DL's Book

[Ellen Stuttle]

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.

Since I don't think that Rand's notion - it isn't a proper "concept" - of "sense of life" names something which actually exists, I don't think it's a facet or element which can be included in anything.

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.

I know that I didn't like features of her explication, but I'm not remembering off-hand which essay the explication is in. Do you remember? Is it "Art and Sense of Life"?

I doubt that she borrowed it from Kant, unless indirectly, via Peikoff (or possibly Barbara), since I strongly doubt that she ever read more than a smattering of Kant.

...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.

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.

That's just AWFUL!!! But an excellent example of the stupidity about art "engendered by taking Rand on aesthetics seriously."

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

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

Jonathan,

Martin Luther King said:

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I can't help but think of this quote as I mull over what an aesthetic means when it is used by people who ignore the obvious life-embracing character on a model's face (like in Alison Lapper Pregnant) and judges the entire aesthetic experience as anti-life based soley on the deformities of her body--then uses that judgment to bash people who disagree with them.

I say mind-body duality is at its worst when the appearance of the body is more important to a person than the appearance depicting the mind. And, as that thread bears witness, this easily can turn into a tool of tribalism (us against them) and peer pressure.

A case could be made that this is the aesthetic of a racist, but, as tempting as it is, I won't call anyone a racist because of that sculpture. However, the epistemological process they use in harshly judging both the sculpture and the character of those who see value in it is identical to that of a racist.

(btw - This tribalism and peer pressure--and even racism-level bigotry--can run the other way, too, if taken to the same extreme in harshly judging as morally decrepit those who do not see value in the sculpture.)

Victor Hugo was one of Ayn Rand's favorite authors because, according to her, he was one of the most life-enhancing authors ever. She wrote about that often. By the standard of the boneheads who adopt the mind-body dichotomy criterion of judging art (with body over mind for depicting a heroic sense-of-life), Hugo most definitely should not have written The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

This can be a real problem for people who look at Alison Lapper Pregnant, then think to some of Rand's pronouncements in The Romantic Manifesto (so they can borrow some intellectual ballast in their thinking to judge something totally bewildering that just popped up), especially that part about the viciousness of a lip sore on a painting of a beautiful woman.

What do they do after all their bashing when Ayn Rand calls Victo Hugo great and he made an ugly twisted guy in a cathedral a hero? That is definitely not life as it could and should be. Quasimodo even starves to death at the end.

What to do? What to do?

I can't resist--I'm going to have a little fun.

Let us suppose you had been talking about The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in that thread instead of Alison Lapper Pregnant. Here is part of a post by Joe Rowlands criticizing you--adapted by me to suit the book instead of the sculpture. Notice that the substance of what Rowlands wrote does not change in this alteration--it applies equally to Victor Hugo as it does to the sculptor, Marc Quinn, and it is equally wrong.

Don't forget, think Victor Hugo and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame as you read this (and as you try to keep from laughing ):

Oh Jonathan, it doesn't surprise me at all that you view deformity as life as it could and ought to be. Nor am I surprised that you view this as the triumph of the human spirit. I'll take your word that this is what you think of as human greatness and all you hope to aspire towards. It's certainly consistent with everything else you've said.

Like all good post-modernists, you minimize the importance of the art itself and instead focus on some alleged "meaning" behind it. The book is about an ugly man with a deformed back. You try to ignore that, and focus on details that are not presented in the book.

Which metaphysical value-judgments are being portrayed? Art says "This is what's important in life". What's important in this book? Not achievement, but managing to find a little normalcy in a world where suffering and misery is expected. Pride and love yes, but pride and love in not letting life's horrendous obstacles tear you down. Pride and love at accomplishing so little with so much. Does it portray a hospitable world where happiness is to be expected? No. It portrays a cruel and twisted world.

I could do that for the entire discussion.

I wonder how people who think like this guy does rationalize their way out of that...

Michael

[Jonathan]

I wonder how people who think like this guy does rationalize their way out of that...

Michael

Totally!

I actually confronted Rowlands with a similar idea later in the thread. Where you went with the Hunchback in your post above, I went with Hank Rearden's affliction with unearned guilt, as well as The Miracle Worker's "bratty, blind deaf-mute who was finally dragged kicking and screaming up to the level of mediocrity." I asked Rowlands in two different posts if he had the same angry feelings for the character of Helen Keller that he had for Lapper, and if Rand was an evil pomo for praising The Miracle Worker. I got no response from him, so I have no idea how he rationalized it in his own mind.

J

[Jonathan]

Since I don't think that Rand's notion - it isn't a proper "concept" - of "sense of life" names something which actually exists, I don't think it's a facet or element which can be included in anything.

I don't have a problem with not calling it a "concept." Perhaps "hunch" would be better? "Half-baked notion"? Either way, I think that what she was getting at can sometimes be involved in the creation and response to art.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

Since I don't think that Rand's notion - it isn't a proper "concept" - of "sense of life" names something which actually exists, I don't think it's a facet or element which can be included in anything.

I don't have a problem with not calling it a "concept." Perhaps "hunch" would be better? "Half-baked notion"? Either way, I think that what she was getting at can sometimes be involved in the creation and response to art.

What is it you think she was getting at?

Ellen

[dlewis]

Excellent critiques of Objectivist aesthetics...

Jonathan and Ellen-- thank you for clarifying the happy perspective accident in Room of Wind-- I hadn't thought of that at all-- correct me if i'm wrong, but you're saying if a 3-D room were built to architectural specification based on the visual perspective there-- if i walked down that corridor in real-time, I would be walking farther between the columns as I progessed--and Jonathan, you think almost double? That's really interesting-- I'll have to look into the illusion there more-- I know there are ways to translate visual to "real" space mathmatically, but yeah, besides some potential observational studies for certain details, I almost always work intuitively now (as I did on that piece). It does allow for more to happen, though I have to have some general idea/purpose before I start working or I lose my focus too much. One of my big issues in art school was many of my teacher's dislike of "preconceived ideas"-- yet I had to think a lot before I was motivated enough to start working-- I couldn't just get into the materials like most other student seemed to be able. What is your artistic process like Jonathan-- do you have images of your work you can share?

