DL's Book

[Guyau]

Well now, I have this book in my hands. Nice material quality. One special treat is the artwork by the author. The diagrams and tables look helpful.

But about the artworks! Dan, I especially like, more than like, really, Room of Wind, Prayer–Self-Portrait, Dreamer Dreamer, Random Thought, From the Roots, Freedom from Focus, Savior, and Tree of Knowledge. Thank for sharing your art in this book. There is a poem of mine you just might like right here.

Nice explication of abstract art. Can't wait to dig into your book.

Stephen

[dlewis]

Wow --Peter and Stephen, great questions/responses!

I'm glad you "more than like" the artwork Stephen-- I'm wasn't sure of its effectiveness in black and white, since most of the pieces are much better in color (and in the flesh--espoecially Moral's Gold, The Beholder, and States of Matter). I read your poems and man, thats the best contemporary use of rhyme I'm seen in poetry in a long time. I love the circular nature of the meter and word associaition and how that ties into ideas like "oneness" (first poem), the meter of days/natural time (Solistice), and life and death (His Day just made me cry-- beautiful!). It seems rare that such an analytical thinker can also write so creatively... in poetry espectially-- which othen requires so much content with so little language to be good.

Stephen-- in post #43 you address what might be the difference between the ideas of broad and narrow. I may have to think about it a little more, since some of what you're posting resonates with me, but my inkling is that you're defining the terms too specifically. If you're talking about broad and narrow synonymously with the ideas general and specific (or are we talking about the epistemological with the first and the metaphysical in the second?), then how I normally concieve it, is that axiomatic concepts are the objective beginning on the general side of things, and concrete realities help define the objective, more narrow endings for things--so the concepts of general and specific are any relative qualities based within most wide-reaching abstract and most present, concete forms possible.

Your idea of substantive propogation is very similar to how I'm using the idea of knowledge as "physical information," so yes, in the broasdest sense of knowledge in any/all timescapes, I see that as before causality. I think what gets confusing is this broad sense of how I'm using knowledge versus just physical information-- information recorded only in the referential present. Inertia may inform us of how physical reality is in its most basic form--very true-- so we see the universe as a uniformity on grand spatial scales through cosmologic measurements, and observe very basic substances like light as having uniform speed and these seem to suggest that things tend to act the same way in their primary forms and this doesn't change, and energy is always conserved when it changes, and that in and of itself is a constancy. But we can't automatically take such facts and then say it is constancy before causality (or vice versa), because science, e.g. is incapable of measuring what lies outside the cosmologic horizon at present moment and even then we don't know if there other things outside whatever is found on the other side, and what is all the darkness around light? Could gravity and "dark energy" interact to create electromagnetic radiation? You're right that physics narrows down the possibilities for philosophy, but if there is an explanation that can take those laws and arrange them in a more functional way, then I think that at least should be considered if not eventually accepted.

To me for a self-caused or "naturally-caused" universe to really exist on its own (without some supernatural creation) requires both generation and destruction of matter and energy, not just eternal conservation on a purely physical level. But here is how I see conservation working on the metaphysical (perhaps purely spatial-temporal level) level-- if we take anything and everything substance can be (i.e. can exist) it becomes in some way spatially-temporally infinite, where there must be some constant eternal substance/context that also is inclusive of changes, causes, effects, etc. Now if we simply started with only one "blank slate" of the universe-- one one constant thing (not even change in location) with no causality, or different things.substances/contexts to catalyze new forms, then there would be no self-caused universe. So there has to be some give and take between things, even if one is some eternal source/first context. It is only thorugh the idea of constant and/or causal action that that some change from one thing to another makes sense in a purely self-caused evolutionary sense. So it seems that action comes first in the logic, not constancy or causality. This primary active context roots my "knowledge"-- some eternal physical propogation that can ground the present with past and future -- not just though the psychological kinds of continuity that Peter (and Rand) talks about, but also on all physical levels for all times-- this isn't simply the real present, but all of the physical actions we don't or can't contain within our minds because we are inherently limited by our bodies and the limitations within all specific forms and the physical laws of nature themselves.

Now as to whether causality comes before constancy, thats a little more debatable to me, but I tend to think the next logical step from any eternal context or thing that has to have different states/things within it to be self-caused or self-propogated (or to act), is the idea of "eternal beginnings and endings"-- i.e. causes and effects. Constancy then comes as the next step after when considering any (but not all) first states/things/contexts (adding more restraints upon the beginning and ending) and then how it changes into the next thing.

I should say I think all these italicized terms (except maybe effects) should be metaphysical (in the eternal way I define metaphycial) ideas or "essences." So the law of inertia as some constancy should always be there, even if it isn't as basic as these other things.

[dlewis]

Peter--

Yeah, you're right, "Evergreen" has a sound of loftiness I don't particularly like either, but I like the meaning that evergreen has for me-- as something returning, to be eternally old or wise, yet also potentially young and naive.. that really describes me-- I'm an old soul who will probably kill himself falling in a manhole someday. Sometimes I think I'm close to Alzheimers with how many everyday facts/information just flows through my head like nothing is there--lol. I also like the idea of evergreen as a deep, rich color somethies more dark than black is as a pigment so that you can practically lose yourself in it (it's my favorite color). I thought it'd be good as an pen name for art/writing since Dan Lewis is pretty common, even though I don't want to use it in my daily life. I also needed a name to register my permaculture business under, so that worked well.

Thanks for posting my Amazon description and for your excitement about the ideas. I also enjoy your science fiction references and how they pertain to this idea of knowledge-- once we grasp the physical informational roots of it, it opens up all sorts of possibilities in terms of artificial intelligence, medical fields, neurology, psychology, language, aesthetics, etc. etc (really all fields of knowledge, even all things).

