DL's Book

[Guyau]

If I had a postcard of every painting in the Met and I opened a museum displaying only those postcards, I’m pretty sure most everyone who has experienced the original paintings would find my museum pieces often inferior on the count that their scale has caused some loss in the special feeling they have in experience of the original painting. Size was one of the elements going into making their art-moment feeling. What that feeling is, what it is in the dynamics of our feelings and cognition, is the matter for which a variety of articulations have been given, many of them having some ring of the truth. Patterns of Morris wallpaper or some Tiffany leaded glass may suffer only moderately by the size reduction. The other day, I sent a postcard of Sisley’s Snow at Louveciennes to a friend. The reduced image allows one to enter some of the deliciousness of the original, and this can be pumped up a bit by imagining one is viewing it in the original size specified on the back of the card. The reduced image does not eliminate the art, but it significantly mutes it. Any adequate definition of art should be able to capture not only feeling-dynamics of experience of art to related dynamics of experience of nature, but to related dynamics in experience of design in art or design neighboring art. Thinking about effect of variations in scale and in the other factors to painting might show clusters into classes one would reasonably call art or would reasonably call design.

When I was a teenager, I designed futuristic styles of automobiles (wheeled) for the annual Fisher Body Craftsman Guild. Each boy built a scale model of his original design from scratch in wood or plaster, finished to look like the painted body of a real automobile. Windshields were of clear plastic stretched over a form, bumpers and some ornamentation were often of aluminum filed and polished. I designed and crafted five years, starting at age thirteen. The last two models had really become abstract sculptures, and they suffered somewhat in practicality. Were the wheels removed and the form there filled in they would be simply abstract sculpture, a kind of dynamic, graceful, and complete serenity. (I do not possess the models or photos of them; if they still exist, they are in possession of an estranged part of my family.) I doubt that a dimension(s) along which one might range design-to-art coincides with a dimension(s) along which one might range abstract art to representational art.

I would like to add here an update on my plans. I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I would try to continue the “Beauty, Goodness, Life” thread at reduced pace as I worked on my book on other areas of philosophy. After only three days, it became clear that that was not feasible. The book took over, and painfully I had to gather up all the books spread out on the big coffee table by the fireplace, where I have been working this winter, and put them onto a shelf, with a distant hope of completing the thread after the book is completed.

[Peter]

Dan wrote:

I had never thought of black holes/singularities to be used like gravitational "whips" to speed up space travel-- that's an awesome possibility!

end quote

A Scifi Plot: anyone is welcome to it, if it has any merit. Let us say a human, space faring generational crew wished to travel to a particular star system. If a “black hole” were traveling in a similar direction, they could catch up to the black hole without falling into its gravitational well. On board propulsion could keep the ship close enough to utilize the singularity’s forward momentum and gravitational pull on the ship without getting any closer to the event horizon. Mining the items floating around the black hole could provide recourses. Puffs from the ship’s jets could the human ship at an optimum distance.

At some point the human ship and crew would veer away from the black hole and any matter circling it then head towards their destination. The replenishment of human crew should not be a problem, through normal human birth or incubators. I have heard that two hundred women at minimum with the stored sperm of a thousand men would avoid inbreeding. I forget the exact reasoning for that number. The biggest problem would be societal. Each new generation of humans would want to rebel (as usual) so the space faring society would need to keep its identity.

Now that I think about it, my scenario sounds like something I read years ago. Yet something new could be written using current science for plausibility.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If you merge these "whips" with cosmic wormholes, you get the movie Contact.

Michael

[Jonathan]

Have you corrected the link while I've been putting this post together, or was there a glitch which somehow sent me to the wrong post (this post) on the old thread?

I haven't edited the link. Must be a glitch. I run into that once in a while depending on what device I'm using to view this site.

Whichever, delightfully serendipitously from my standpoint, the post which came up when I clicked your link contains a set of parallel images you provided:

I've been wanting to look again at that set of images, but I didn't remember what thread it was on and I haven't had time to search.

A question I've wondered about before is whether all of the 5 middle images on the left are in fact paintings. To me, they look as if they could be photographs, but maybe that's just because of loss of detail in reproduction.

Yes, they're paintings. It's probably just an issue of the thumbnails' scale which makes them look as if they could be photos. Viewing the at larger size, the brushwork was pretty obvious. Unfortunately I'm not finding active links. Even the Wayback Machine doesn't seem to be effective here. Example: the fall leaves image was painted by an artist named Kristin Bennett, but none of images are showing up for me in Wayback: http://web.archive.org/web/20080218085700/http://www.kristinbennettart.com/flowers.html

(And it's really a case of bad timing in Bennett's case, since her site expired only one month ago!)

I re-read the whole thread. I think it's a very interesting discussion and goes directly to the core of issues raised about abstract art, architecture and music. Your posts are concise, and I think that Ted and Robert made intelligent, though mistaken, attempts at defending the idea that music has reference.

Their dismissals on abstract art, however.......

A particular point which strikingly illustrates how differently different people can see the same painting is Ted's remark about the Kandinsky painting Michael Newberry posted:

[....]

[....]

[....]

How do they make me feel? The colored painting simply evokes pity at incompetance.

You've gotta love Ted's incompetent attempt at spelling "incompetence."