Jonathan, Ellen and Michael-- Yeah, isn't the moral-aesthetic dilemma still so engrained in most people's thinking about art (and life in general), even in this post-modernist age of "anything goes?" Alison Lapper Pregnant, the The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Helen Keller's story are all spot-on examples of how limited moral-aesthetic world-views can be, that remove the subject content from the artist's context, and then start making moral judgements about the work! Even within the artist's context, purely moral judgement about aesthetics should, I think, be approached with caution, because, I think, what is good/bad is often a more relative thing. What is good in one context might not be good in another, and the same context that might be good for one person might be bad for another. Take Alison Lapper Pregnant--the figure is portrayed in a raised, dignified manner despite "deformities," which I think is quite a noble portrayal, much braver to put forth than stale classic portrayals, one that I agree implies that all of us have dignity despite our bodily states/natures (Jonathan's and Michael's descriptions above ring true to me). But for another, it may seem to threaten their values of traditional human form (like is often done with human sexuality too), yet for another, they may even celebrate the form (e.g. perhaps people into body modification, or people who have similar "disabilities" who can relate to the scullpture more personally)--any/all these views may function in good or bad ways depending on when/where/how they are expressed or depending on what they cause us to do. Maybe my view, one of a kind of equality for all humans despite their physiques, would cause me not to recognize the actual limitations that disabled people face. Maybe being threatened by the sculpture is a type of bigotry, but maybe being threatened creates in a person an very cautious nature, care and appreciatiion for their own able bodies. Maybe celebrating the form leads the body-modifier to amputate one of their limbs (which in itself may result in bad (loss of mobility) or good (making a statement about free will and dignity) results. I'm not saying the subject does matter or have moral implications in a work of art, but so does the artist's context (stylization, etc), the viewing context (where and how the how is presented and well as the viewers value set), the historical context, the moral-practical context.... This all makes art (and aesthetics in general) a very tough thing to analyze-- and simple moral judgments about artwork/aestheitcs often just don't seem very insightful.

[dlewis]

Stephen--

I thought I'd address the issues in your previous post according to the categories: Aesthetics vs. art., Defining art., and Creative Processes to help sort them out.

Aesthetics vs. art.

Stephen Boydstun, on 24 Jan 2014 - 05:44 AM, said:

Dan writes:

Quote

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.

I appreciate you aligning the philosophical roots of that idea-- I'll have to do some Schopenhaur research:).

I think it is important to clarify my essential distinciton between aesthetics and art-- I think aesthetics originiates internally as some response to internal or external things/stimuli, but I think art always depends on there being some external reference that intiates the internal response. I think this is the core difference. It allows us to distinguish what an artist does as different from mere aesthetic experience (e.g. that which could happen in dreams, imagination, emotional responses, etc.)--I think a good artist turns something material, i.e. externally physical, into a more aesthetic form. So in relating this to the definition above, my view is that the artist most basically transforms material "content" into more other/new forms for our lives-- if successful, the artist adds to and/or pulls out more content from the material forms around us. This is different than what the scientist/philosopher does because they primarily decode forms (by different means)-- the artist/designer/technitican (on different levels) primarily puts such forms together into some external object/expression.

So on Defining art., you explain,

"...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."

----------------

So the part of Rand's defintion of art you generally agree with is a "selective re-creation of reality." I think all creations may be selective buy default-- something new is being formed which must be different than its progeny-- e.g. "natural selection" and genetic channeling seem to puch new kinds of things into being-- so my core question here is what Rand meant with art being a "re-creation"-- I think she meant creation as some manifestation of the externally physical, but creation really can also reference internal happenings. But "re-creation" does seem to hint at the Aristotlean "imitation" that Michael previously hinted may be its source, and that may have influenced Rand into that specific defintion. But imitation seems too narrow to me-- it suggests that everything has arleady been created and the artist simply "re-creates" it. That's why I prefer a definiton of art linked to material (i.e. externally physical) "content-forms." I think the "metaphysical value-judgments" part of Rand's definiton takes it into a psychological realm that I wouldn't automatically prescribe to all art.

You also state:

"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."

-----------------------

Yeah, definietely, this goes back to the comments Jonathan, Ellen and Michael have made, and which I responded to in another post. Many times it seems people try to put judgements about the quality of art in the definition of art itself, and Rand unfortunately did that by proclaiming things like photography weren't even art! My definiton on the other hand is VERY broad-- it includes potentially any knowledge "abstracted" or "perceived" or even "taken in" by another that is then "made" or "remade" into a material form -- therefore I think art becomes the perceptual basis for all language, design and technological creations. It holarchically is the basis for the other fields so yes, art can be more than contmplative-- it can also be utilitarian, but it is interesting to note that if a material form is being tactilely used, it may be harder to perceive it by the other senses, and so it may lose its power, e.g. as a visual or auditory, contemplative object, if we are tactilly using it-- also, tactile use also tends to (although not always), degrade the material form, so it may more quickly damage its other aethetic qualities. But according to our definition of aesthetics, when art provides further, essential significance of or through material forms, then I think we can start to qualify what art is of a higher quality than others, without having to succumb to simple moralization. This I think depends on the efficiency and power of the link between an object's form and content-- and that's a very complex issue, that may be best left for specific arists, linguists, designers, technicians to extrapolate in their particualar fields. I'm working on a generalized framework to measure aestheitc quality in objects, but I'm a long way from finished. Any thoughts on this?

Creative processes.

Stephen you ask:

"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."

Ellen and Jonathan are right I think, that "sense-of-life" is a problematic terminology the way Rand used it, vaguely defined, and often as a biased overlay to make her own moral-aesthetic cross-over judgments about people's mind-sets in relation to works of art (and other things). Although I do think the term is somewhat valid in referencing one's dominant emotional state-of-being for some extended period of time, trying to determined what that "dominant" state is on a complex level is difficult--perhaps that is what predominately draws us to art, because it can, as you say, enshine these states externally, or concretely in material forms. You use the term "intuition' as well in your essay-- do you see this as primarily different than sense-of-life-- how would you contrast these ideas? I think if we accept sense-of-life as a valid idea, then yes-- peole can definitely change their sense-of -life and have different one at different times, as perhaps epitomized in the various "periods" or style chagnes that artists go through. If you Stephen, identify with only onle sense-of- life in your poetry, I think that is normal-- If we strive with our art to attain material forms that express and support the more essential states of our characters, our core material values, then it seems normal to return ot a particular way of working. I perceive of your poetry in general a cyclic, rhythmic, grounded, to-and-fro-ness, stable transformations between the close spellings of words, yet with moments of calm transportation, almost transcendence (at the end of stanzas/poems when the rhyme gracefully changes) where I'm left with the existential feeling, "This moment can stand still, and it is mine, before I go on" I don't know if this is how you feel about your own work-- I'd like to know how you perceive your poems.