I love your lie detector example addressing complexity of thought and how that doesn't necessarily equate to more truth--or some more efficient arrangment of knowledge. I address this in my next concept after cholce-- reason. Here's another passage:

"Conversely in many cases, two (or more) changes or effects, although ultimately connected, happen at different times; if two or more actions are not concurrent, it seems logical to assume they must happen before or after one another. Beyond simultaneity, sequence seems key to the nature of action or evolution itself. It is true we often do not know what changes in various processes occur first or later, or at more primal or more evolved levels, but considering our experiences of progressive effects in time’s forward motion (time’s “arrow”), it is likely safe to say that some things happen before and/or after others. In other words, for any causes to produce any new effects, whether operated by God or evolutionary forces or something we haven’t yet conceived, there needs to be an order to when those actions emerge, whether that order holds any other significance.

This means forward time in a universe of growth and decay must happen from causes to effects, containing inherent reasons for how and why things happen, no matter how complicated or seemingly irrational their processes. Reason is a broad enough term to envelope all sequential changes, even though it also relates to our evolved abilities as humans to unravel causes and effects in more detail, separating apart and connecting together information to better understand its order.

Induction is one of two main classifications for human reasoning, stemming from external, sensory-perceptual data. The other is deduction, stemming from what is internally or inherently known. As externalized and internalized abilities, induction and deduction link together causes and effects in very different ways. However in contrast to cholce (which is internally self-contained), induction and deduction are interdependent modes of reason, bridging external and internal boundaries together between entities.^[1] This ability of reason to link the causes and effects of otherwise distinctly different entities together, helps establish it as a barometer for truth, both grounding and expanding knowledge, where effects can be traced back to causes or projected forward from them (even when very removed from each other).

Like choice (vs. cholce), consciousness or the mind, I will consider truth a primarily human reasoning trait, though similar truth qualities may be echoed down the evolutionary ladder (via reason). Truth relies not simply on the amount of what we know, but the depth of what is known, measuring how clearly the mind connects causes and effects. So knowing what is true is not the same as knowing a lot, or even having a high I.Q…. even a lot of information at one’s disposal does not mean it will be efficiently or effectively applied. Rather than absolute, truth is important and practical to understand as this comparative knowledge state, so that it doesn’t collapse into other concepts like reality or knowledge, standing on its own as a human standard for reasoning. But in understanding truth as our degree of knowledge connection, of our internal with external states, what level of connection (or lack thereof) would separate a false claim from a true one? The amount of knowledge clarity or usefulness that would classify something as true vs. false is obviously up for debate, but forgoing any complicated hypothesis, I would like to suggest some general classifications that may help address the issue.^[2]"

[1]. Induction and deduction could be seen as primary forms of logical reasoning, but this is not to say there aren’t potentially different or more specific types. Francis Bacon was the first to attribute induction (from particular to general) and deduction (from general to particular) when using the scientific method (Runes, Dictionary of Philosophy, 74, 145-146). My take on induction and deduction is a bit different. I think induction relies on what we experience as observation, or gathering information primarily from the external world. Deduction instead, pieces together this information from the inside-out. This does not necessarily dictate that information moves from general to specific or vice-versa. This is also is different than empiricism and rationalism, because it doesn’t put favor on any one level of our consciousness, like through our sensory-perceptual versus our conceptual faculties.

One can blend two specific things into a generalized concept through either induction or deduction. For instance, one could conceptualize chairs and tables to furniture either by seeing them used for some common purpose in the same room (induction), or by seeing a table and chair separately in different rooms and linking their purposes together primarily in one’s mind (deduction). The same is true of general to specific reasoning, and on any conscious level. Young toddlers, for example, may think many people are their mommies based-off some internal feeling of closeness with all of them (deduction) or because all people that look like mom, e.g. all young females carrying children must be mommies (induction). Yet regardless of personal approaches, both outside experiences and internally initiated connections seem necessary for us to shape our ideas.

[2]. The classifications listed here for types of truth are not original ideas. These ideas have been discussed by many philosophers for centuries. What is original is the gradation of the concepts on a scale of degree, showing generally how truth can be conceived as relative, yet still measurable and applicable to different psychological states or levels of consciousness.

The the levels go through the ideas (from less to more truth): ignorance, deceit, fantasy, paradox, instinct, experience, rationale, certainty. It is a pretty controversial way of looking at truth, I understand, but I think its more valid than conventional black & white notions, or those that tie truth one-to-one with reality.

"Reason" is also used more abstractly here than it is normally used and this ties into what you were saying Peter about us needing to open up our perspectives in order to grow. I really feel that Rand's and even most common understnadings of the term were/are too constrictive. If there is cause and effect then we can say things have some reason(s) for being, orders and/or progressions which tie causes and effects, and more demonstably if they are repeatable, whether we are conscious of these causes and effects or not.

Oh-- I wanted to make a clarificaiton about consiousness and the mind, and whether the mind can be "free" of consciousness. I do relate mind in the book to a something that has achieved at some point in time, a conscious ability, thus for us I think this is when we begin to develop our brains, but this doesn't mean brain and mind are the same thing-- I thnk there could be certain essential kinds of patterning to different levels of physical self-containment (for "life" perhaps as kinds of chemo-electrical stimulation in bodies/brains) that could signify whether somehting is "alive," has a "mind," and also on what level of awareness it is operating. Does that make sense?

[Peter]

One sentence stood out to me in the following short article I post at the end:

"The fact that you can do that at these high speeds indicates to us that what vision does is find concepts," study leader Mary Potter . . .

end quote

Dan mentions, “. . . it is likely safe to say that some things happen before and/or after others.”

I would have used the words, *sensory* input is processed to become a *perception* rather than sense (vision) becomes a concept.

Peter

From Live Science

The human brain can achieve the remarkable feat of processing an image seen for just 13 milliseconds, scientists have found. This lightning speed obliterates the previous record speed of 100 milliseconds reported by previous studies.

In the study, scientists showed people a series of images flashed for 13 to 80 milliseconds. Viewers successfully identified things like a "picnic" or "smiling couple" even after the briefest of glimpses.

