whole host of very useful conceptual tools one can use to understand, criticize, and appreciate various artistic pursuits.

I agree.

Arguing strictly over definitions seems about as beside the point to me as the warning on the Q-tips box that the contents are for cosmetic use and are not to be used within the ear canal. A tool is a servant, not a master, and humans are entitled to use them in whatever ways they find rewarding. Rand's tools are very useful.

I'm not arguing over definitions. I'm arguing that Rand was inconsistent, and that she subjectively and selectively deviated from her own standards.

Music recreates the emotional response to the melody of the spoken voice and the rhythm of purposeful repetitive bodily motions.

Is that Rand's theory or yours? It sounds like pure speculation rather than an objectively demonstrable fact. The fact that you personally might vaguely associate melody and rhythm with the general idea of vocal inflection and bodily motion in no way leads to the conclusion that vocal inflections and bodily motions are "re-created" in music.

Rand is absolutely correct in observing that music effects the mind directly on the sensory level. Had she denied the status of music as art because of a literal-minded adherence to a definition she would have been guilty of rationalism (adherence to idea over evidence) and conventional thinking.

But it was okay that she was guilty of the rationalism of literal-mindedly adhering to a definition when it came to requiring visual art to present identifiable likenesses of things in reality?

A comparison of good music with abstract painting - since both might evoke emotions (a supposition I find dubious in regard to monochrome canvases) - misses the point that well done music does have progression, conflict and resolution, elements which link it to drama. A blob on a canvas lacks this, it is analogous to at best a single note or chord.

Speak for yourself. A specific abstract painting may lack those things in your opinion. Your opinion, however, is not the universal standard for determining which emotional responses a painting evokes or does not. Others don't share your limitations. They may see things like "progression, conflict and resolution," etc., in paintings that you don't. They may have a more sophisticated understanding of color and form than you do, and may experience something analogous to a symphony where you are only capable of experiencing a single note.

And, indeed, consciousness itself is musical, with the sequential and harmonic firing of neurons being what binds thoughts into unities. Music entrains the mind in a way that no other art form can. The closest one can come to a visual analog of music is watching a flame or some other simple moving fractal form. Hence my posting the hypnotic animated liquid surface.

Again, speak for yourself. Others are not limited to experiencing your responses. The closest that "one" can come to a "visual analog of music" will differ with each person.

J

So the entire substance of your response is "that's your opinion"? If not mine, then whose opinion did you expect me to hold?

Yes, it is my opinion, based upon introspection, years of interest in the topic, and my reading of Sacks, Luria, Damasio, Ramachandran, Merlin Donald, Stephen Palmer, The Unity of Consciousness: Binding, Integration, and Dissociation, and, most recently, the three volume series Toward a Science of Consciousness, among other things.

That's what interests me.

If what interests you are assertions of relativism strangely juxtaposed with objective proof of what you in your "opinion" see as Rand's inconsistency, have fun.

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And, indeed, consciousness itself is musical, with the sequential and harmonic firing of neurons being what binds thoughts into unities. Music entrains the mind in a way that no other art form can. The closest one can come to a visual analog of music is watching a flame or some other simple moving fractal form. Hence my posting the hypnotic animated liquid surface.

Again, speak for yourself. Others are not limited to experiencing your responses. The closest that "one" can come to a "visual analog of music" will differ with each person.

J

Note that in his off-point criticism, Jonathan has deleted the end of my post, which I will bold for emphasis:

Hence my posting the hypnotic animated liquid surface which works in a way similar to music but on the visual center of the brain.

Shallow_water_waves.gif

What is going on here is a complex visual pattern which the mind processes automatically without conceptual level processing. It entrains the mind producing, in this case, a very mildly pleasurable hynoptic effect. Other similar visual experiences are kaleidoscopes, fire works displays, complexly choreographed dances, and domino chains, all of which enthrall audiences and cause spontaneous applause.

Edited by Ted Keer
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So the entire substance of your response is "that's your opinion"? If not mine, then whose opinion did you expect me to hold?

No, "that's your opinion" is not the substance of my response. The substance of my response is, "Introspecting while willfully ignoring others' testimony about what they think and feel when looking at a type of art which causes no response in you is not a rational approach to the philosophy of aesthetics. Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy which pertains to all people, not just to Rand or to Ted or to anyone else who shares their mindset and limitations."

Yes, it is my opinion, based upon introspection, years of interest in the topic, and my reading of Sacks, Luria, Damasio, Ramachandran, Merlin Donald, Stephen Palmer, The Unity of Consciousness: Binding, Integration, and Dissociation, and, most recently, the three volume series Toward a Science of Consciousness, among other things.