As is typical of Objectivish types, Ted seems to proudly believe that his personal lack of response and understanding is proof of something other than his own aesthetic ignorance and "incompetance."

The other day a friend sent me this quote from C. S. Lewis, a thought that would never occur to a typical Objectivist:

"In order to pronounce a [work of art] bad it is not enough to discover that it elicits no good response from ourselves, for that might be our fault."

It immediately makes me feel way impressed at Kandinsky's skill!

Yup!

J

[Jonathan]

For example, Vermeer. I was amused last summer when a Delft native with whom Larry and I became friendly, a guy who's super smart, a physicist, well-educated in other areas, a kind of "Renaissance" person, said that he thought Vermeer was badly over-rated and was technically poor - he cited the proportion discrepancies in some of Vermeer's work, for instance, in the view of Delft. "Ah, well," I said, "one really can't please 'em all."

Ellen

Such criticism would imply that the critic is somehow claiming to know what Vermeer's intentions were -- that he was intending to accurately record physical reality, and that he never intended to deviate from it in any way for artistic effect.

Aso, we're back to the issue of the competence of those who judge art. We'd have to know specifically which proportions the critic is talking about, and then actually measure them to see if they really are discrepancies versus the critic misinterpreting them as such.

J

[Jonathan]

When I was a teenager, I designed futuristic styles of automobiles (wheeled) for the annual Fisher Body Craftsman Guild. Each boy built a scale model of his original design from scratch in wood or plaster, finished to look like the painted body of a real automobile. Windshields were of clear plastic stretched over a form, bumpers and some ornamentation were often of aluminum filed and polished. I designed and crafted five years, starting at age thirteen. The last two models had really become abstract sculptures, and they suffered somewhat in practicality.

What I find interesting in the above is something that I've often experienced myself: art and utility can clash; an object's serving of a utilitarian purpose can impede the object's artistic expression, and, vice versa, artistry can cause the object to "suffer somewhat in practicality"; but, Rand was in error to assume that art and utility in the same object must be in conflict. It takes very little hands-on experience working with wood and clay and plaster to recognize how difficult it can be to make the two clash, and that one can get very artistically wild before utility has suffered even "somewhat."

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

The other day a friend sent me this quote from C. S. Lewis, a thought that would never occur to a typical Objectivist:

"In order to pronounce a [work of art] bad it is not enough to discover that it elicits no good response from ourselves, for that might be our fault."

The obverse holds as well.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

For example, Vermeer. I was amused last summer when a Delft native with whom Larry and I became friendly, a guy who's super smart, a physicist, well-educated in other areas, a kind of "Renaissance" person, said that he thought Vermeer was badly over-rated and was technically poor - he cited the proportion discrepancies in some of Vermeer's work, for instance, in the view of Delft. "Ah, well," I said, "one really can't please 'em all."

Ellen

Such criticism would imply that the critic is somehow claiming to know what Vermeer's intentions were -- that he was intending to accurately record physical reality, and that he never intended to deviate from it in any way for artistic effect.

I think a lot of people assume that Vermeer was trying for exact perspective. There was a discussion on this issue someplace earlier on the board, with you and Dragonfly getting into it over the camera obscura question.

Aso, we're back to the issue of the competence of those who judge art. We'd have to know specifically which proportions the critic is talking about, and then actually measure them to see if they really are discrepancies versus the critic misinterpreting them as such.

I know some specifics. The discussion got that far (although it was a momentary side-digression and not pursued). The figures in the foreground in the view of Delft. Another example, the relative size of the soldier in the tavern scene. Maybe you have links easy to hand.

Something which surprised me was the size of Vermeer's paintings. I hadn't realized how small they are until I saw the four at the Rijksmuseum.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Thanks Michael for purchasing the book—I’m honored—Steven is actually one of the key people who helped me formulate/clarify some of its most important concepts by asking me some very good questions years ago, so I’m really interested to hear more of his responses as well as yours.

Dan,

I owe you some righteous thinking, but I have to set time aside and dive deep to feel I am doing justice to the ideas.

This post is to let you know I am not ignoring your comments.

I'm just slow with brainiac stuff.

Michael

[Jonathan]

I think a lot of people assume that Vermeer was trying for exact perspective. There was a discussion on this issue someplace earlier on the board, with you and Dragonfly getting into it over the camera obscura question.

Yeah, I think we have evidence that Vermeer was often trying for exact perspective, most likely while using a camera obscura, but we also have evidence that he rethought certain canvases, and deviated from reality for aesthetic effect.

Aso, we're back to the issue of the competence of those who judge art. We'd have to know specifically which proportions the critic is talking about, and then actually measure them to see if they really are discrepancies versus the critic misinterpreting them as such.

I know some specifics. The discussion got that far (although it was a momentary side-digression and not pursued). The figures in the foreground in the view of Delft. Another example, the relative size of the soldier in the tavern scene. Maybe you have links easy to hand.

Here are links to images of the two paintings:

http://www.wga.hu/art/v/vermeer/02c/13view.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Johannes_Vermeer_-_De_Soldaat_en_het_Lachende_Meisje_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

I just ran perspective lines in both images, and there's nothing to suggest that there is anything wrong with the relative sizes of the people in either image. In measuring the people's comparative sizes, there's necessarily a little bit of leeway/guesswork involved since we don't have any precise grid indicators which would lock in the locations of the figures in space, but we can get within a few inches in the soldier painting, and a few feet in the view of Delft. The only thing that is off is the lowermost horizontal panel of the soldier's chair. Everything else is fine.