"The fact that you can do that at these high speeds indicates to us that what vision does is find concepts," study leader Mary Potter, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., said in a statement." That's what the brain is doing all day long — trying to understand what we're looking at."

The eyes shift their gaze three times per second, so the ability to process images speedily may help the eyes find their next target, Potter said.

When a person looks at something, the retina sends that information to the brain, which processes shape, color and orientation. Potter and her team aimed to increase gradually the speed at which people could identify images until they were no more accurate than they would have been if they had guessed the image. The viewers had never seen the images before.

Previous studies suggested the brain takes at least 50 milliseconds to send visual information from the retina to the "top" of the brain's visual processing chain and back again in loops that confirm what the eye saw, so the researchers expected people would get worse at seeing images shown for less than 50 milliseconds.

But Potter's team found that although people's performance declined on average as the time was reduced, they still performed better than chance when identifying images flashed for as little as 13 milliseconds, the speed limit of the computer monitor they used.

The findings, detailed online Jan. 16 in the journal Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, show that people were processing the images much more quickly than scientists believed was possible. One reason may be that the study participants became faster with practice, and also received feedback on their performance, Potter said.

The findings support those from a study of macaque monkeys in 2001 that found the animals respond to specific kinds of images — such as faces — flashed for just 14 milliseconds.

These studies demonstrate that the information only needs to flow in one direction, from the retina to the visual brain areas, in order to identify concepts, without needing feedback from other brain areas. This ability could give the brain the time it needs to decide where to point the eyes, which can take only 100 to 140 milliseconds. (It might also explain why some people report a "sixth sense," when they unconsciously pick up on visual cues in a scene.)

In addition, even though viewers saw the images for only 13 milliseconds, part of their brain may have continued to process them, because sometimes, participants weren't asked about the image until after they saw a sequence of images.

Next, the researchers want to see how long the brain can hold visual information glimpsed for such a short time, and which brain regions are active when a person correctly identifies what they saw.

[tmj]

So I and major league hitters will both receive the visual stimulus of a fastball( the arm motion of the pitcher, and rotation of the ball) at rate the same rate but they have trained their brain and muscles to react more quickly? This is what we mean when(if?) we say 'they can see the ball better than me'? Or that they can hit the ball and I suck at it.?

[merjet]

Major league hitters can see the ball better.

"Certainly we felt that professional baseball players must have excellent visual acuity, but we were surprised to find that 81% of the players had acuities of 20/15 or better and about 2% had acuity of 20/9.2 (the best vision humanly possible is 20/8). The average visual acuity of professional baseball players is approximately 20/13!" (Link)

[Guyau]

Re #52

Thank you, Dan, for your remarks on my poetry.

I agree that constancy is not prior to change or causality, not prior in logic and not prior in time phsically. Our physics proclaims no priority of one over the other. Likewise for physical necessity and contingency.

Our physics does proclaim generation and destruction back and forth between matter and fields (gamma to particle pairs, or reverse), as well as between order and disorder. Action as in life is not in activity of inanimate existents, as you likely recognize, perhaps setting the difference in some perspective against the predominate perspective of we moderns. The term action as used (in two senses) within physics is not the same as the term action as used in biological contexts. A falling rock is action importantly more simple compared to a plant root tropism aligning to the direction of gravity. The activity of inanimate existents is the base from which living action develops and to which living action complies in its every curly cue. We have science of that development and standing relationship.

The imputation of life concepts and living-thought concepts to inanimate nature or metaphysical nature is a fault in Leibniz, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Peirce, and Whitehead. In all this variety, the fault is a fault. I gather you do not see it as error, but as truth of the world and its continuity from non-living to living (including thought among the latter).

Important related contemporary works are:

Mind in Life

Evan Thompson (2007)

The Living Mind

Richard Dien Winfield (2011)

Functions in Mind

Carolyn Price (2001)

Re #27

You are right, I think, on completeness of Rand’s axioms. She did not say against further axioms. Right you are, I think, to seek them out.

I would say, however, that axioms termed each by a single word alone seem a rather loose sort of metaphysical and epistemological structure. Axiomatic statements, axiomatic propositions, set out for a foundational approach to philosophy make it more thoroughly axiomatic. So, with Objectivism, one has axiomatic statements “Existence exists,” “Not A and not-A,” “Existence is identity,” and “Consciousness is identification.” In my own philosophy and book thereon, I surely will be adding axioms to Rand’s pool. I’ll aim for exhibition of their tight connectedness by axiomatic statements into which each axiomatic concept enters at least once, as Rand crafted with her set of axiomatic concepts.

There are other foundational approaches to philosophy besides axiomatic ones, and works of this sort can have great merit. I’m thinking of empirically and rationally founded, organically flowing ones, such as in Robert Nozick, Charles Lamore, and other contemporary philosophies. But I’m thinking too of anyone who aims for giving a comprehensive set of categories, few in number, into which all fits.

Looking forward to your big scheme.

Related works:

The Four-Category Ontology – A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science

E. J. Lowe (2006)

Categories of Being – Essays on Metaphysics and Logic

Leila Haaparanta and Heikki J. Koskinen, editors (2012)

Re #40

“ . . . helped show me btw) had to mean that there was in fact a completely unavoidable self-proven or ‘axiomatic’ idea, engulfing both metaphysics and epistemology.”

It’s finally dawned on me that probably what I had mentioned (fifteen years ago?) was the Objectivist proposal that the law of identity, in Rand’s sense, is at once foundation for metaphysics and for epistemology. This is a point I would have gotten from Peikoff in some lecture(s), which idea I have learned more recently was also contained in Nathaniel Branden’s lecture series Basic Principles of Objectivism (of the ’60s), lately transcribed in The Vision of Ayn Rand.

[Jonathan]

Well now, I have this book in my hands. Nice material quality. One special treat is the artwork by the author. The diagrams and tables look helpful.

