the beautiful

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Art is anything and everything constructed by man, whether theoretical or practical. Even if it is pure knowledge it has to be formulated and that process of formulation is what is known as art.

I have a pebble I picked up off a beach where a million other pebbles lay. I liked this pebble as soon as I picked it up out of the pebble-profusion. The elements had worn it into the shape of a large egg. Nature had produced a work of art! Or had it? I studied this pebble, examined it carefully, searched for flaws, felt the weight of it as I turned it in my hands, and in the process I added mind-stuff to that pebble; stuff that was never there before! In this adding of mind-stuff I transformed that pebble from an accident of Nature into a human work of Art.

We’re used to endowing art with mind-stuff; we read things into it, there is a baggage that accumulates along with the original object. What’s more we do likewise with Nature. My pebble became a kind-of crystal ball in which I saw only near-perfection and the beautiful come true.

So, Marcel Duchamp discovered the Ready-made and then the Ready-made Aided but I, Phrygianslave the Wise, am the discoverer of the Nature-made Aided © 2005 !!

And now the universe is my pebble, I am the knowing intelligence in the universal system, and god is my Nature-made Aided, i.e, my creation.

As for, ‘the beautiful;’ let us take, e.g., the phrase, ‘beautiful sunset,’ and explain to me where the, ‘the beautiful,’ is to be found in the light from a sun illuminating a planet in it’s solar system in a galaxy of a universe as it turns on its axis? (O.K. whatever turns you on!) But seriously, what we are speaking of is tantamount to the pebble: a dead, inanimate lump of matter.

Now, for a long time, the humans on the planet surface have known the truth, namely, that a, ‘sunset,’ is in fact something that has no beginning and no end, (for the sun does not stop shining while the earth does not stop turning,) and the occurrence that is perceived belongs to the realm of meteorological phenomena. Why should they then go on to term what they know to be occurrences of mere atmospheric effects as things belonging to the aesthetically beautiful?

The answer has to be man’s need for contemplation. Man seems to have an inbuilt contemplative streak, as it were. It distinguishes him from the animals. There is a painting, by Rembrandt, of a man, in a red coat, frozen in thought – I think it’s called ‘Portrait of Jan Six?’ The man is facing the spectator, (i.e., facing out of the canvas into the real world, our world,) eyes open, but somehow Rembrandt has caught him momentarily looking inward, into his soul, lost in thought. Do any of you know this painting? Is it beautiful? Is it the essence of the beautiful? Or is it nothing more than a pebble?

But then what is a pebble?

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Phrygian,

“In this adding of mind-stuff I transformed that pebble from an accident of Nature into a human work of Art.”

Haven’t you left out the necessarily repressed “fact” that you and your “mind-stuff” are “accidents” of nature too? How is adding one accident to another accident suddenly a non-accident?

Dunamis

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Hi Dunamis,

I don’t quite know how to respond!

I haven’t ‘repressed’ anything. Do you mean ‘suppressed?’

You say ‘I’ and my ‘mind-stuff’ (you and your “mind-stuff”) are accidents of nature?

If you know what ‘I’ is perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell us all.

How can mind-stuff be regarded as an accident of nature? That assumes that nature comes before mind!

I don’t think mind(-stuff) is an accident of nature or vice-versa.

How do you infer that I am ‘adding one accident to another?’ (What, like adding insult to injury?)

Peter

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Phrygian,

"I haven’t ‘repressed’ anything. Do you mean ‘suppressed?’ "

I mean repressed by the self-contradictory cultural view that Man is somehow both “natural” and “unnatural”. May I ask you, do you imagine that Man is a product of Nature or not?

Dunamis

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Man the organism is a product of nature, and every individual man must invent himself.

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Hi Dunamis,

I don’t ‘imagine’ anything on this matter, I ‘see’ quite clearly that Man is part of Nature, and Nature is part of Man. The two are inextricably linked. You cannot separate them out as you imagine.

Peter

Hi xanderman,

I repeat what I’ve just said to Dunamis to you, Man and Nature are part of one and the same thing.