[Brant Gaede]

The proper way to deal with Rand's views on any thing respecting esthetics is to first rend them out of Objectivism. If she had been an Objectivist novelist she wouldn't have written her novels for they aren't Objectivist novels. Objectivism is post Atlas Shrugged and that's the least of it. These are other examples of such nonsense all for the same reason: Objectivist psychologist, Objectivist historian, Objectivist economist, Objectivist physicist, etc.

--Brant

[Francisco Ferrer]

The proper way to deal with Rand's views on any thing respecting esthetics is to first rend them out of Objectivism. If she had been an Objectivist novelist she wouldn't have written her novels for they aren't Objectivist novels. Objectivism is post Atlas Shrugged and that's the least of it. These are other examples of such nonsense all for the same reason: Objectivist psychologist, Objectivist historian, Objectivist economist, Objectivist physicist, etc.

--Brant

Yes. Take, for example, Rand's endorsement of "romanticism." The Romantic Movement was dominated by mystics, emotionalists, nature-worshippers, and avowed enemies of science and capitalism. (See Meyer Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp.) Rand actually has more common ground philosophically with the Enlightenment Augustans or even the late 19th century Realists and Naturalists.

She rejected "conservatism" and even "libertarianism" for all their unwanted baggage. She would have been well advised to do the same with "romanticism."

[Guyau]

Dan, re #82:

Thank you for articulating and sharing further response to my poetry. My experience of them is as yours (and as Mike E and Carol S), and with sounds of words brought to salience. But of course, however articulate one might become of any art, there can be no discursive reduction, otherwise we could just talk them thoroughly through in analytic prose equal the experiencing of them.

The intuition I became convinced of by Prof. Kovach’s book has a cognitive meaning. This one is not sense of life or style of mind or any emotional condition, though intuition has a regular use in those realms also.

II.C Beauty – Kovach

It remains to set out Kovach’s essence of esthetic experience itself and its consequences. Within those districts are esthetic intuition and esthetic judgment.

. . .

The esthetic cognition enlisting intellect is not abstractive, neither does it consist in application of a concept to the singular case beheld. Such esthetic cognition does not consist in “this beauty.” That concept has its place in the later stage, in the judgment “This is beautiful,” a consequence of the esthetic cognition. Recognition of beauty in the esthetic experience by intellect is neither abstractive of concepts nor applicative of them. It is not conceptual, yet intellectual. Then too, the intellectual esthetic cognition is not a judgment (PB 307).

In beholding the beautiful object, one is turned to contemplation of the object. In this contemplation, one’s mind “notices or discovers in its own light the integral parts with their relations to each other and the whole; and this contemplation . . . does nothing with the blissful vision of the beautiful object in a discursive manner” (PB 309). In this cognition, we know beauty. It is not speculative or scientific knowledge. It is not the esthetic knowledge of the art critic or the philosopher of beauty. It is not the technical knowledge of the artist. It is not knowing by faith or mystic reception. It is only our natural knowing of the beauty of the object, not our consequent knowing that the contemplated object is beautiful (309; cf.).

The esthetic cognition enlisting intellect is “an immediate, yet full grasp by the intellect of the beauty of the contemplated object,” not a conclusion of logical inference (PB 309). That is to say, such esthetic cognition is intuitive and nondiscursive. . . .

. . .

The intuitiveness of esthetic cognition enlisting intellect is like the intuitiveness in the grasp of first principles of being and of thought. The difference lies in the categories of object in the two kinds of intuition. Materially beautiful objects are concretes perceived or imagined. First principles are suprasensory objects of apprehension. “Sensory perception is an intuition with a sensory subject and object, . . . the grasp of self-evident principles is an intuition with suprasensory subject and object, [and] aesthetic cognition is an intuition sensory in its object and suprasensory in its subject” (PB 311).

. . .

Some contemporary works you may find illuminating on art in relation to knowledge, emotions, and ethics are the following. I’ll take up their ideas eventually in my series “Beauty, Goodness, Life.”

Art and Knowledge

James O. Young (Routledge 2001)

Aesthetic Reason

Alan Singer (Penn State 2003)

In TTU library.

Art, Emotion and Ethics

Berys Gaut (Oxford 2007)

In TTU library.

Art’s Emotions

Damien Freeman (McGill-Queen’s 2012)

In TTU library electronically.

(By the way, my childhood pastor was for many years the pastor of University Lutheran Church at your school. That was after I had known him. I was one of his catechumen. He obtained his PhD. from your school.*)

On measure of esthetic quality in objects, I should look first to:

The Aesthetic Brain

Anjan Chatterjee (Oxford 2014)

In my ongoing essay, I concluded that the function of a utilitarian object can be selected as theme of the utilitarian artwork. (To be sure, theme of visual work is not really well sayable, only showable [and shareable].) However, it is enough that the function be merely not contradicted; the form’s more salient expression of utility could be of the material or process of production. One night at a dinner at our place in Chicago, a young man from Dresden picked up his spoon and said “This spoon! Look at this spoon!” I like the knife and fork as well. They are a modern stainless design by Dansk. Part of the fun is their kinship of form while yet each of the three are also formed for their three different functions. Another part of the fun is form each considered by itself, including the way it wears the machining process of the steel on its face (http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb378/Guyau/dansk1_zps8c9214e5.jpg).

I suppose that process-aspect can sometimes be a fairly salient part of the fun with nonutilitarian art too, as with Gerhard Richter, although I liked the one we photographed here before giving a thought to means (scroll down to Santuary and click). Perhaps thinking about functional beauty is an entryway to sorting esthetic quality from the Baconian obey-to-command discursive process of utilitarian knowledge and creation.

From the essence of spoon to Schopenhauer’s Idea in esthetics, near your own primal of esthetics:

III.A Esthetics and Life – Schopenhauer

Life is never beautiful, but only its images are, namely in the transfiguring mirror of art or poetry.