But about the artworks! Dan, I especially like, more than like, really, Room of Wind, Prayer–Self-Portrait, Dreamer Dreamer, Random Thought, From the Roots, Freedom from Focus, Savior, and Tree of Knowledge. Thank for sharing your art in this book. There is a poem of mine you just might like right here.

Nice explication of abstract art. Can't wait to dig into your book.

Stephen

Cool. I didn't realize that Dan was an artist and liked to give his opinions on aesthetic matters.

Dan, I'd be very interested in seeing samples of your work. Do you have any links to images of your work that you could post?

What are your views on abstract art?

J

[dlewis]

Jonathan,

Thank you for inquiring about aesthetics and my art-- my philosophy in Evolition really comes out of my love for design, and my roots are in visual art-- I really believe in that beautiful, eternal pattern or "golden braid" idea that a few philosophers (like Douglas Hofstadter in his Godel, Escher and Bach) have kicked around for a while. Instead of outlining a lot my aesthetic views on here, I'm just going to redirect you to my website. I'm not really finished with it yet, but it has long, even full sections from my book on there-- the portion on visual art is there for now (I may reduce this at a leter time but I want as much exposure and understanding of what I'm getting at as possible right now). My work is also there in color (though some of the images are still a little out of focus!). Anyway this site should give you a good idea of my work and aestheitc views: http://dlevergreen.wix.com/visionsofevergreen

[dlewis]

Stephen,

Thanks again for sharing your poetry-- I want go back and read it again-- will/does it remain on here for at least a while?

Thanks also for explaining where physics stands on all these issues--I do think it is important that physics remain empirically objective and not be swayed by theory alone. I do agree that physics informs philosophy, but just that it doesn't dictate all of it. How you've described action is how I see it as well-- the inanimate and the living stem from some common "action," but still of course have their important, special differences-- I think my view of knowledge is a new kind of view where physical information is stretched to eternal levels, though I do not go so far as Eastern philosophies/religions do in thinking that consciousness stretches beyond animal awareness (as we currently know it). My attempt is to congeal philosophy with science without becoming reductionistic, so I take a holistic stand, proposing axiomatic structure (starting from existence) as the most wide-reaching basis for that holism.

I forgot to locate the passage to site from ITOE or Objetcivism--From A to Z, but I think there is a passage in which Rand talks about why axiomatic concepts are important to understand beyond mere axioms. With axioms, as you explain, the object/thing is linked with its action (like Existence exists)--axioms help us describe the action of such a whole (supposedly complete within the statement)... but I think such a thing and its action are already, intrinisically (not just implicitly), automatically linked within axiomatic concepts-- with axiomatic concepts "thing" and "action" are already fused into some complete and all-encompassing whole, where all things and all their actions are simultaneously explained on a vey basic, fundamental level-- that's why Rand's framing of these ideas as "axiomatic concepts" was significant , even though other philosophers had discovered such content before.

Rand did state the axioms Existence exists. Existence is Identity and Consciosness is identification. I only fully agree with the first axiom-- that axiom is trully self-reflexive, or at least self-reflexive in a different way. I think the other two stretch the relationships too much to be used effectively all the time. I don't see them as fundamentally axiomatic. I'm not entirely sure of these axioms, but I attempt to replace her latter two axioms in the last chapter of my book with these three others: Knowledge is knowing, Self self-exists and Identtiy is indentifying, or self-knowing, to try to expand and explain their definitions from their own nature. I do think you're right that it is a good idea to try to split these "things" from their "actions" to see how the concepts relate and first evolve, and I agree that other propositions and axioms can be added, but I think they should be derivative and of course don't have to connect as self-intrinsically.

I agree with you that there can be other approaches to the foundations of everything-- because anything must be dervied from everything, there will always be some special link of any particular to a grand totality. But there are more efficient and useful philosophies, and I'm hoping that my structure has the comprehensiveness, beauty and brevity to be used, and to hold up, for future generations (I can hope anyway:). I'm hoping to apply it in more immediately practical fields to try to demonstate its capabilities. The most practical structure I've built in the book is probably the one for visual art-- it expands and organizes visual design elements in ways I think can create new levels of sensory visual experinece-- the other fields I'm not as trained, and they are probably more abstract, so I don't know how practical yet they can be.

I do hope you enjoy the reading/thinking experience, if nothing else.

[Jonathan]

Jonathan,

Thank you for inquiring about aesthetics and my art-- my philosophy in Evolition really comes out of my love for design, and my roots are in visual art-- I really believe in that beautiful, eternal pattern or "golden braid" idea that a few philosophers (like Douglas Hofstadter in his Godel, Escher and Bach) have kicked around for a while. Instead of outlining a lot my aesthetic views on here, I'm just going to redirect you to my website. I'm not really finished with it yet, but it has long, even full sections from my book on there-- the portion on visual art is there for now (I may reduce this at a leter time but I want as much exposure and understanding of what I'm getting at as possible right now). My work is also there in color (though some of the images are still a little out of focus!). Anyway this site should give you a good idea of my work and aestheitc views: http://dlevergreen.wix.com/visionsofevergreen

Thank you for the link. Very interesting art, and brilliant, deep thinking! God, it's wonderful to read aesthetics from an intelligent, visual arts-based perspective in an Objectivist forum!

J

[Jonathan]

Dan, I have question about your drawing Room of Wind. In your comments on visual art, you wrote (page 31 of the PDF):

"Often one-point perspectives can accurately describe human room sizes, while two and three point perspectives are needed for us to accurately perceive cityscapes. When objects are viewed from even farther distances, like down on cities from an airplane, parallel lines can start to curve. Using curvilinear perspective, extreme depths can be condensed into smaller spaces. Anish Kapoors Cloud Gate (commonly called The Bean), aching over an entryway to Chicagos Millennium Park, is a good example of the vast visual condensation brought on by curvilinear perspective, immersing viewers in an almost cosmologic cocoon of mirrors, warping our common three-dimensional perspectives. This vast cumulative effect widens our point perspectives to what may be the limits of our convergent or peripheral visions, an effect aligning well with my photographically-influenced element, zooma kind of visual exponential growth."