So, your critic friend appears to have been making assertions beyond his ability to measure and confirm. Perhaps he is unfamiliar with perspective's dramatic effects when seen (or traced) through a pinhole camera or short/wide-lensed camera obscura?

Additionally, he may have made certain false assumptions, such as that the terrain on which the figures are standing in the foreground of the view of Delft is flat. It's not, and therefore measuring the figures in comparison to each other, as well as to the background, requires that the slopes of the terrain be taken into consideration.

Something which surprised me was the size of Vermeer's paintings. I hadn't realized how small they are until I saw the four at the Rijksmuseum.

I've always loved "cabinet paintings." They're usually more effective to me than larger scale paintings. I think there are several reasons why I personally prefer them, but the primary one is that it's much easier to absorb the whole, the composition.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

Here are links to images of the two paintings:

http://www.wga.hu/art/v/vermeer/02c/13view.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Johannes_Vermeer_-_De_Soldaat_en_het_Lachende_Meisje_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

I just ran perspective lines in both images, and there's nothing to suggest that there is anything wrong with the relative sizes of the people in either image. In measuring the people's comparative sizes, there's necessarily a little bit of leeway/guesswork involved since we don't have any precise grid indicators which would lock in the locations of the figures in space, but we can get within a few inches in the soldier painting, and a few feet in the view of Delft. The only thing that is off is the lowermost horizontal panel of the soldier's chair. Everything else is fine.

So, your critic friend appears to have been making assertions beyond his ability to measure and confirm. Perhaps he is unfamiliar with perspective's dramatic effects when seen (or traced) through a pinhole camera or short/wide-lensed camera obscura?

Additionally, he may have made certain false assumptions, such as that the terrain on which the figures are standing in the foreground of the view of Delft is flat. It's not, and therefore measuring the figures in comparison to each other, as well as to the background, requires that the slopes of the terrain be taken into consideration.

Thanks for the links.

I'm in the same boat as my friend regarding "ability to measure and confirm" and "false assumptions," since the relative sizes in the two paintings look "off" to me, too.

Also, the terrain on which the figures are standing in the foreground of the view of Delft looks not much curved to me, not enough curved to make the proportions seem right. Maybe the curve would seem greater in the original.

Ellen

[Guyau]

Daniel, on page 8 where you mention “ninety percent or more of space has yet to be accounted for,” did you mean “ninety percent or more of the mass-energy in the universe has yet to be accounted for?”

You write at the outset of the chapter on Existence that it “can be anything or everything, in any state, context, or form . . . “. And such at any or every time. You then go on to say “Given the openness of this definition, existence becomes an axiomatic concept—a self-proven idea by its own definition.” By its definition, I take it you mean “Existence is anything or everything, in any state, context, or form . . .”. Are you thinking of this definition as being a sort of performative or demonstrative one in which particular things, states, contexts, or forms are known without abstractness, unlike the concept that is existence subsuming them?

You write that with its open-ended character, “Existence provides at least some context for any or all of our subsequent thoughts or philosophies.” One such context has preceded that statement, which is the opposition of existence to nothing. The further context existence provides seems to be lain out in what follows that statement, which is your notice of various distinctions such as change, permanence, essence, connection, quantities, qualities, entities, and environments.

I would suggest that the unitary context your concept existence provides is only its generality, its any thing and every thing. The logical terms any and every, and the idea of thing or item, are doing the global work. Those guys—any, one, some, and every—are logical concepts we use tacitly in grasping any concept including change, permanence, essence, . . . . and in doing any thinking with them.

To put existence to work for global context of those characters and distinctions would seem to require our grasp and notice of the notion and assertion “Existence exists,” and notice that there are no existents without some distinctive character or other, and notice that some of those characters, including their presentation as existing,—such as change, permanence, connection, and surround—are given in perception, and notice that perception is root for any existential assertions.

[Jonathan]

Thanks for the links.

I'm in the same boat as my friend regarding "ability to measure and confirm" and "false assumptions," since the relative sizes in the two paintings look "off" to me, too.

I would assume that it's an issue of the foreground areas in both paintings not being visually anchored to any perspective grid indicators. The soldier painting has lots of grid perspective in the upper left section, bit nothing elsewhere. Plus the soldier is wearing a large hat and thick clothing, which probably adds to the effect of your experiencing his size as off.

Also, the terrain on which the figures are standing in the foreground of the view of Delft looks not much curved to me, not enough curved to make the proportions seem right. Maybe the curve would seem greater in the original.

Ellen

I think it might. In fact, zooming in on the image on your screen, and getting it closer to the actual size of the original might help. The two posts' (bollards?) relationship to each other in perspective indicate slope as well as a wider lenses camera obscura than one might expect, and thus a more dramatic perspective than what the painting's mid-ground might suggest.

J

[Brant Gaede]

I've been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and seen the incredibly valuable paintings therein by van Gogh and still have to ask myself if they're valuable because they are great art or rare art by a dead man with a great story and reputation? Not really important. Maybe they're worth 50 or 100 million each. I read a recent blurb by an art collector who said don't buy what you like--that's dealer come on horse feahers--but what will appreciate. If an artist has paintings in a great museum go buy his stuff if you can. People who purchase art for those museums are real experts who don't buy what they like.