–Arthur Schopenhauer

The following, too, is from that philosopher, from The World as Will and Presentation (W1 – 1819; W2 – 1844):

The aesthetic satisfaction is essentially one and the same, be it called forth by a work of art or immediately through perception of nature and of life. The work of art is merely a means for facilitating the cognizance in which that satisfaction consists. That Ideas confront us more easily through works of art than immediately through nature and actual reality is due to the fact that the artist, who is cognizant only of Ideas, no longer of actual reality, has also purely replicated only its Idea in his work, separated it out from actual reality, omitting all disturbingly contingent factors. The artist lets us look into the world through his eyes. (W1 §37, 229–30)

[Art] replicates the eternal Ideas that are apprehended through pure contemplation, that which is essential and enduring in all the world’s phenomena, and depending on the material in which it replicates them, it is plastic or pictorial art, poetry, or music. Its single origin is cognizance of Ideas, its simple goal communication of this cognizance.

While science, following the unresting and insubstantial stream of quadruply configured grounds and consequences [see Schopenhauer 1813], is always, with the achievement of each goal, directed to something else—and can as little find an ultimate goal or full satisfaction as one could reach the point where the clouds touch the horizon by walking—art, to the contrary, is always at its goal. For it tears the object of its contemplation out of the stream of the world’s course and holds it isolated before itself. And the individual thing, which was a vanishingly small part of that stream, becomes for it a representative of the whole, equivalent to infinitely many things in space and time. It stays, therefore, with the individual thing, it stops the wheel of time, relations vanish for it; only that which is essential, the Idea, is an object for it. (W1 §36, 217–18)

Any sort of cognizance, rational as well as merely perceptual . . . proceeds originally from will itself . . . just as means for maintaining the individual and the species as any of the body’s organs. Originally determined for service of its will, for the accomplishment of its purposes, it also remains throughout almost entirely in its service: so it is in all animals and in nearly all human beings. And yet . . . in individual human beings, cognizance is able to withdraw from this subservience, throw off its yoke and stand purely on its own, free from all the purposes involved in willing, as the bare clear mirror of the world from which art proceeds. . . . Finally we will see . . . when this mode of cognition works back on the will, self-nullification of the latter can take place, i.e., resignation, which is the ultimate goal, indeed the innermost essence of all virtue and saintliness, and redemption from the world. (W1 §27, 181)

In this block quotation, Schopenhauer included music as art that replicates Ideas (W1 §36, 217). I do not know why he did not omit music from this list in light of his contrary and elaborate treatment of music at the end of the third book of volume 1. There he argues that music is an art and replicates something, but it does not replicate Ideas (W1 §52, 302–4). We should take his considered thesis to be that all arts save music are replications of Ideas, that is, the arts poetic, dramatic, pictorial, and plastic.

. . .

Schopenhauer was in step with the German idealists and their disciples in the general view, after Plotinus, that Idea shining through matter is the cause of esthetic satisfaction (PB 153–54). Schopenhauer’s construction of what this amounts to is integral with his metaphysics and is as distinctive as that metaphysics.

. . .

I think Schopenhauer’s rendition of end-in-itself contemplation is too restrictive by way of leaving out the sort in Rand’s rendition. And vice versa: Rand’s is too restrictive by leaving out the sort in Schopenhauer’s rendition. I do not mean to credit Platonic Ideas expressed in art, but to credit schematized conceptions of what is, expressed in art, where esthetic cognizance of what is is sufficient unto itself. . . .

By esthetic cognizance of what is, I mean in the particular esthetic subject. Rand included the nature of reality in its intelligibility and affordance of valuable action as within the scope of sense of life and metaphysical value-judgments concretized in art. Those pleasures and self-satisfactions can be there, I say, yet another one too: concrete expression of some schemata of what is the individual subject, stressing some of its specific identity and some of its particular identity. That might be all there is to the subject. It need not be amalgamated as a subsidiary of Rand’s sense-of-life questions or her metaphysical-value questions. It can stand alone as an esthetic subject, and when it is joined with expressions of answers to those questions, it need not get its interest from their presence alone.

. . .

The Ideas Schopenhauer sees expressed in art are like Platonic Ideas, but importantly different. Plato sometimes conflates Ideas with concepts, according to Schopenhauer, and that is a serious mistake. Ideas, in Schopenhauer’s sense, are like concepts in that they represent a multitude of individual things. Unlike concepts, Ideas are not expressible in words, and they have no definition exhausting their meaning. Ideas are determinate completely and perceptible only (cf. Baumgarten in Guyer 2005, 268–69). They do not receive their unity by abstraction from plurality, as do concepts, but are a unity “broken up into plurality by virtue of temporal and spatial forms of our intuitive apprehension” (W1 §49, 277). In addition, in Schopenhauer’s view, Ideas are fecund, unlike concepts.

In Schopenhauer’s understanding, concepts are useful for life and science, but they are unfruitful for art. Apprehended Idea is the source of art. By the true artist, Idea is “drawn in its primal force only from life itself, from nature, from the world . . . . Precisely because the Idea is and remains perceptual, the artist is not conscious in abstracto of the intention and goal of his work; he has not a concept, but rather an Idea in mind” (W1 §49, 278). Idea in this role is parallel the role of sense of life in Rand’s theory of art.

. . .

[Jonathan]

Jonathan and Ellen-- thank you for clarifying the happy perspective accident in Room of Wind-- I hadn't thought of that at all-- correct me if i'm wrong, but you're saying if a 3-D room were built to architectural specification based on the visual perspective there-- if i walked down that corridor in real-time, I would be walking farther between the columns as I progessed--and Jonathan, you think almost double?

Yes.

That's really interesting-- I'll have to look into the illusion there more-- I know there are ways to translate visual to "real" space mathmatically...

The simplest way to measure/compare the spaces is find the center point of the first panel by drawing a line from the top of the first column to the bottom of the second, and a line from the top of the second to the bottom of the first. The point where these lines intersect is the rectangle's center point. Draw a line from that center point to the plane's vanishing point. Doing so will give you a center point on each of the columns. And finally, draw a line from either the top or bottom of the first column through the center point of the second column. Where this line intersects with the floor plane or ceiling plane is the point where the third column should be (if one wants the columns to be have equidistant spacing.

...but yeah, besides some potential observational studies for certain details, I almost always work intuitively now (as I did on that piece). It does allow for more to happen, though I have to have some general idea/purpose before I start working or I lose my focus too much. One of my big issues in art school was many of my teacher's dislike of "preconceived ideas"-- yet I had to think a lot before I was motivated enough to start working-- I couldn't just get into the materials like most other student seemed to be able. What is your artistic process like Jonathan--

I like to have preconceived ideas to start with, but to then live with detailed sketches for a while, and to sort of let them go where they want to.