Was it your intention in Room of Wind to suggest either exponential growth or contraction? The reason that I ask is that, although I haven't yet measured the perspective of the image by anything but eye, it appears to me that the distances between pilasters increase (double?) as they recede in (the illusion) of space. To me the perspective deviation has a sort of Hubble Constant feeling of motion to it. Was that what you were after, or is my experience of it a serendipitous reaction to the nature of sketching as approximation?

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

I haven't had time to read the discussion, but I did look at the art you linked to, Dan. I like it a lot.

Room of Wind reminds me of a vision I had of a "tunnel into space" at the "dawn" of 1981 (approximately as a clock striking midnight would have been audibly striking if I'd had a clock which audibly struck the hour).

Ellen

[dlewis]

Thanks so much Jonathan and Ellen for the compliments!

Jonathan, I'm with you, it seems aesthetic and art-based philosophy is rarely that comprehensive and insightful--I was so frustrated in college trying to find material I could actually use, or that applied well to my work--artists don't seem too concerned about it--some even hate it profusely since we have such a history of narrow mindedness in the arts--I definitely understand where they coming from (I'll take vagueness over dogmatic practices in the arts if it comes down to it), but being the analytical person I am, I needed to search out more solid groundwork addressing the importance of what I was doing with my life.

On Room of Wind, my main visual purpose at the time I created it was to describe atmosphere-- how the movement of air and light through the room had as much physical importance as the room itself, carrying energy through it and defining it with its subtle pressures. Metaphorically, I meant the image to represent a clearing of one's mind, some return to a basic state of wholeness and presence, and in that, giving us a more firm grounding or direction to move forward. The piece was created with only horizonal and vertical sharp/striking lines of different pressure-- no erasure, but the visual effect was meant to recreate what you, Ellen, talk about audibly, as a bell or loud, but clear, resonant vibration, channelling us and shaking us into some meditative clarity (e.g. versus a trapped kind of focus). So Jonathan, I wasn't thinking consciously about any exponential growth or contraction, but I did want a kind of spatial undulation-- the visual effect you may be sensing with the "larger" columns, is not actually that they are drawn out of perspective, but the fact that by keeping close parallel lines of differing weights together, natural optical illusions start to flatten the space-- where the background subtlely moves forward and back or visually vibrates-- I did want to describe a vast space, but with an end.

Your question is interesting Jonathan because you are right--although Room of Wind is only a one-point persceptive, it suggests a wider perspective--it is using two different kinds of visual illusions in tension with each other (the parallel lines vs. the point perspective) to create a kind of composite, new space, perhaps stretching their potentials. I'll have to think about the visual mechanics of this more, but it is interesting. My dad more than a few years ago said he felt looking a this picture like he felt when looking at some portraits-- like the eyes were following him as he moved to different viewing perspectives in our living room. I wonder if there is some connection between these illusions there-- of three-dimensionality on a flat surface somehow giving us more sense of depth than a three-dimensional object itself? I'll have to think on this issue! If anyone has some insight please share!

I had a respected friend recommend to me today that I should take the visual arts (or perhaps the aethetics and visual arts) section of my book and focus that in a condensed form for a more general reader or perhaps targeted to visual design classes for colleges-- what you both think about that idea? I kind of like it. Since my epistemologic groundwork is set in Evolition, my plan was definitely to write a book simply on aesthetics, and besides addressing visual art, include sections developing the axiomatic desgns of music, literature, and performance (or find people of like mind who could articulate these fields and their axiomatic structures more intuitively), as well as addressing the creative process in general. But maybe I can market the writing as several vignettes-- may be easier to digest this way?

[Ellen Stuttle]

[...] the visual effect was meant to recreate what you, Ellen, talk about audibly, as a bell or loud, but clear, resonant vibration, channelling us and shaking us into some meditative clarity (e.g. versus a trapped kind of focus).

Interesting, since the vision of which "Room of Wind" reminds me occurred just when my life-and-intellectual focus was on the edge of a major shift (in the next months I began reading the work of Carl Jung).

The vision scene was a different base shape, not a rectangular "room," instead like an equilateral square, or "diamond," as I called it, with the axes aligned top/bottom and left/right. There was an effect such as I imagine from being inside the umbilical cord of a space ship rapidly unfolding into the space beyond the ship.

I don't have the knowledge to comment on the technical details of how the effect was produced, and is produced in your drawing. I just know that the effect for me is of a sweep of motion into distance.

Ellen

[BaalChatzaf]

Isn't Jung's work just as non scientific as Freud's?

[Jonathan]

Jonathan, I'm with you, it seems aesthetic and art-based philosophy is rarely that comprehensive and insightful--I was so frustrated in college trying to find material I could actually use, or that applied well to my work--artists don't seem too concerned about it--some even hate it profusely since we have such a history of narrow mindedness in the arts--I definitely understand where they coming from (I'll take vagueness over dogmatic practices in the arts if it comes down to it), but being the analytical person I am, I needed to search out more solid groundwork addressing the importance of what I was doing with my life.

I think there's also a tendency for artists to not want to kill the magic by analyzing it too much. Having a strong, comprehensive theory can make an artist want to then follow that theory rather exploring, discovering, creating and expressing freely and naturally.

So Jonathan, I wasn't thinking consciously about any exponential growth or contraction, but I did want a kind of spatial undulation-- the visual effect you may be sensing with the "larger" columns, is not actually that they are drawn out of perspective, but the fact that by keeping close parallel lines of differing weights together, natural optical illusions start to flatten the space-- where the background subtlely moves forward and back or visually vibrates-- I did want to describe a vast space, but with an end.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I wasn't talking about larger columns, but larger spaces between the columns. In your image, these spaces increase the farther they are from the viewer. They double. But I don't think that the image would have the same magic if the spacing was proper. In fact, I'm pretty sure it would kill the image. With the doubled distances, the viewer can see more of the surface area of the distant spaces -- it eliminates the drastic compression/foreshortening that would occur with accurate perspective.

