How the hell can logic and rationality be used inappropriately? That
alone is about as irrational as you can get. As for intuition, I seem to
remember reading an article in Natural History magazine that explained
intuition. It went like this. Intuition is extremely unreliable, but it
does seem to work statistically more often than one would expect from
random guessing. The reason for its working at all seems to have
something to do with inattention to one's own perceptions. For example,
if you wear clothes - and most of us do - we feel those clothes on our
bodies constantly, but we are not consciously aware of them. We are
inured to them. But if all of your clothes suddenly fell off you would
notice then. Similarly, we perceive all types of things in our
environment and fail to consciously notice them. However, we are still
perceiving them and the consideration of this sensory input still
effects our decision making processes on a low level and that is called
intuition. Now, are you going to become highly offended that I just
explained something else? Why does it offend you so much to explain
things? Despite the fact that you called yourself an atheist are you
still wrapped up in supernatural assumptions anyway? Really, Miriam, it
is never inappropriate to try to understand the world around us in a
rational manner. Letting emotions just take over leads to just plain
wrong beliefs about the world.
On 1/12/2016 9:49 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
You are attempting to use your intellect, logic, and rationality in ways
that are inappropriate. The problem is that in knowing whether or not
something is art, one must not only have had some sort of education and
experience with art, but one needs to use one's intuition. Knowledge comes
to us in many ways. Intuition, which involves emotion, is one way. You can
continue to attempt to define all experience in terms of logic and
rationality, and you will continue to miss something very important. We
can't explain to you in words, what you are missing.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2016 11:58 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] A Possible Expanded Definition of Art
I was quite surprised when I became the recipient of so much hostility just
because I offered an objective and succinct explanation of art and I was
astounded at the latest accusation that somehow I have been derogating art,
but it has caused me to do some introspection. I really do not think it
accomplishes anything but confusion when it is insisted on that art must be
defined by some subjective reaction to it and that it it be assumed that
everyone have the same subjective emotional reaction to it, but I have said
that I like some art too and by saying that I suppose I am expressing a
subjective emotional reaction of my own. The vast majority of art elicits no
emotion in me at all. I am neutral about it. There is not a lot of art that
I actually dislike though. Even when it comes to poetry I only dislike it
insofar as I don't understand it and I think that as a means of
communication it is terrible. I had not really thought of poetry as art
until this discussion when I realized that it did meet my objective
definition of art. Now that I realize that it is art I can say that insofar
as it is art I am neutral toward poetry too. But I am left with the art I
like and that includes some paintings that I saw before losing my eyesight
and it includes music. So my introspection came when I asked myself exactly
what subjective emotional experience was I having when I observe a piece of
art that I say that I like. It seems that the answer is that I am
experiencing the same feeling that I experience when I say that I am
entertained by something. So if subjective feeling is so important to all of
you in defining art what do you think of defining it as synonymous with
entertainment? If we did that it would include a lot of things that I have
always thought of as being excluded from the realm of art. For one thing, it
would include that kind of dense fictional prose that I most commonly hear
called art, but that I think is just plain boring. Even if it doesn't
entertain me I have never doubted that it entertains some people, most
likely the ones who call it art. A definition like that would, of course,
include all other fiction and a whole lot of nonfiction too. It would
include television and radio programming and it would include festivals,
fairs and carnivals too.
That is, if it entertains it is art. There might be some question about
whether it would have to include only human created entertainment though.
Earlier I excluded patterns that occur in nature as art because they were
not human created and no one calls patterns in nature art.
People do, however, find it entertaining to go on hikes and nature walks
though and if I am stretching the definition of art to mean just
entertainment then that seems to be stretching it even further, way further.
Now, I am reluctant to make the word art synonymous with entertainment. I am
reluctant, for one thing, because it is another manner of letting a single
word mean more and more and like I have said before, the more you allow a
word to mean the vaguer it becomes until it means everything and then it
means nothing. For another thing, allowing art to be the same thing as
entertainment would include a very many things that almost no one ever calls
art, notwithstanding the fact that I have heard phrases like the performing
arts. I don't know why it upsets so many of you to simply and succinctly say
that art consists of things upon which humans have imbued patterns, but I do
wonder if this suggested expanded definition would be more acceptable.