--Brant

buy what you like means buy what you like that's real cheap--I've got a lot of that on my walls--and not for investment

[Ellen Stuttle]

We're diverting the thread from Dan's book, but, oh, hell, while we have the links close to hand and the topic going...

I would assume that it's an issue of the foreground areas in both paintings not being visually anchored to any perspective grid indicators. The soldier painting has lots of grid perspective in the upper left section, bit nothing elsewhere. Plus the soldier is wearing a large hat and thick clothing, which probably adds to the effect of your experiencing his size as off.

I'm pretty sure that it's the largeness - combined with the darkness - of the hat, plus the thickness of the clothing which produce the "off" impression on me in the soldier-and-girl painting. If I focus just on his face, I can see that it isn't disproportionate.

That painting is one of my favorites of Vermeer's paintings. The positioning of dark and light, the arrangement of figures, window, painting-within-a-painting, the light on the girl's face, and her smile. But the immediate impression it makes on me in terms of perspective is that Vermeer did some adjusting of accuracy for artistic effect.

Also, the terrain on which the figures are standing in the foreground of the view of Delft looks not much curved to me, not enough curved to make the proportions seem right. Maybe the curve would seem greater in the original.

I think it might. In fact, zooming in on the image on your screen, and getting it closer to the actual size of the original might help. The two posts' (bollards?) relationship to each other in perspective indicate slope as well as a wider lenses camera obscura than one might expect, and thus a more dramatic perspective than what the painting's mid-ground might suggest.

Zooming in on the posts (bollards?), I don't see those as indicating much if any slope. The tops seem just about aligned with each other. However, I notice that if I adjust the position on the screen (an iPad is so handy!) so that I'm just seeing the bottom part of the painting - the foreground and part of the canal - the perspective in that part looks right.

Now that I've been to Delft, an aspect which fascinates me about both that painting and the "Little Street" one is how much Delft still looks like the paintings. Change the people's clothes and ignore some roads which have been added, plus the (not many) cars and the (very many) bicycles, and the scenes are almost the same. It's a magic place, enchanting.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

If I had a postcard of every painting in the Met and I opened a museum displaying only those postcards, Im pretty sure most everyone who has experienced the original paintings would find my museum pieces often inferior on the count that their scale has caused some loss in the special feeling they have in experience of the original painting. Size was one of the elements going into making their art-moment feeling.

I wouldn't say "inferior," but "different."

Your comment on postcards reminds me of interviews I've read in which Richter talks about exploring the powerful aesthetic effects of viewing small photos of his own realist works, and incorporating that feeling into new works.

Smaller paintings, and smaller copies of paintings, allow viewers to experience emphasis on different aspects. I think it's rare for artists to paint with only one scale or viewing distance in mind. Most view a painting from multiple distances while creating, continuously stepping back and forth. John Berkey invented a double mirror system which allowed him to simply look into a mirror a few inches above his work surface and see a reduced size image of the painting that he was working on. Personally, I prefer to just look through a five inch concave lens occasionally while I'm painting. I think most artists would encourage you to explore, discover and enjoy all of the different ways in which they've looked at their art.

J

[dlewis]

Stephen you mentioned:

“The last two models had really become abstract sculptures, and they suffered somewhat in practicality. Were the wheels removed and the form there filled in they would be simply abstract sculpture, a kind of dynamic, graceful, and complete serenity. (I do not possess the models or photos of them; if they still exist, they are in possession of an estranged part of my family.)”

These sound amazing—your description of the abstract transformation of these models reminds me of the abstract transformation in Mondrian’s paintings that Ellen posted ( I LOVE these—kinda wished he would have stayed in this stage a little longer—though I am generally attracted to his more formally reduced works tooJ)

“I doubt that a dimension(s) along which one might range design-to-art coincides with a dimension(s) along which one might range abstract art to representational art.”

I think you are right Stephen, but it seems like there is something to be said about making a “sign” or “representation” out of whole form—pulling out only some of its content/elements and reusing it to link us with the original thing, that often can “dumb down” further and further with more abridging. This of course doesn’t always happen, and sometimes it is more advantageous to do this—it can create efficiency and elegance, and as Jonathan said, it can just offer a new way of looking at that content, allowing in sum a fuller experience. But it seems like when most people talk about the difference between design and art, they are taking about this “signage” reduction of the original—taking a few essential characteristics of the original form, often to create an easier template for mass production. Maybe ultimately it’s not a useful division of categories? Do we need any hierarchy of form to separate “fine art” from other kinds of objects/art? If so, does anyone have any suggestions? If not, does this make “fine art” a purely subjective categorization? What allows a form to be set aside to be contemplatively valued vs. used for another, e.g. manual, purpose (one that could likely degrade its form more)?

I think Stephen gives a little of his thoughts on this... perhaps it is in some very broad/general limitations of elements/principles of design/art that could separate an object suited more to contemplative function rather than manual function—repeating what he said above…

“Any adequate definition of art should be able to capture not only feeling-dynamics of experience of art to related dynamics of experience of nature, but to related dynamics in experience of design in art or design neighboring art. Thinking about effect of variations in scale and in the other factors to painting might show clusters into classes one would reasonably call art or would reasonably call design.”