So, it appears to be an example of what I was talking about above: your drawing freely and naturally, and not following the science of perspective accurately, has resulted in some magic that wouldn't have happened had you conformed to theory.

Your question is interesting Jonathan because you are right--although Room of Wind is only a one-point persceptive, it suggests a wider perspective--it is using two different kinds of visual illusions in tension with each other (the parallel lines vs. the point perspective) to create a kind of composite, new space, perhaps stretching their potentials. I'll have to think about the visual mechanics of this more, but it is interesting.

I think the visual mechanical explanation is that you unknowingly erred in the perspective. It's serendipity. It's a fortunate accident. And I think it's a fabulous one.

I had a respected friend recommend to me today that I should take the visual arts (or perhaps the aethetics and visual arts) section of my book and focus that in a condensed form for a more general reader or perhaps targeted to visual design classes for colleges-- what you both think about that idea? I kind of like it. Since my epistemologic groundwork is set in Evolition, my plan was definitely to write a book simply on aesthetics, and besides addressing visual art, include sections developing the axiomatic desgns of music, literature, and performance (or find people of like mind who could articulate these fields and their axiomatic structures more intuitively), as well as addressing the creative process in general. But maybe I can market the writing as several vignettes-- may be easier to digest this way?

That's a tough one. Your visual arts section does have a lot of definitions and technical explanations that many non-artists are probably just going to skip over, or not understand very clearly without lots of visual examples to accompany them, but I think they do play a very important role in demonstrating just how much information or expression can be contained in a simple form and frame. I think a lot of people look at a color and see just a color. They don't think in terms of its value, hue and saturation, and what effect those individual aspects can have in relation to surrounding colors, textures, scales, etc.

So, I don't know. Personally, I'd rather you not condense anything for the general reader, but then again, you seem to really know what you're doing, so I would suspect that you have the skills to condense it without losing the impact of identifying how much visual evidence and information can be contained in even the simplest of forms.

J

[dlewis]

Interesting Ellen-- I like your descriptions of the sweeping motion through space. You have a poetic way of looking at things. I'm curious of both you and Jonathan-- what are your backgrounds/fields of study-- what draws you to aesthetic analysis, and what are your views on Objectivist aesthetics?

[Jonathan]

Interesting Ellen-- I like your descriptions of the sweeping motion through space. You have a poetic way of looking at things. I'm curious of both you and Jonathan-- what are your backgrounds/fields of study-- what draws you to aesthetic analysis, and what are your views on Objectivist aesthetics?

I'm a professional visual artist/illustrator/photographer/graphic designer/sculptor.

As for my views of the Objectivist Esthetics, I think that Rand very forcefully and brilliantly presented her personal view of the art of literature, but inappropriately tried to expand it to all of the other art forms. It doesn't fit. And she also limited the field of aesthetics to art, rather than also including the aesthetic effects of nature (perhaps she made the false assumption that only man-made objects could qualify as having a philosophical/aesthetic effect on people?). I've found a lot of great value in her original thinking on many aspects of aesthetics, but at the same time I also find most of them to be problematic. A few of her ideas are blatantly self-contradictory. My biggest problem currently is that the Objectivist Esthetics doesn't actually explore the nature of art as mankind can experience it, but rather begins with the unwarranted assumption that Rand's personal aesthetic capabilities and limitations are mankind's universal capabilities and limitations. There is no consideration for the possibility that Rand may have had a "tin ear" in regard to any of the art forms. There is no proposed means by which to objectively determine that any viewer, including Rand, might be inept at judging certain art forms. Objectivism only advises people to judge the quality of the art, but takes for granted their equal competence to judge it, which is anything but rational or objective.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

Isn't Jung's work just as non scientific as Freud's?

No, it's a different category. Not up to discussing what I mean by the answer at the moment, and I think that Jung would mostly be unexplorable territory for you anyway, given your claims of a lack of inner life.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I wasn't talking about larger columns, but larger spaces between the columns. In your image, these spaces increase the farther they are from the viewer. They double. But I don't think that the image would have the same magic if the spacing was proper. In fact, I'm pretty sure it would kill the image. With the doubled distances, the viewer can see more of the surface area of the distant spaces -- it eliminates the drastic compression/foreshortening that would occur with accurate perspective.

So, it appears to be an example of what I was talking about above: your drawing freely and naturally, and not following the science of perspective accurately, has resulted in some magic that wouldn't have happened had you conformed to theory.

I, too, think that proper spacing would kill the magic. I think the feeling of "wind" blowing, extending the room, coursing as energy of and through it, would be lost.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Interesting Ellen-- I like your descriptions of the sweeping motion through space. You have a poetic way of looking at things. I'm curious of both you and Jonathan-- what are your backgrounds/fields of study-- what draws you to aesthetic analysis, and what are your views on Objectivist aesthetics?

I have a wide reading of literature, mostly done on my own, although a very treasured educational experience was my junior and senior years of high school classes with a teacher, Emily Elizabeth Rice, who to this day I think couldn't have been topped from the perspective of what I learned from her.

Academically, and again through personal studies, I have a strong background in biology. I majored in psychology in college, also taking, along with courses in biology, a number of courses each in philosophy and in anthropology, a couple sociology courses (one of which I thought was awful), and enough musicology courses for a minor in music.

I thought for several years that I would continue to a doctorate in psychology, and I made a couple abortive starts at graduate school, but I wasn't enthused. Behaviorism, which I thought was way wrong-headed, was still dominating research psychology then. (My goals were always research-oriented, not clinical.)

In September, 1968, I moved to New York City from the Midwest, still hemming and hawing about whether to get a doctorate. In 1972, I chanced to be sent for a job interview to the publicity department at J. B. Lippincott. I hit it off with the publicity manager, took the job as her assistant. Then there was an opening for copyeditor in the Young Readers department, so I got that job and by a couple years later, became a senior editor. I very much enjoyed working in publishing and abandoned thoughts of graduate school. Some years later, I turned to free-lancing instead of working for a single company. (I quit doing any paid editing work about six years ago, since my sight had started to deteriorate, and I wouldn't trust myself not to miss more than a "reasonable" amount of errors in text.)