Do the people and their books which you cite above deal with human consciousness, or do they study only their own consciousnesses? Do the thinkers concern themselves with all of mankind, or only with themselves and what they've personally experienced?

That's what interests me.

How about when millions of people who experience strong emotions and "sense of life" responses to artworks which do nothing for you? Shouldn't someone who is interested in the mind and its abilities be interested in that? Wouldn't that be the rational and scientific approach?

If what interests you are assertions of relativism strangely juxtaposed with objective proof of what you in your "opinion" see as Rand's inconsistency, have fun.

I'm not being relativistic, if that's what you mean. In fact, I'm being the opposite. I'm suggesting that if Rand's and your emotional responses to an abstract form of art like music are real and valid, and if such responses allow music to qualify as art, then everyone else's emotional responses to other abstract art forms art just as real and valid, and also allow it to qualify as art. The validity of emotional response isn't relative to who claimed to have the emotional response.

Denying the existence of others' emotional responses, or dismissing them as "mystic elitism," is as ridiculous as a blind man asserting that those who claim to see are being "mystic elitists."

What is going on here is a complex visual pattern which the mind processes automatically without conceptual level processing. It entrains the mind producing, in this case, a very mildly pleasurable hynoptic effect. Other similar visual experiences are kaleidoscopes, fire works displays, complexly choreographed dances, and domino chains, all of which enthrall audiences and cause spontaneous applause.

Are you suggesting that you've tested every human being on the planet, including abstract art enthusiasts, and compared their responses to music with their responses to your animated liquid surface GIF as well to their favorite abstract paintings, and determined that each and every one of them had exactly the same emotional responses, and that the effect on their brains was scientifically shown to be exactly the same? Are you suggesting that it's not possible that your and Rand's brains respond significantly differently to visual phenomena than mine does, that it's not possible that I and others might see things in ways that you'll never begin to understand because you don't have the capacity to function visually at our level?

J

Edited by Jonathan
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Denying the existence of others' emotional responses, or dismissing them as "mystic elitism," is as ridiculous as a blind man asserting that those who claim to see are being "mystic elitists."

What the hell are you talking about? Who the hell are you reading? You obviously don't need me for a dialog, just make up your own.

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Denying the existence of others' emotional responses, or dismissing them as "mystic elitism," is as ridiculous as a blind man asserting that those who claim to see are being "mystic elitists."

What the hell are you talking about? Who the hell are you reading? You obviously don't need me for a dialog, just make up your own.

I was talking about Rand. Did you not notice that we were talking about Rand's views on abstract art, and that earlier in this discussion I referred to her comment that those who claimed to find meaning in abstract art were claiming to have "special insight possessed only by the mystic 'elite'"?

You should try to follow along if you're going to join a discussion.

j

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In her remarks on musical experience, in “Art and Cognition,” Rand proposed that the existential reality re-created in music is the repertoire of emotions that come up in real life. In music the emotions are experienced in an as-if manner, she says. I can see that in programmatic music such as Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony portraying the failed 1905 Russian revolution. I feel the darkness, the stirring, the clashes, the solemnity, and the light from the future, just as the composer intended.* I have those feelings in an as-if mode, as if those events were happening before me (with omniscience of the 1917 revolution), yet knowing all the while that actually they are not.

Rand’s idea was that in absolute music as-if emotions are evoked at a more abstract level, more removed from the references of as-if feeling in programmatic music. That seems right when I listen to Shoshtakovich’s Fifth Symphony. There are various feelings in its course, but the overwhelming one is of long tremendous struggle climaxing eventually in magnificent triumph. This music is an important part of what is me. A lot of other listeners hold it tight in this personal-identity way too. Rand thought of as-if feelings in absolute music as part of her wider theory of emotional abstraction, which has a long developmental history with each of us, alongside the ontogeny of cognitive abstraction.

Rand would say the intense personal way I take Shostakovich is due to my sense of life, which she relates to emotional abstraction. She might have thought the fact that I could even bear to listen to him indicated a haywire mind, but she can be wrong about that, yet right about the rest. I do not know how far she was right about the rest described above in this note. Rand had a further idea, a conjecture about how it is that music effects (and affects) emotions so directly. She was unsure if she hit the right answer on this. (She can get this wrong, yet be right about the rest described above.) Marsha Enright examines the evidence, including scientific evidence, to 1995 in “Con Molto Sentimento”. Ted may be familiar with additional neuropsychological research on the question of how music effects emotions so directly.