Stephen you mention finishing a book…

“I would like to add here an update on my plans. I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I would try to continue the “Beauty, Goodness, Life” thread at reduced pace as I worked on my book on other areas of philosophy. After only three days, it became clear that that was not feasible. The book took over, and painfully I had to gather up all the books spread out on the big coffee table by the fireplace, where I have been working this winter, and put them onto a shelf, with a distant hope of completing the thread after the book is completed.”

I’m so excited for you-- I hope you can just get lost in it for a while—it will be fantastic to see even more synthesis of your ideas! I’m just assuming it will include many of the essays you’ve been posting on here? Is there one area of philosophy on which you’re focusing, or what do you imagine the scope of the book to cover? Please let me know when I can secure a copy, even if that is a year or more from now.

Oh, I just wanted to mention to Michael that I have no expectations of anyone who is reading or who potentially will read my book, so please don’t feel any pressure or judgement from me (I'm glad you bought the book anyway!). I’ve been enjoying the feedback and conversation on here, and that’s something that was only possible because a brainiac like you formed this site—thank you!!!

[dlewis]

I didn't see this post (#137) by Stephen (his words in italics)-- thought I should answer these questions:

“Daniel, on page 8 where you mention “ninety percent or more of space has yet to be accounted for,” did you mean “ninety percent or more of the mass-energy in the universe has yet to be accounted for?"”

Yes, sort of, but I didn’t know if I should categorize the “void” in our universe as “mass-energy,” since I’m assuming, it hasn’t really been measured as such yet? I see space as more primal so that's what I put, but maybe that is somehow scientifically inaccuate?

“You write at the outset of the chapter on Existence that it “can be anything or everything, in any state, context, or form . . . “. And such at any or every time. You then go on to say “Given the openness of this definition, existence becomes an axiomatic concept—a self-proven idea by its own definition.” By its definition, I take it you mean “Existence is anything or everything, in any state, context, or form . . .”. Are you thinking of this definition as being a sort of performative or demonstrative one in which particular things, states, contexts, or forms are known without abstractness, unlike the concept that is existence subsuming them?”

Yes—with or without abstractedness—I’m putting no categorization on what things are, inside or outside the mind, abstract or concrete—but you are right that "existence" as I am defining it is not just a concept subsuming all other things—it is ANY/ALL things—you actually helped me understand this in my original essay sent to you years ago-- perhaps I didn't need "any/all times" in there, since "things" really takes care of all of it, but I found some people reading the book were thinking of things only as objects, so I added times to try to clarify.

“You write that with its open-ended character, “Existence provides at least some context for any or all of our subsequent thoughts or philosophies.” One such context has preceded that statement, which is the opposition of existence to nothing. The further context existence provides seems to be lain out in what follows that statement, which is your notice of various distinctions such as change, permanence, essence, connection, quantities, qualities, entities, and environments.

I would suggest that the unitary context your concept existence provides is only its generality, its any thing and every thing. The logical terms any and every, and the idea of thing or item, are doing the global work. Those guys—any, one, some, and every—are logical concepts we use tacitly in grasping any concept including change, permanence, essence, . . . . and in doing any thinking with them.

To put existence to work for global context of those characters and distinctions would seem to require our grasp and notice of the notion and assertion “Existence exists,” and notice that there are no existents without some distinctive character or other, and notice that some of those characters, including their presentation as existing,—such as change, permanence, connection, and surround—are given in perception, and notice that perception is root for any existential assertions.”

Humm, I think I differ with you on this. I do not think perception is necessary for existence (or even to know existence if you understand my wider definition of knowledge)—maybe to consciously assert that I know existence, to be able to use it deliberately as an axiomatic concept, but not for existence itself to be. I hate to say this Stephen, but I think this is where the body-mind trap starts. The beauty of the axiomatic concept is that it already includes its axiom—the axiom is a further bifurcation of the concept, splitting it into object and action so that we may better separate things from their actions, space from time, but to have a holistic, evolutionary philosophy from ground “everything,” means just one universal thing should engulf all others, and then split into whatever it splits into. So no, I don’t really think that the axiom needs to be stated /recognized or perceived from the get go, though it may help to explain it here (I do do this later on in the book). Also, I should say that I do think there are four axiomatic concepts we experience as separate individuals within this universe, and these require more qualifications. Existence is the primary one of course, but as you will read my arguments for the other three, they are much tougher to ground than existence—lol. My axiomatic concept "knowledge" takes the place of Rand's "consciousness" and helps to understand how existence exists within us and simultaneously within everything.

[Guyau]

Thanks for those comments and elaborations, Dan. The missing mass-energy we call dark matter is thought to exist on account of its observed gravitational effects. In our standard physics so far, we assume our characterization of the relation of mass-energy to curvatures of spacetime, of which the relation of source-mass and gravitational attraction is an aspect, given by Einstein’s field equation, is correct. You may know the slogan “Mass-energy [stress-energy tensor] tells spacetime how to curve; spacetime curvature tells matter how to move.” Then we note that our observations of motions of galaxies (think velocities of the rotating arms of spiral galaxy) deviating from our predictions by the field equation are explicable, and in accord with our field equation, if there is much more mass-energy in a galaxy than we get by adding up the mass-energy of the galaxy’s matter of the kinds whose character, beyond their gravitational character, we know: the leptons, hadrons, photons, and pals. The missing mass-energy is analogous to a missing outer planet at the stage one has observed only its effects on the motion of a known closer planet, motion anomalous according to Newton’s law of gravitation (which has its place within our modern theory from Einstein) unless there is another massive body beyond view thus far. I’ve said this all from memory, so I hope I haven’t gotten anything wrong about what is meant and surmised about the missing mass-energy, or dark matter. See e.g.