...do you have images of your work you can share?

I have a few here: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1972

Jonathan, Ellen and Michael-- Yeah, isn't the moral-aesthetic dilemma still so engrained in most people's thinking about art (and life in general), even in this post-modernist age of "anything goes?" Alison Lapper Pregnant, the The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Helen Keller's story are all spot-on examples of how limited moral-aesthetic world-views can be, that remove the subject content from the artist's context, and then start making moral judgements about the work! Even within the artist's context, purely moral judgement about aesthetics should, I think, be approached with caution, because, I think, what is good/bad is often a more relative thing. What is good in one context might not be good in another, and the same context that might be good for one person might be bad for another. Take Alison Lapper Pregnant--the figure is portrayed in a raised, dignified manner despite "deformities," which I think is quite a noble portrayal, much braver to put forth than stale classic portrayals, one that I agree implies that all of us have dignity despite our bodily states/natures (Jonathan's and Michael's descriptions above ring true to me). But for another, it may seem to threaten their values of traditional human form (like is often done with human sexuality too), yet for another, they may even celebrate the form (e.g. perhaps people into body modification, or people who have similar "disabilities" who can relate to the scullpture more personally)--any/all these views may function in good or bad ways depending on when/where/how they are expressed or depending on what they cause us to do. Maybe my view, one of a kind of equality for all humans despite their physiques, would cause me not to recognize the actual limitations that disabled people face. Maybe being threatened by the sculpture is a type of bigotry, but maybe being threatened creates in a person an very cautious nature, care and appreciatiion for their own able bodies. Maybe celebrating the form leads the body-modifier to amputate one of their limbs (which in itself may result in bad (loss of mobility) or good (making a statement about free will and dignity) results. I'm not saying the subject does matter or have moral implications in a work of art, but so does the artist's context (stylization, etc), the viewing context (where and how the how is presented and well as the viewers value set), the historical context, the moral-practical context.... This all makes art (and aesthetics in general) a very tough thing to analyze-- and simple moral judgments about artwork/aestheitcs often just don't seem very insightful.

Yes, aesthetic judgments contain a high degree of subjectivity, and Objectivists' aesthetic judgments are some of the best proof of that.

In addition to the subjectivity involved in aesthetic response, there's also the issue of Objectivists wanting to demonstrate their heroism and other virtues by pissing on what they think they're supposed to piss on. It seems that the more desperately a person wants to be a guru and lead an Objectivist movement, the more important art as morals exam/Rorschach test/weapon is to him.

J

[Jonathan]

Since I don't think that Rand's notion - it isn't a proper "concept" - of "sense of life" names something which actually exists, I don't think it's a facet or element which can be included in anything.

I don't have a problem with not calling it a "concept." Perhaps "hunch" would be better? "Half-baked notion"? Either way, I think that what she was getting at can sometimes be involved in the creation and response to art.

What is it you think she was getting at?

Ellen

I'll have to work on an answer. Right now my notion of her half-baked notion is also half-baked. It's vague and hunchy.

J

[Peter]

I received my copy of “Evolition” two days ago. It is very professionally done. The cover is excellent, as is all the artwork I have seen. Though it is not my field, I have progressed through a dozen pages and made some notes. I am “relieved” that the book is “read-able.”

Some of my notes are about the concept of “What could be?” and “the usefulness of *nothing.*

About Dan’s mention of the “Uncertainty Principle” I noted on the pages, “Existence is shape-shifting,” referring to the idea that there is a TIME delay between object and observance and therefore a change in the object and not just from the photons used by the observer to view the object. Sorry if that sounds a bit muddled. I will be thinking about it.

[dlewis]

Peter--

I'm glad you find the text readable--the first chapter (especially after the section "Existence") and the third perhaps, are the most difficult to read, so if you make it through the first chapter and the ideas resonate with you, then the rest of the book should be easier. It took a long time for me to be able to find the right words to express more than a few of the concepts/ideas. I'm so happy, with the backgrounds and intelligence of several people on this site, that you are interested and willing enough to take time to read the book, and then give feedback! Really an honor for me.

Jonathan--

Your work is technically stunning-- very "Vermeer-like" quality-- very still, beautifully quiet. How big are these images in person and what media?

I appreciate you explaining the visual way of arriving at the center of a architectural space in perspective-- I did learn this at one point in time, thus a "duh" moment for me!

I share your (and Brant's, Ferrer's, Ellen's) disdain for more than a few "Objectivist" approaches to art I've seen, not only often misinformed but then being morally judgmental in a way that definitely doesn't help the conversation (to be polite). I feel even worse because I used to share some this close-mindedness, looking down at some forms of art in college I just didn't really understand very well yet. What was hard for me is that Rand was/is such an inspiring writer, that I figured she must somehow, at the core, be right in her aesthetic principles. Her principles of literature, like I believe you mentioned before, are astute and interesting, in ways that I feel her generalizations on sense-of-life and what art is, fail to measure-up as critically. However, I feel in a way, grateful for Rand's potential failings (in what many seem to see) in her political and aesthetic philosophies, because being an artist and seeing what seemed like blatant errors in judgment (like photography cannot be art, or in politics, women can't be presidents) was what helped out of the rose-colored glasses stage of simple love for her work, to a stage that helped me analyze it much more critically.

[dlewis]

Stephen--

Man, you are such a wealth of information-- I can't keep up! The references look good-- thanks for tracing them to TTU library for me-- it's the only diverse public library where I live.

Questions/reflections from your post #85:

"II.C Beauty – Kovach

….

The intuitiveness of esthetic cognition enlisting intellect is like the intuitiveness in the grasp of first principles of being and of thought. The difference lies in the categories of object in the two kinds of intuition. Materially beautiful objects are concretes perceived or imagined. First principles are suprasensory objects of apprehension. “Sensory perception is an intuition with a sensory subject and object, . . . the grasp of self-evident principles is an intuition with suprasensory subject and object, [and] aesthetic cognition is an intuition sensory in its object and suprasensory in its subject” (PB 311)."