Peter

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Phrygian,

“I don’t ‘imagine’ anything on this matter, I ‘see’ quite clearly that Man is part of Nature, and Nature is part of Man. The two are inextricably linked. You cannot separate them out as you imagine.”

It is not I who has separated Man and Nature, but inadvertently you. “Inextriably linked”, though very inexorible, does imply a separation of a kind. If Nature is only a “part” of Man, what other parts of Man are not natural? Why is not Man made of Nature entirely? Or let me put it this way, in what way is a pebble an “accident” of Nature and Man not an accident of Nature?

Dunamis

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Hi Dunamis,

I don’t know this word, ‘inexorible,’ please explain. Do you mean, inexorable, and, if so, what has that to do with the matter?

Inextricable does not imply ‘separation of a kind.’ That is your inference.

I didn’t say, ‘Nature is a part of Man.’ I said, ‘Nature is part of Man.’ I was careful about this. The two statements mean different things. If I’d said what you erroneously impute to me, I should also have had to say, (in regard to the other part of the statement,) ‘Man is part of a Nature,’ and, of course this was not at all what I wanted to express!

O.K. You seem to be anxious when it comes to this term, ‘accident.’

Concentrate instead on this: the transformation of Nature into Art via mind-stuff.

Does that help?

Peter

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Phrygian,

"I didn’t say, ‘Nature is a part of Man.’ I said, ‘Nature is part of Man.’ I was careful about this. The two statements mean different things. If I’d said what you erroneously impute to me, I should also have had to say, (in regard to the other part of the statement,) ‘Man is part of a Nature,’ and, of course this was not at all what I wanted to express!

O.K. You seem to be anxious when it comes to this term, ‘accident.’ "

As someone so careful with words, surely you meant something by using the word “accident”. I am pointing out the inherent contradiction in the use of this word and its implied separation of Man from what it transforms. Are you now dropping the entire concept that pebble that was being transformed is an accident of Nature? If so, the subject of my point is now displaced.

Also as someone careful with words, please explain to me what “Nature is part of Man” means. While distinct from “Nature is a part of Man”, it certainly does not mean “Nature is entirely Man”. It specifically implies that there are aspects of Man which Nature does not describe. What aspects of Man are those?

And yes, spell check did not catch inexorable. The image was that of interwoven concepts, which cannot be moved so as to separate themselves completely, but as yet lie distinct. If you feel the image does not work, skip it. The point being that inextricable things, though woven together remain distinct. Two inextricably knotted strings are still two strings. And two things that are “linked” are not identical. Please state what it is about Man that is not from Nature. My position is simple. Man is natural. Nothing about Man is not natural.

Dunamis

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Experience is a simulation created by the mind for the apparent purpose of corresponding sufficiently with an underlying reality that we can interact with it in a ‘productive’ manner.

We cannot go beyond this simulation, we have no experience of the dead or inert natures of the objects you describe, though we do have concepts of this dead and inert nature.

Anything and everything is a formulation of the mind, as you say, the universe (or rather our conception of it, which is the limit to which we can know of it) is art. It is constructed by our minds to hold some apparent profundity.

The profundity leant to the objects we perceive is (if our minds are indeed functioning in the way they are apparently ‘supposed’ to) meted out in such a way as to drive us towards interactions with objects that benefit the self, and therefore leads to the further production of patterns similar to our own.

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Hi Dunamis,

I agree. But also, everything about nature is seen/known/observed not in itself but within the structure of mind.

Nature is seen through the glass of the human mind.

To say, ‘Nothing about man is not natural,’ is to see the relationship between man and nature as nature-centred, nature-based.

For me, mind is before all things.

I have an abhorrence of materialistic reductionism in all its forms.

Peter

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Hi noneedforaname,

I think I like your intelligent remarks!

I agree.

I do not follow. Please explain further.

I agree, absolutely.