Regarding Objectivist aesthetics, I pretty much go along with what Jonathan said in post #69, but I might have a more-negative view than his. I don't buy the underpinning of Rand's theory - "metaphysical value judgments" and "sense of life." (I think Jonathan doesn't either, but he didn't say that.) I don't feel that I've "found a lot of value in [Rand's] thinking on many aspects of aesthetics," instead more a feeling of irritation, compounded by up-close experiences of Objectivist up-tightness about aesthetic response. "The aesthetic response as a morals exam," I wrote many years ago about the up-tightness. Plus, I think that approaching art with the kind of questions engendered by taking Rand on aesthetics seriously gets in the way of experiencing and understanding art.

Well, that's quite a bit longer than I was expecting to write when I started.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

I have been plowing through the Poetics by Aristotle and I think I know where Rand got some of her stuff (including her approach), starting with mimêsis, which is usually translated as imitation or representation, accompanied by a qualification from the translator that this is not exactly the meaning. For instance, here is a quote from the "Introduction" by Malcolm Heath to the current translation I am reading:

... he [Aristotle] believes both painting and poetry to be forms of mimêsis, a word which I shall translate as 'imitation.' Many scholars would object to this rendering, and prefer 'representation.' All translations are, of course, to some extent inadequate, and 'imitation' is by no means perfect; but there are two reasons why 'representation' may be particularly unhelpful in this context. First, it fails to capture an essential element in Aristotle's concept of mimêsis -- that of a similarity which does not rest wholly on a convention. For example, an arbitrary symbol on a map my 'represent' an airport, but the representation is purely conventional; the symbol is not a mimêsis of the airport. A scaled outline of its runways would be a mimêsis. Aristotle is quite explicit in linking mimêsis and similarity even in cases where we would find it odd to speak of 'imitation': he says, for example, that melody and rhythm can be 'likenesses' and 'imitation' of character and emotion (Politics, 1340a18-23, 38f.), effectively equating the two terms. Secondly, 'representation' fails to capture the full range of Aristotle's concept. The use of a quasi-technical term of modern aesthetics may tend to obscure the continuity which Aristotle perceives between mimêsis in painting, poetry and music and in other, non-artistic forms of activity, such as the mimicry of animal noises and other sounds (Poetics, 47a20, cf. Plato, Republic, 397a, Laws 669c-d) and children's play-acting (Poetics, 48b7f. cf. Politics, 1336a32-4). This continuity is essential to Aristotle's argument in chapter 4 of the Poetics; his point there is precisely that poetry is an expression of a human instinct for mimêsis that is also displayed in more elementary forms of behaviour.

Aristotle's contention, then, is that human beings are by nature prone to engage in the creation of likenesses, and to respond to likenesses with pleasure, and he explains this instinct by reference to their innate desire for knowledge. A likeness is (by definition) a likeness of something: to take part in the activity of making and responding to likenesses we must recognize the relationship between the likeness and its object. This engages and satisfies the desire to exercise our distinctively human power of understanding, and is therefore pleasurable.

I didn't blink an eye when I came across this. I thought I know what that is. It's a "selective recreation of reality."

I'll have more on this later as I'm in the middle of untangling the Gordian knot that is the Poetics.

(Interestingly enough, I went through the following two books first: Aristotle in Hollywood (Studies in Scriptwriting) by Ari Hiltunen and Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters: Storytelling Secrets From the Greatest Mind in Western Civilization by Michael Tierno. As an aside, the Hiltunen book is far superior to Tierno's, but English is not Hiltunen's first language and his constant simple grammar mistakes make you want to tear your hair out.)

In short, I need some time because nonstop Greek terms are kicking my ass big time.

Michael

[Jonathan]

I don't buy the underpinning of Rand's theory - "metaphysical value judgments" and "sense of life." (I think Jonathan doesn't either, but he didn't say that.)

I accept that those concepts are facets or elements that can be included in artistic creation and response.

I don't feel that I've "found a lot of value in [Rand's] thinking on many aspects of aesthetics,"...

One of the things of value that I found was the clarity with which she presented her view of art as a simulation which allows us to experience things and events as if they were real. I don't know if she borrowed it from Kant ("the natural need of all human beings to demand for even the highest concepts and grounds of reason something that the senses can hold on to, some confirmation from experience or the like"), or anyone else, and then expanded on it, or if she came up with the idea on her own without knowing that she wasn't the first, but I liked her explication of it.

...instead more a feeling of irritation, compounded by up-close experiences of Objectivist up-tightness about aesthetic response. "The aesthetic response as a morals exam," I wrote many years ago about the up-tightness. Plus, I think that approaching art with the kind of questions engendered by taking Rand on aesthetics seriously gets in the way of experiencing and understanding art.

Well, that's quite a bit longer than I was expecting to write when I started.

Ellen

And not just aesthetic response as morals exam, but also as Rorschach test/weapon.

J

P.S. Here's a great example of gleeful indulgence in the morals exam/Rorschach test/weapon:

http://solohq.org/Forum/NewsDiscussions/1397.shtml#19

It still cracks me up. It's like reading a transcript of a witch trial.

[Guyau]

Dan, do you think you have only one sense of life? Do you think your sense(s) of life ends up expressed in your creations? On poetry I'd say Yes to the second question for me. And it does seem to me that looking at my own past poetry, there may be only one sense of life in them. But when it comes to all the different kinds of poetry or painting I can love, created by others, I incline to think I have more than one sense of life. (Related to this, there is an exchange about "owning" the creation, as between creator and viewers, in Fountainhead between Roark, Dominique, and Wynand.) I've gathered that Rand's concept sense of life is a concept many readers find a delight and take to immediately upon exposure to it. But I wonder lately if it is really a right-headed concept at all concerning ourselves.