This is interesting-- It seems like he's using "intuition" to be any automatic cognitive ability-- which could be either/both inductive (sensory-perception) and/or deductive (as with self-evident principles [like would include processes from "axiomatic concepts"]), where the aesthetic experience is some combination of the two, where the sensory information from an object is processed more automatically (or "essentially" as you mention with Schopenhauer) by a perceiver or subject. Is this a viable interpretation? That seems like a useful idea.

So with Schopenhauer, although I don’t agree with his idea of “Will” because I think it seems to push consciousness into being an attribute of all existence, I do think he is on the right track in The World as Will and Presentation as you quoted:

“. . . [Art] replicates the eternal Ideas that are apprehended through pure contemplation, that which is essential and enduring in all the world’s phenomena, and depending on the material in which it replicates them, it is plastic or pictorial art, poetry, or music. Its single origin is cognizance of Ideas, its simple goal communication of this cognizance.

While science, following the unresting and insubstantial stream of quadruply configured grounds and consequences [see Schopenhauer 1813], is always, with the achievement of each goal, directed to something else—and can as little find an ultimate goal or full satisfaction as one could reach the point where the clouds touch the horizon by walking—art, to the contrary, is always at its goal. For it tears the object of its contemplation out of the stream of the world’s course and holds it isolated before itself. And the individual thing, which was a vanishingly small part of that stream, becomes for it a representative of the whole, equivalent to infinitely many things in space and time. It stays, therefore, with the individual thing, it stops the wheel of time, relations vanish for it; only that which is essential, the Idea, is an object for it. (W1 §36, 217–18)”

Which in the complete sense of his “Idea,” your final interpretation states:

“In Schopenhauer’s understanding, concepts are useful for life and science, but they are unfruitful for art. Apprehended Idea is the source of art. By the true artist, Idea is “drawn in its primal force only from life itself, from nature, from the world . . . . Precisely because the Idea is and remains perceptual, the artist is not conscious in abstracto of the intention and goal of his work; he has not a concept, but rather an Idea in mind” (W1 §49, 278). Idea in this role is parallel the role of sense of life in Rand’s theory of art.”

From what you’re saying, I think I get what Schopenhauer is going after, and what you’re stating his “Idea” really represents—some “sense of life,” As you mention, Schopenhaur tends to see the object as the source of this “Idea” while Rand would see that rooted in a subject’s mind as his/her “sense-of-life,” and thus they get caught up in a specialized kind of "mind-body" clash, where you admit, like I believe, that it is in the process between object and subject (yet I think art, versus aesthetics in general has to be primarily rooted in the external object) where “sense of life" could arise. Still, I don’t think the root of understanding art is in this special “sense-of-life” per se, though some quality of art may be.

A dominant/primary/essential quality of art, if we are to use “sense-of-life,” could refer, I think, to when various levels of consciousness/awareness (i.e. internal action) co-mingle into some dominant “whole” from some similar informational pattern generated from an external object, like what would be sensed by Kovach's "intuition" above, but also perhaps, more akin to beauty as I see it. I think it is important to try to understand essential differences between beauty vs. aesthetics vs. art vs. quality of art.

I see beauty as some positive value gained from an aesthetic experience—it is a value, and thus much more relative to the specific individual than these other concepts. I envision aesthetics very broadly, involving any/all processes that nest in one another, creating “object” or source and “subject” or reaction from that source, whether inside or outside any mind, so that things ultimately resonate with what is essential in the “object.” This relates to Schopenhauer’s idea, but is not applied just to art, but aesthetics in general. I was inaccurate to say in an earlier post that aesthetics had to be sourced internally-- it could be sourced internally, just as a reflection on an idea (in the broad sense), or also could be a reflection from external source (e.g. art)--but I think art should relate first from the external source so that it is primarily grounded in the “material” world, helping relate our aesthetic-values to objects that exist outside of our minds, often connecting through their more essential “elements” or “materials.”

The main problem I have with my own definition of art here is that I still am not convinced there is a further abstraction of the external object that would set art apart from other objects in nature, or whether all objects/externally perceived things, could essentially be art simply from us abstracting them. I think at least with any “good” art there would have to be, for this is how the object would become more “essential” to us. When we talk about quality of art then, we could reference the elements of design and material components within a work and how they resonate with the essential, holarchic aesthetic experience these things produce in our minds, to start talking about the essential meaning of a piece. Then how we assess that in relation to other objects and react morally to it are even more complex layers to the interpretive process.

Am I making any sense here?

A divergent question, Stephen, do you mean to delineate “essential” or perhaps “abstract” vs. “concrete” identities when you speak of “specific” and “particular” identities? I know you address this in some other article but I can’t remember the distinction—and I find those adjective distinctions confusing, because I have up to this point, considered them essentially synonymous.

[Guyau]

I introduced the distinction of specific from particular identity the 1991 essay “Induction on Identity,” in the final section, which is here. Ordinarily those adjectives are used interchangeably. I set them apart for labels of my fixed distinction. The easiest way to get back to my track for them when it slips is to associate the word species with specific identity and the words particulate or particular one with particular identity. It is not the same as the distinction between abstract and concrete. Specific identity answers to what. Particular identity answers to which, where, and when. Specific and particular identity are character of concrete particulars, expressed at various levels of abstraction.

I have written some on the idea of cognitive intuition and its history here:

“Peirce contra Intuition and Self-Evidence”. .

Introduction
.

I. Anselm of Canterbury
.

II. Roger Bacon
. .

–––Avicenna
. .

–––Neoplatonists
. .

–––Plato

That series is unfinished. I need to work through all the schoolmen and the German idealists, then finally to Peirce and Rand on cognitive intuition. I’ve written some on intuition according to Kant and Rand in the middle section here:

“Mysticism – Kant and Rand”

Reason / Intuition / Feeling

Kovach would have been knowledgeable of the entire history of intuition in theory of knowledge and philosophy of beauty. Yes, he regards sensory perception as intuitive knowledge by our sensitive powers, and he considers that we have intuitive knowledge by the rational intellect. This division of intuitive knowledge should not be aligned with the distinction between induction and deduction. Intuition in the history of epistemology and theory of mind is always instantaneous and non-discursive. In Kovach’s theory, the esthetic cognition is an intuition by the rational intellect about a sensory object. As observed in my essay, Rand, and I too, do not agree with Kovach that all esthetic cognition requires rational process; some occasions of experiencing the beautiful seem very close to perceptual responses by human brain.