Not quite sure what you mean. Certainly, I have to question, ‘drive us towards interactions with objects that benefit the self,’ and ask does this obvious morality-basis, as it were, include altruistic actions? If yes, and you’re not saying that life equals dog eat dog, then I can accept this. Presumably these further, ‘patterns,’ would be kind-of behaviour reinforcing? But, then, new behaviour can be acquired. Check out Gregory Bateson.

Peter

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Phrygian,

“For me, mind is before all things.”

If nothing about man is not natural, then the mind as well is natural.

“I have an abhorrence of materialistic reductionism in all its forms.”

When one frames their philosophy against something (abhorrence), in a reactionary sense, I’m not sure what is arrived at is as insightful as it could be. Rather than opposing a point of view, the truth of it should be subsumed. Instead of running away from the materialist’s point, embrace it. I suggest, spiritualize the material, materialize the spiritual. Dissolve the contradiction. The mind, which is material Nature organizing itself so as to look at itself, is natural. If a pebble is accidental, so is the mind. If the mind has design, so has the pebble. When “you” pick up a pebble and call it art, “who” really is doing that? Nature.

Dunamis

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Hi Dunamis,

Yes, in the sense that it, (the mind,) is peculiar to man, i.e., it is part of his nature to possess his human mind. Yes, it is what is essentially human, this faculty, as it were, of mind.

But, ‘natural,’ and ‘nature,’ have numerous meanings. . .

No! You cannot level this at me! The, ‘abhorrence,’ and the, ‘materialistic reductionism,’ came after the hypothesis. They are mere appendages; other possible, ways of understanding oneself and one’s statements.

To raise the, ‘pebble,’ accident of nature to the level of, ‘human,’ accident of nature, seems to indicate a stance of materialistic reductionism, something endemic in the modern world-view, and something, I, quite naturally, find repugnant.

Matter, however it organises itself, is incapable of looking at itself. I don’t know what mind is, but it is not intelligent matter. For me, mind is the active principle that brings matter into existence. Matter is chaotic and meaningless, i.e., it is without form, without being. Mind could not have emerged from such, (whatever it actually is.) The two co-exist. There is no proof that nature came before mind. The two came into being simultaneously. They are two sides of the same coin and that coin is not, some greater nature in which lesser natures are nested and embedded.

So you’ll say to me, what about the fossil record, where was mind then? But that’s another matter, for another day. . .

Yes, my human nature, nature in human form. But if you are, (seemingly you are,) dealing in ultimates, then what you say is true. But that means we then have to un-name everything surely? So then neither, ‘nature,’ nor, ‘man,’ any longer exists except outside of the philosophico-linguistic paradigm, i.e., in the, ‘normal,’ world!

But you really should tell me what level of, ‘nature,’ you’re on!

Peter

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Phrygian,

“To raise the, ‘pebble,’ accident of nature to the level of, ‘human,’ accident of nature, seems to indicate a stance of materialistic reductionism, something endemic in the modern world-view, and something, I, quite naturally, find repugnant.”

I suggest, let the materialists reduce everything to the material, but to expand the understanding of what the material is. The reason why I focused on your assigning of the accidental to the pebble is that you have produced a dichotomy you cannot support. Feyerabend makes the same point:

“One is that works of art are products of nature, no less than rocks and flowers. The other is that nature itself is an artifact, constructed by scientists and artisans, through out centuries, from a partly yielding, partly resisting material of unknown properties.”

“But you really should tell me what level of, ‘nature,’ you’re on!”

The level of Nature I am operating from is consistently this “partly yielding, partly resisting material of unknown properties”. It has been broken into artifacts of Nature and of Mind by some traditions of thought, but this division seems unnecessary, and in fact self-contradicting.

You say,

“I don’t know what mind is, but it is not intelligent matter”

At once professing ignorance but also excluding one interpretation. If the definitions of “intelligent” and “matter” are deepened, then perhaps you would be closer to an answer to the nature of mind. To me these conceptions of the mind and matter are the unacknowledged vestiges of Gnostic dualism.

Dunamis

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Hi Dunamis,

Let me see if I’ve got this correct. In my opener I said, “Art is anything and everything constructed by man, whether theoretical or practical.”