By the way (as you will anticipate), whether vacuum space is empty or contains something wherever there is vacuum space is a question being settled by physics. All of the philosophic reasoning and conclusions on this from the Greeks to Descartes, Leibniz, and us was waste.

Yes, my own book draws from my previous work in essays. From the current Introduction to the book:

This philosophy is mine, significantly indebted to that of Ayn Rand, yet seriously opposed to hers. In the course of presenting my own philosophy, I present Rand’s in her development of it and in its situation with other philosophies. I critique her mature view and extend her right elements. I set out a new philosophy of . . . .

Although much is drawn from my previous writings, those views are reworked and supplemented into an integrated whole. Of course much from earlier essays in pertinent areas has to be omitted too. Thus far the scope of the book is metaphysics, epistemology, and theory of moral value. The last should reach well into theory of individual rights, but I expect no political philosophy proper (nor esthetics) in this book. Thus far I remain with an axiomatic foundationalist approach, of empirical stripe, though axiomatic concepts and propositional axioms are added to Rand’s. My concept of consciousness and my definition of knowledge will differ from Rand’s. The theoretical Part of the book is to include the philosophic axioms, philosophy of logic, perception, concepts, and judgments (including analyticity), the natures of mathematical and scientific truth, and free will. The metaphysics and epistemology then reverberate through the Part on theory of value and are some of the reason for my considerable differences (and affinities) with Rand’s ethics. Still hoping to complete within two years.*

[dlewis]

Stephen:

The ideas for your book sound great-- I'm especially interested on what you have to say on the philosophy of logic, and the natures of mathematical and scientific truths-- the contrast of your philosophy with Rand's will be interesting. I wish you the best on that two year mark-- so hard to know for sure.

Lol-- yeah, I, in general, agree with you--scientists will ultimately be the ones to measure and conclude what is going on in space, but I don't think speculation and anaylsis of the theories they've put out there is a waste-- if philosophy can make sense of the data in a more clear way, then I don't see why it shouldn't be used. I think now the primary theory is that both "dark matter" and "dark energy" are what is "filling" about 95% or our space-time and/or matter-energy continuum. I guess dark matter, as you've explained, has been measured and calculated to some degree from the "missing mass-energy" that could be explained through emperical data of gravitational lensing arcs as well as other similar curvatures in outer space. Dark-energy though, is a lot more theorectical from what I understand--I'm not even sure they think it is energy in the traditional sense--it seems like they think of it more abstractly as a courterforce to gravity that can explain why the universe is expanding. I guess that Is why I left my description more vague, though it would probably be wise to add "and/or matter-energy" in there to cover my bases.

[BaalChatzaf]

Stephen:

The ideas for your book sound great-- I'm especially interested on what you have to say on the philosophy of logic, and the natures of mathematical and scientific truths-- the contrast of your philosophy with Rand's will be interesting. I wish you the best on that two year mark-- so hard to know for sure.

Lol-- yeah, I, in general, agree with you--scientists will ultimately be the ones to measure and conclude what is going on in space, but I don't think speculation and anaylsis of the theories they've put out there is a waste-- if philosophy can make sense of the data in a more clear way, then I don't see why it shouldn't be used. I think now the primary theory is that both "dark matter" and "dark energy" are what is "filling" about 95% or our space-time and/or matter-energy continuum. I guess dark matter, as you've explained, has been measured and calculated to some degree from the "missing mass-energy" that could be explained through emperical data of gravitational lensing arcs as well as other similar curvatures in outer space. Dark-energy though, is a lot more theorectical from what I understand--I'm not even sure they think it is energy in the traditional sense--it seems like they think of it more abstractly as a courterforce to gravity that can explain why the universe is expanding. I guess that Is why I left my description more vague, though it would probably be wise to add "and/or matter-energy" in there to cover my bases.

Dark matter and Dark Energy are both place holders for our ignorance.

Our current gravitational theories do not account for the matter we can observe with our various instruments. So there is stuff we can't "see" or our gravitational theories are off.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Peter]

From a site called “Evolition.” Someone beat Dan to the word.

This is an old joke from that site but funny.

A group of scientists who having discovered the secrets of cloning decided they would have a conference with God to tell God He was no longer needed. Yes, God had created humanity and all of life, in fact, from the very dust of the earth. But now science had taken over the job and God could retire.

So the top scientists in the world gathered together and they called God to a conference having told God, He/She was no longer required.

God said, “Explain this to me.”

They said, “We now know how to make life out of dust ourselves.”

God said, “Well then, okay, you go ahead and show me how you can do that.”

So they reached down for some dirt and God said, “Uh, uh, uh, get your own dirt.”