As we come to consider more theories of esthetics from Kant to writers today, we shall uncover more aspects in which Rand’s esthetic conceptions can be compared, contrasted, and sometimes corrected. It will be helpful to inventory what I have kept for true and what I have reformed for true concerning Rand’s esthetics thus far. None of my departures from Rand’s ideas on esthetics arise from any of my differences with her over metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics.

I concur with Rand that art is not didactic. The ways in which literary art shows its ideas are more than the means by which I make this composition and communication. I rejected Rand’s view that literary “mood studies” cannot be art.

Thus far I concur in Rand’s condition that what is to be isolated under an explanatory definition of art (coordinate with the particular dictionary sense quoted at the outset) is developed crafts with parts integrated to a unified whole conducive to contemplation for its own sake. In “The Goal of My Writing” (1963), Rand indicated that facility of contemplation for its own sake means an art object cannot also be utilitarian. Perhaps Rand did not express herself precisely on that point in that composition, nor again in her reiteration of the point in 1965 and 1971. Be that as it may, I have rejected that position and its derivative that architecture cannot be art. End-in-itself contemplation can be engendered in a developed craft, utilitarian or not, where its expressive parts are integral to a unified whole expression.

In that same 1963 essay, Rand indicated that not every subject was worthy of contemplation for its own sake. I broadened the contexts of viewing, which made more subjects worthy of some moments of end-in-itself contemplation. I should add, however, that were a work, unworthy of such contemplation in its subject, to consist of parts integrated to a unified whole conducive to such contemplation, it would still be art in the target sense of the concept. The question remains open to me to this point whether there could be such a combination, that is, one in which a given beholder of a work found the subject unworthy of end-in-itself contemplation, yet discerned in the work parts integrated into a unified whole. Rand maintained in this essay that Rembrandt’s means in his painting of a side of beef is no esthetic justification of the choice of subject matter, which she found unworthy of end-in-itself contemplation. I incline to think any lack of integral unity between subject and means necessarily yields demerit, though not necessarily failure to cross the threshold of art.

That inclination may have been Rand’s also in this essay; her statements were indefinite on the point. Joan Blumenthal has faulted Rand’s understanding concerning the subject of this Rembrandt painting on grounds that will come to issue when we reach thinkers beyond Kant in this series.

Intuition is a concept in the history of epistemology that Rand and I approach, like Peirce, ready for diagnosis of error. In the course of the present study, I became convinced that Prof. Kovach’s identification of the cognitive component of the esthetic experience itself (focused on the experience of beauty in his treatise) is intuitive. I take that as right both in the deliverance of esthetic qualities at the perceptual level (whose full formation as esthetic Kovach denied, but Rand and I affirmed) and at the intellectual level.

In this usage, intuition means only a natural, immediate, and non-discursive apprehension. Such intuitions are explicable in principle, though definitive analysis would require scientific information. In the sense that we say percepts are not irrational, it can be rightly said that such intuition is not irrational (cf. a, b, c). I do not think this intuition is contrary to Rand’s thinking on esthetics, and her conception of one’s apprehension of a “visual abstraction” in a painting is an example of it (Rand 1971, 1010–11).

I have declined Rand’s confinement of the function of art to affordance of the experience of life as it might be and ought to be. That conjunction is an important function, but not the only one and not the only good one. Art can have its being and functions entirely confined to earthly life, yet not have life, or life’s means in their means-role, as its topic. In addition to showing life as it might be and ought to be, art can show in the way art shows: existence and consciousness, world and cognition, as they are significantly or as they might be.

In “The Psycho-Epistemology of Art” (1965), Rand indicated that there had been a “cognitive neglect of art” and that this stemmed from failure to grasp that the fundamental function of art is non-social. I agree that the fundamental functions (pl.) of art are cognitive, not only emotional, and that some express understanding of how art works is attainable. In those ways, cognitive neglect of art lacks balance. However, Rand’s thesis that because art belongs to the basic nature of man’s consciousness it is “a non-socializable aspect of reality” (15) is erroneous. Communication, entirely concordant with personal cognitive and affective satisfaction, is a constant aim of art. Rand erred also in this stretch in the insinuation that her theory of art as serving distinctive need of a conceptual consciousness is rare or unprecedented. That neglects the entire German cognitivist tradition from Leibniz-Wolff to Schopenhauer.

In that essay, Rand settled on her definition of art: a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments. Thus far I stay with Rand’s general view that art is a selective re-creation of reality. I have concurred that metaphysical value-judgments can be theme of an artwork, but contrary to Rand, I conclude there can be artworks showing only, in the ways art shows, something significant and meaningful that does not show as vital some vital relationship to man’s life. For now I’ll define art as selective re-creation of reality showing concretely the notable and meaningful (sometimes metaphysical value-standings) through craft of parts integrated into a unified whole conducive to contemplation for its own sake. Where parts are proportionate in the integral unity of their multitude or variety, beholding the work will issue in delight by beauty.

The wider functions of art include the one centered by Rand: respite from struggle of, and regeneration for, life-goals, through art-experience of one’s aims and ideals as fulfilled and enshrined concretely. Another wider function of art we have encountered is pause for fresh or refreshed awareness-cum-perspective of concrete existents and one’s cognitive processes. We shall encounter more functions, wide and narrow, in the sequel.

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

Beauty, Goodness, Life

I. Arts – Rand A, B, C

II. Beauty – Kovach A, B, C

III. Esthetics and Life – Schopenhauer A, B, C

IV. Purpose, Life, Beauty – Kant (forthcoming)

V. Music – Schopenhauer, Rand, . . .

V. Functions of Arts – . . .

Dan writes:

Perhaps this is more specifically what sets an experience or object apart as "aesthetic"---some validation or preservation of core content. . . .

Tying things back to their essential, material content-forms, could be a worthy aesthetic primal. . . . (254-55)

Schopenhauer asked me to tell you he approves.