On Schopenhauer with his Idea for esthetics versus Rand with her sense of life for esthetics, no, they are not replacements for each other. I maintained only that the role Idea played in Schopenhauer’s theory had its parallel role played by sense of life (and metaphysical value judgments) in Rand’s theory. Each is only a part of the truth; Schopenhauer was blind to what Rand attached to, Rand was blind to what Schopenhauer attached to or anyway blind to its rightful place in the main arena, right alongside the sorts of issues she posed as sense-of-life and metaphysical-value-judgment issues. “And still the box is not full,” to quote Steinbeck. There is more I expect to also place in that main arena as I progress through the history and through the recent books lately mentioned.

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

Dear Pat,

You came upon me carving some kind of

little figure out of wood and you said,

“Why don’t you make something for me?”

I asked you what you wanted, and you said,

“A box.”

“What for?”

“To put things in.”

“What things?”

“Whatever you have,” you said.

Well, here’s your box. Nearly everything I have

is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement

are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts

and good thoughts—the pleasure of design and

some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.

And on top of these are all the gratitude and

love I have for you.

And still the box is not full.

John

Preface to East of Eden

[Jonathan]

Your work is technically stunning-- very "Vermeer-like" quality-- very still, beautifully quiet.

How big are these images in person and what media?

They're all under 20 inches. Pensive is arcrylic and colored pencil, and the rest are oil.

I appreciate you explaining the visual way of arriving at the center of a architectural space in perspective-- I did learn this at one point in time, thus a "duh" moment for me!

I like your intuitive approach. And I especially like the fact that, even though you're not measuring your perspective when creating it, your intuitive sense is such that your space in Room of Wind is internally consistent.

J

[Peter]

I am up to chapter two of Dan's book, "Evolition," and I am watching, “Almost Human” (on Fox TV, 8pm Monday) and a robotics scientist says DNA is the blueprint for the *soul.* Are people with similar DNA similar? Yes, most times, if they are raised in a similar fashion. Would a clone with identical DNA have an identical soul as its prototype? No, differences in the womb might cause differences in the developed soul. Experiences would mold a different soul. Personal choices would mold a different soul.

Yet I can’t help wondering, as does DL, how much *soul* is contained in our DNA? My arguments against the *innate* soul vs. *man made* soul are true for those humans past the point of conception. But at the point of conception do fetuses with identical DNA have identical souls?

It has been said creation myths and the belief in a “creator” supply the answer: God endows a fetus with a soul at conception. So phrased another way I am asking, does existence supply a soul at conception? And then do *we* remold our supplied souls?

[Brant Gaede]

"Soul" only makes sense as a substitute for "consciousness."

--Brant

by the way you're using it

[Peter]

Many of my prior musings on this thread were discussed in Dan’s book which I picked up and started rereading just after I wrote the letter. I am now into chapter 3. “Cholce” is Dan’s term for innate behavior combined with volitional behavior (choice.) There need be no dichotomy. A mind - body dichotomy may be a human construct. I was trying to phrase my letter using the TV show’s dialogue. My question still stands to all readers of this thread. How much of a human’s *soul* or consciousness is contained in our DNA? I am looking for a percent.

Brant wrote:

"Soul" only makes sense as a substitute for "consciousness."

end quote

Since there is no definitive scientific proof for souls I accept your criticism, except for the fact that billions of non-human animals have "consciousness." fMRI’s are mapping purposeful actions in the human brain, so to me the term *soul* means innate behaviors, consciousness plus guided purpose as found in humans. There IS SOMEONE there.

In his book, “Evolition,” Dan mentions several species able to recognize *themselves* in a mirror such as apes, chimps, dolphins, and bigger brained birds. Everyone has noticed a “personality” in pets like dogs and cats. Instinct, environment, and chance explain higher animals’ actions but even then something else is at work. I have heard parent’s sincerely spoken (jokes?) to their kids about a “doggy heaven” for deceased pets, but I doubt dogs will ever fantasize about doggy heaven, though they certainly have dream states as evidenced in their vocalizations and running motions when dreaming.

I will try not to give away too many spoilers, Dan. And I plan on looking at Stephen Boydstun's work and then reread Rand and Doctor Peikoff, from an untrained, layman's perspective of course.

[dlewis]

Thanks Peter,

I see the discussion “Does Matter Affect Consciousness” has exploded with some great insight/analyses, but I found yours especially to be getting at the core of what I’m trying to discover as well. The problem for me is not determinism vs. free will. The problem is understanding how causal agents have come to be states of "mind," on all levels, including consciousness and what we experience as volitional states.

I like what you stated in that discussion, and yet I would hope more people would respond to this idea you talk about in Kelly’s argument. I think it starts to address how different “levels” of being can control one another. I’ll quote some of what you said from post #157.

“In contrast, Kelley argues that the Aristotelian/Objectivist account of causality, in which “causality is a matter of the nature or identity of the objects which act,” does not limit causality to antecedent factors. Rather, it allows for “many different modes of causality in nature,” including simultaneous causality between the levels of organization that emerge in complex systems, such as in conscious organisms. Kelley discusses two basic forms of such simultaneous causality: upward causation and downward causation. In upward causation, entities acting at a lower level of organization simultaneously cause effects on the entities in a higher level of organization. Downward causation is simply the reverse, such that entities acting at a higher level of organization simultaneously cause effects on the entities in a lower level of organization. For Kelley, consciousness is “a higher level phenomenon distinct from the electrical activity of specific parts of the brain.”

Unfortunately, Kelley leaves implicit perhaps the most critical point about such simultaneous causality within complex systems, namely that these lower and higher levels are equally real, with causal powers of their own. Modern analytic philosophy, in contrast, tends to be deeply reductionistic about such levels of organization, such that the higher levels are seen as really “nothing but” the lower levels, such that everything eventually reduces to the microphysical. Consequently, higher levels of organization (including the perceptual level) are seen as less real (if real at all) and the existence of downward causation is denied. The rejection of this “collapsing levels” metaphysics is clearly critical to Kelley's account of causation, even though never explicitly discussed.

Based upon this rich understanding of causality, Kelley argues that both upward and downward causation are involved in consciousness through an example of an animal seeing a predator and fleeing. After tracing the “antecedent factor” causality in both the brain (the lower level) and the mind (the higher level) in this situation, Kelley turns to the connections between these levels of organization. In upward causation, the brain causes changes in consciousness. Thus the visual cortex might upwardly cause perception and the limbic system might upwardly cause recognition and fear. In downward causation, consciousness causes changes in the brain. Thus perception might the “affect the visual cortex by keeping its activities centered on the appropriate object” and fear might determine “which particular set of neural impulses gain control of the motor cortex.” Such simultaneous upward and downward causation, on Kelley's account, is an integral part of any conscious process.