[Peter]

Ba'al Chatzaf wrote:

Dark matter and Dark Energy are both place holders for our ignorance.

Our current gravitational theories do not account for the matter we can observe with our various instruments. So there is stuff we can't "see" or our gravitational theories are off.

end quote

Dan wrote, on this thread, (in the beginning 8 -)

So if we know existence is a self-proven concept, then we know the “self-proven” and some kind of “knowledge” should also exist, whereas with other ideas we cannot make these same direct assumptions.

end quote

That is a concept I get, and then I don’t get it. I think mathematical formula, axioms, and the like, are products of consciousness plus universe, since we know consciousness is a process that began sometime after the beginning of existence, and axioms do not exist without consciousness. They cannot be pointed to: There is a three legged axiom and there is a mathematical formula of the apod variety. I don’t think the formulas exist in *the universe,* but in *the universe plus volition/consciousness*. (Dan Lewis’s term cholce.) Are modern philosophical musings better than old musings? They are better thought out” perhaps, but they could be just as wrong. Is “Big Bang” Science really science? If you can think up provable math formulae to verify your theory is that proof? Only proof that we thought it up.

I googled a few notes.

Stephen Hawking:

The other interpretation of our results, which is favored by most scientists, is that it indicates that the General Theory of Relativity breaks down in the very strong gravitational fields in the early universe. It has to be replaced by a more complete theory. One would expect this anyway, because General Relativity does not take account of the small scale structure of matter, which is governed by quantum theory. This does not matter normally, because the scale of the universe is enormous compared to the microscopic scales of quantum theory. But when the universe is the Planck size, a billion trillion trillionth of a centimeter, the two scales are the same, and quantum theory has to be taken into account.

In order to understand the Origin of the universe, we need to combine the General Theory of Relativity with quantum theory. The best way of doing so seems to be to use Feynman's idea of a sum over histories. Richard Feynman was a colorful character, who played the bongo drums in a strip joint in Pasadena, and was a brilliant physicist at the California Institute of Technology. He proposed that a system got from a state A, to a state B, by every possible path or history. Each path or history has a certain amplitude or intensity, and the probability of the system going from A- to B, is given by adding up the amplitudes for each path. There will be a history in which the moon is made of blue cheese, but the amplitude is low, which is bad news for mice.

end quote

Goodbye Big Bang, Hello Black Hole? A New Theory Of The Universe’s Creation by Elizabeth Howell on September 18, 2013:

Could the famed “Big Bang” theory need a revision? A group of theoretical physicists suppose the birth of the universe could have happened after a four-dimensional star collapsed into a black hole and ejected debris. Before getting into their findings, let’s just preface this by saying nobody knows anything for sure. Humans obviously weren’t around at the time the universe began. The standard theory is that the universe grew from an infinitely dense point or singularity, but who knows what was there before? “For all physicists know, dragons could have come flying out of the singularity,” stated Niayesh Afshordi, an astrophysicist with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada who co-authored the new study.

end quote

Steinhardt and Turok:

- working closely with a few like-minded colleagues—have now developed these insights into a thorough alternative to the prevailing, Genesis-like view of cosmology. According to the Big Bang theory, the whole universe emerged during a single moment some 13.7 billion years ago. In the competing theory, our universe generates and regenerates itself in an endless cycle of creation. The latest version of the cyclic model even matches key pieces of observational evidence supporting the older view. This is the most detailed challenge yet to the 40-year-old orthodoxy of the Big Bang. Some researchers go further and envision a type of infinite time that plays out not just in this universe but in a multiverse —a multitude of universes, each with its own laws of physics and its own life story. Still others seek to revise the very idea of time, rendering the concept of a “beginning” meaningless.

end quote

Elizabeth Howell again:

So what are the limitations of the Big Bang theory? The singularity is one of them. Also, it’s hard to predict why it would have produced a universe that has an almost uniform temperature, because the age of our universe (about 13.8 billion years) does not give enough time — as far as we can tell — to reach a temperature equilibrium.

Most cosmologists say the universe must have been expanding faster than the speed of light for this to happen, but Ashford says even that theory has problems: “The Big Bang was so chaotic, it’s not clear there would have been even a small homogenous patch for inflation to start working on.”

This is what the physicists propose:

The model they constructed has the three-dimensional universe floating as a membrane (or brane) in a “bulk universe” that has four dimensions. (Yes, this is making our heads hurt as well, so it might be easier to temporarily think of the brane as two-dimensional and the “bulk universe” as three-dimensional when trying to picture it.) You can read the more technical details in this 2000 paper on which the new theory is based.

So if this “bulk universe” has four-dimensional stars, these stars could go through the same life cycles as the three-dimensional ones we are familiar with. The most massive ones would explode as supernovae, shed their skin and have the innermost parts collapse as a black hole.

The 4-D black hole would have an “event horizon” just like the 3-D ones we are familiar with. The event horizon is the boundary between the inside and the outside of a black hole. There are a lot of theories of what goes on inside a black hole, although nothing has ever been observed.

In a 3-D universe, the event horizon appears as a two-dimensional surface. So in a 4-D universe, the event horizon would be a 3-D object called a hypersphere. So basically, what the model says is when the 4-D star blows apart, the leftover material would create a 3-D brane surrounding a 3-D event horizon, and then expand.