If a tension between what Rand wrote about music and what she wrote about abstract art demonstrably amounts to a contradiction, it would not amount to an absurdity. Not every contradiction merits the derogatory name absurdity. American Heritage Dictionary defines absurd as “ridiculously incongruous or unreasonable. See synonyms at foolish.” Turning to the latter: “foolish, silly, fatuous, absurd, preposterous, ridiculous, ludicrous. These adjectives are applied to what is devoid of wisdom or good sense. Foolish, the least emphatic or derogatory, . . . Silly suggests . . . . Fatuous . . . . Absurd, together with the remaining terms [preposterous, ridiculous, ludicrous], implies obvious departures from truth, nature, reason, or common sense.”

* – From a more distant musical culture, that of India, my reception will misplace some of what is going on. I once heard a piece that I thought was very light and would make good party music. I was informed that it was Hindu funeral music, although the lightness part was agreed. Cultural variations are merely complexities to be noted in a general account of how music means; they are not an excuse for abandoning the search for a general account.

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Thanks for the reasonable, relevant response, Stephen, for answering the question of what is recreated explicitly, and for posting the useful link.

Jonathan, I am not interested in blindfolding myself in order to join you at playing a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.

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In music the emotions are experienced in an as-if manner, she says. I can see that in programmatic music such as Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony portraying the failed 1905 Russian revolution. I feel the darkness, the stirring, the clashes, the solemnity, and the light from the future, just as the composer intended.*

I understand, but if a person were to say the same thing about a work of abstract art -- that it causes him to feel the darkness, the stirring, the clashes, the solemnity, and the light from the future, just as the artist intended -- Rand, and many of her followers, would say that the person was only describing mere "moods" evoked (and not communicated) by the art, and that experiencing mere moods is not enough to make something art.

An additional problem is Rand's insistence that art must communicate without reference to "outside considerations," such as titles, artists' or composers' statements, etc. How much of your responses to music, Stephen, involve access to "outside considerations"? How much of Rand's did? In my experience, if you inform a person of what a piece of music is supposed to be "about," even with something as simple as a brief title, they tend to visualize what they were told to visualize. It's very hard for people to disregard "outside considerations" once exposed to them.

Many times during the past decade, I've asked Objectivists to identify the subjects and meanings of pieces of music without access to "outside considerations." I asked them to listen to pieces which I suspected that they had probably never heard, or at least that they hadn't heard what the music was supposed to be "about." None of them identified subjects and meanings, let alone the composers' intended meanings. Their descriptions of what they thought and felt about the music varied, and all of their descriptions were much more vague than what I've seen the average abstract art enthusiast say about the average new piece of abstract art that he is exposed to. In short, it seems that when Objectivists are denied access to "outside considerations," they are much less capable of offering coherent explanations of what they experience in music than fans of abstract art are able to offer about abstract art.

If a tension between what Rand wrote about music and what she wrote about abstract art demonstrably amounts to a contradiction, it would not amount to an absurdity. Not every contradiction merits the derogatory name absurdity. American Heritage Dictionary defines absurd as “ridiculously incongruous or unreasonable. See synonyms at foolish.” Turning to the latter: “foolish, silly, fatuous, absurd, preposterous, ridiculous, ludicrous. These adjectives are applied to what is devoid of wisdom or good sense. Foolish, the least emphatic or derogatory, . . . Silly suggests . . . . Fatuous . . . . Absurd, together with the remaining terms [preposterous, ridiculous, ludicrous], implies obvious departures from truth, nature, reason, or common sense.”

I think that Dutton probably went just a little too far in calling Rand's definition of art "absurdly limited." Her definition is limited, but not absurdly so. Beyond her definition, though, I think that some of her further elaborations on her aesthetic criteria, her contradictions and double standards, and her very angry judgments, straw man constructions and psychologizings are beyond absurd (read her comments on "modern art" to get a taste of what I'm talking about).

J

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Music is sound without referents. It has no meaning the way language does.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Music is sound without referents. It has no meaning the way language does.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Even when the music is accompanied by the human voice?

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Music is sound without referents. It has no meaning the way language does.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Even when the music is accompanied by the human voice?

Yes, even when accompanied by the human voice. Any piece of music is not equal in "meaning" to its accompanying lyrics, which should be obvious from observing the simple fact that, lyric-wise, one verse of a song can mean something completely different from another verse, yet both are sung to the same tune. If the elusive objective "conceptual language" of music that Objectivists yearn for is ever discovered, that may present a serious problem for the future of music and lyrics.

J

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