Kelley then specifies the role of all three forms of causality (upward causation, antecedent factors, downward causation) with respect to free will. The “capacity to focus” is an instance of upwards causation because it owes its existence “the nature and structure of the brain.” A person's “specific knowledge,” “hierarchy of values,” and “thinking skills” are all antecedent conditions which “set limits on what it is possible ... to focus on.” But within those limits, the choice to focus or not, to raise or lower one's level of consciousness or not is “pure downward causation.”

The theory of mind Kelley sketches in these lectures is far from complete, but nevertheless promising. His detailed explanation of the Objectivist/Aristotelian alternative to Humean causality and his non-reductionistic view of levels of organization seem indispensable for accounting for mental causation in an Objectivist theory of mind.”

---------------------------------------------

Michael also address this idea in post #161, but frames, if I’m understanding correctly, within this panel discussion, generally of scientific determinism vs. religious determinism, where scientific determinism approaches the problem from the ground up—e.g. from sub-atomic to chemical to biological to psychological etc., and religiion approaches it from the top down, e.g. from God to human dominated hierarchy of life to the inanimate, etc., where a portion of the post reads,

“Finally, very near the end (2:27:37 to 2:30:07), Nye sums up the problem clearly. He is discussing intelligent design. He finally admits that the view of religion is from the top down and the view from science is from the bottom up, and that the two are incompatible.

Taking religion out of it, I would like to know why this is incompatible. That's rhetorical wondering because I know better. I hold that both top and bottom are fundamental.”

This, I think, is a very important point—so if I’m re-contextualizing this right, I think both general and specific fundamentals, essentially fuse or at least reflect from one another, at their most basic levels. For example, there need be little difference in content between, say, the principles of the universe or the universe itself, and all the parts that make up that universe, or whatever base substances, context, or elements hold the universe together at a fundamental level… just like consciousness could describe the holistic experience of interactions that happen from physical brain chemistries/components operating in certain ways .

One problem I have with the determinism vs. free will arguments is that with determinism, causal factors often are seen to exist as “outside” or external forces, versus the “internal” causal slant that free will can fall into, often wrongly tying it to something mystical, subjective, illusory or non-existent in the determinist’s eye. But don’t both external and internal factors balance and affect one another, perhaps one with more strength or control over the other at any given time? I personally believe if the universe is truly self-created, that those forces we see as “external,” are also self-manifesting within us, giving us potential access to that self-manifesting mechanism—things may not be able to go against the basic nature of that mechanism, but things can, on different levels of complexity, evolve internally from it (e.g. whether from microscopic, genetic mutations or from our macroscopic choices, or actions of consciousness).

The difference in my philosophy is that I don’t see this “top-down” side as starting from “God” or “consciousness,” “will” or “freedom” but instead being intrinsically provided from a logical structure established from axiomatic concepts-- in understanding the infinite metaphysical and epistemological fusion behind the concepts existence, knowledge, self and identity (as I think their definitions can hold), and that this impresses upon all things, both externally and internally, a certain self-structural power. Of course on different extents and levels of complexity, but nonetheless, I do think this idea lends itself to a kind of innate creative force.

I think we just happen, as conscious/self-conscious/volitional beings, to be aware of this within ourselves, and this gives us a lot more creative control of our individual actions. Still because our knowledge is inherently limited in some way, this self-conscious volitional ability doesn’t always work in our favor or guarantee good outcomes, but even so it is a pretty awesome ability, and I feel damn honored to be human!

[dlewis]

So Peter, I guess on your question of a soul within DNA-- I think that "soul" or "spirit" in the abstract sense comes from this creative, self-manifesting force within nature itself. On a specifically human level, our "souls" in context of others might somehow be linked to our level of volitional capacities? I don't know how much volitional capacity is actually programmed into the human genome itself, or how much comes about from reaction from our genetics with our environments, and how we evolve from these more deterministic factors. There may be some way to a percentage, but I think it's important to realize that changing our environments can also increase our level of choices, as well as other organization strategies, both internal and external (like learning structures, language, computational devices, etc) so I don't know how important just focusing on our specific genetic/biological evolution is. What are your thoughts on this--did you have other specific reasons for inquiring about souls in relation to DNA?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dan,

Ya' got me.

I'm getting your book.

Here's a thought: All cadavers have genomes. Something is still missing if you want a full human being.

Michael

[Peter]

Michael wrote:

All cadavers have genomes. Something is still missing if you want a full human being. “Know thyself.”

end quote

Aaarrg! Starting with a “cadaver” leads to Frankenstein’s Monsters and zombies, all fictional characters. Somehow it is different from starting with the *life* inherent in a human egg after conception. So, in the reverse direction what happens when DNA and protoplasm are “kick started” by a *spark* and a human consciousness begins? Is the concept *soul* fictional? In the same direction (of less complex to more complex life) beginning with the person receiving and reading this letter and outward to the stars, “is anyone really out there?”

The StarTrek character “Data” wonders if he has a soul. He claims no emotions, yet his mental reactions and morality towards humans shows that he has *something* even if it is not human emotions. That is why I like the character “Data” much more than Issac Asimov’s programmed three laws of robots plus the fourth “zeroth law.”

[Peter]

Dan wrote: did you have other specific reasons for inquiring about souls in relation to DNA?

end quote

I used the concept of *soul* and asked about the specific amount or “percent” of volition embedded in human decisions, (or downward and outward changes in reality initiated by one organism) to elicit reactions from you and other readers.

One of those possibly stupid, humorous truisms I repeat is that an absolute *belief* in human determinism would cause insanity. Wondering, “why did I just say that?” or wondering “why did I just do that?” leads to a type of scientific introspection that is almost self defeating when it is SELF analysis. But using a scientist to study you (the being) with verbal analyses, snap shots of the internal actions such as with fMRI’s, leads to potential abuse of humans as with B.F. Skinner and his “Skinner Boxes” where infants and toddlers are to be raised. You may be giving me too much credit. I look for inappropriate humor though I am always searching for the truth. Thanks for asking.