While the model does explain why the universe has nearly uniform temperature (the 4-D universe preceding it would have existed it for much longer), a European Space Agency telescope called Planck recently mapped small temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background, which is believed to be leftovers of the universe’s beginnings.

The new model differs from these CMB readings by about four percent, so the researchers are looking to refine the model. They still feel the model has worth, however. Planck shows that inflation is happening, but doesn’t show why the inflation is happening.

“The study could help to show how inflation is triggered by the motion of the universe through a higher-dimensional reality,” the researchers stated. You can read more about their research on this prepublished Arxiv paper. The Arxiv entry does not specify if the paper has been submitted to any peer-reviewed scientific journals for publication.

[dlewis]

Peter wrote that Ba'al Chatzaf wrote:
Dark matter and Dark Energy are both place holders for our ignorance.
Our current gravitational theories do not account for the matter we can observe with our various instruments. So there is stuff we can't "see" or our gravitational theories are off.
end quote

I agree with you Ba'al-- the science behind "dark matter" and "dark energy" (especially dark energy) are very associational and aren't based on direct, first-hand measurements of "stuff"-- at least from what I've read, either. This is the reason, in combination with all the speculations from scientists/science writers, such as these few major ones as Peter has presented, with good examples above, that make me think philiosphy should enter the realm of science on these highly abstract and basic levels, because I think scientists are kind of grasping at straws at these levels and probably could use some help from something like axiomatic structure. One example I found strange myself was the "infinite density " and/o "infinite temperature" scientists are proposing are conditions of a Big Bang genesis singularity. The unit for density is mass per unit volume. Now, some things like light don't even exhibit mass as we commonly perceive it, and at the start of the Big Bang there is supposedly an infinite amount of it-- where did it all go? Also, volume being infinite seems like a contradiciton, because isn't volume inherently some kind of containment? So as much as I respect science, I think a lot of scientific theory is misguided/misunderstood, and frankly, may be a lot simpler than many are making it. I'm a fan of Roger Penrose's use of geometry to explain the univese (though I think that too may be overly complex)-- similarly, understanding my metaphysical mathemetics is key to understanding my scientific basis behind axiomatic structure.

Peter wrote:

"Dan wrote, on this thread, (in the beginning 8 -)
So if we know existence is a self-proven concept, then we know the “self-proven” and some kind of “knowledge” should also exist, whereas with other ideas we cannot make these same direct assumptions.
end quote

That is a concept I get, and then I don’t get it. I think mathematical formula, axioms, and the like, are products of consciousness plus universe, since we know consciousness is a process that began sometime after the beginning of existence, and axioms do not exist without consciousness. They cannot be pointed to: There is a three legged axiom and there is a mathematical formula of the apod variety. I don’t think the formulas exist in *the universe,* but in *the universe plus volition/consciousness*. (Dan Lewis’s term cholce.) Are modern philosophical musings better than old musings? They are better thought out” perhaps, but they could be just as wrong. Is “Big Bang” Science really science? If you can think up provable math formulae to verify your theory is that proof? Only proof that we thought it up."

The arguement in Evolition with my ideas of the metaphysical, i.e. essences, quanities, qualities, e.g. things like mathematical formulae, axioms. etc., is that these things too have concrete existence, but just no exact/one end in space-time, so for example, the computer in front of you is one quantity, the table on which it sits another, the wall and room behind it yet another,interconnected with a whole building which has air in it, which could be measured within it to some quantity (as well as air outside the structure) within any environmental parameter that may be there, and in between all the molecules of air, man-made spaces and land to ocean to land stretching around the whole earth can be quantified as well, whether we know what exactly it is or not-- that it can have a quantity not just contained by the volume of earth or even our cosmologic horizon -- ultimately I think this "something" filling in between masses, other matter and energy is really infinite, some boundless spatial substance, just as numbers/quantities can be infinite. I suppose some poeple might want to call it an "infinite nothing"-- I think that is epistemoplogically problematic but fine, say it's "nothing"... in sum, because we have something in our minds (e.g. a concept/perception/idea of some space between particles or cosmic matter-energy) which relates to something we can point to in the outside universe (some space between two particles or cosmic matter-energy) , the concept of quantity (like other essences/ metaphyical concepts mentioned above) can be never-ending in TO-TAL, yet also describe divisions where one thing stops and another begins. So I think matematics does relate to actual concrete things--it is not just an abstraction in our heads, or "proof we thought up," Peter, but something with "meta"physical reality. Thus I think the basic levels of mathematics could hold systematic relations that inform us of how the universe had to unfold, in ways we maybe can't discover just through scientific experiments. Is there a way basic physical data can be looked at more simply? I think axiomatic structure does a good job of making sense of a lot of data in a more coherent way, and I hope I've explained it clearly enough in the book to make some headway. I probably should edit it some more-- I'm open to suggestions.

[dlewis]

I think I overstepped bounds in talking about mathematics as a way nature would have to unfold-- I'm not talking about predeterminism or even a rigid mechanistic or "bottom-up" determinism-- what I mean at this "basic" level would be in terms of "possibiolities" to "probabilities," as has been talked about in other threads, and also I meant to imply axiomatic structure as a kind of matematical base starting from infinities, thus much, much freer at the base than might be thought of in convertional mathmatic conceptions of the universe.