If art is this, ‘anything and everything constructed by man,’ then nature as part of this, ‘anything and everything,’ becomes, by virtue of the fact that it is, ‘constructed by man,’ something that must be regarded as art.

Thus, in this particular scheme/model, nature is a product of art.

I also said, “I have a pebble I picked up off a beach. . . . . .The elements had worn it into the shape of a large egg. Nature had produced a work of art! Or had it? I studied this pebble, examined it carefully, searched for flaws, felt the weight of it as I turned it in my hands, and in the process I added mind-stuff to that pebble; stuff that was never there before! In this adding of mind-stuff I transformed that pebble from an accident of Nature into a human work of Art.”

Here I questioned whether it might be possible for nature to produce a work of art, and concluded that it could not, but that an accidental product of nature, constructed by man, might be transformed into art, thus, I deduced that art can be created by man but not by nature.

Thus, somewhat anthropocentrically, all reality is the creation of mind.

Man is no longer a product of nature, (if he ever was,) but, rather, a product of art, an art-assemblage, thus, perhaps, an art-illusion. It follows, then, that nature must also be an art-illusion.

Peter

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Phrygian,

"Here I questioned whether it might be possible for nature to produce a work of art, and concluded that it could not, but that an accidental product of nature, constructed by man, might be transformed into art, thus, I deduced that art can be created by man but not by nature.

Thus, somewhat anthropocentrically, all reality is the creation of mind.

Man is no longer a product of nature, (if he ever was,) but, rather, a product of art, an art-assemblage, thus, perhaps, an art-illusion. It follows, then, that nature must also be an art-illusion."

But the entire process is underwritten by Nature. At no time does it leave nature. Man is a “construction” of nature. Each of its parts is natural. The sum of its parts is natural. Everything that man does is natural, including art. It’s like saying that the things that computers accomplish are not something that man has done. That, or please specify the part of Man that is not natural.

" “I have a pebble I picked up off a beach. . . . . .The elements had worn it into the shape of a large egg."

Even at this point the pebble has been constructed. As soon as your senses identified it as a distinct object, it was constructed as a pebble, but “you” are also constructed. Water trickles over the landscape, wearing a river over a thousand years, this is a part of nature. A bird flaps its wings, this is a part of Nature. A bird builds a nest. This is a part of nature. A man picks up a pebble and thinks about it. This is a part of nature. A man paints a still life of flowers over some months, this is a part of nature.

If what you are trying to emphasize is that man “adds something” when experiencing something in a particular way, to this I would agree. Man brings the pebble into being in a way it’s never had been before. But this is natural.

Dunamis

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Hi Dunamis,

If I sat a million monkeys in front of a million computers for a million years do you think that at the end of that time, ‘nature,’ would have accidentally produced a play on a par with Shakespeare’s, ‘Macbeth?’

Do you think that if I put paints and canvas in front of the same number of monkeys for a billion years that nature would eventually accidentally produce a painting on a par with Velasquez’s, ‘Las Meninas?’

The answer is no.

Nature is not able to produce art.

Art is deliberate purposeful design.

Nature is not.

But this can only be, ‘known,’ or, ‘revealed,’ through art. Without art there is no nature in the first place.

First, you define, ‘natural,’ (as in this context just quoted.)

Have you been reading Haiku? It is man that sees the, ‘art,’ in a bird’s nest. Nature is blind, it sees nothing, art does not exist for nature. In nature everything is functional.

Art may choose to dispense with the functional. Nature has no choice.

Man is of a different order to a river. A river exists as basic morphology. A man is not only a structurally hugely complex physical being but he is also an intelligence. Intelligence has a life of its own, follows its own pathways, pathways that do not obey physical laws. It is by this intelligence that we measure man, not by his physical prowess in, e.g., his ability to, ‘service,’ numerous women in succession. That is the way we measure a bull, but not man.

We are advanced creatures. And it is art that is responsible for our advanced-ness.

Peter

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Phrygian,

“Art is deliberate purposeful design.”

Is a bird’s nest designed or accidental? Is it natural?

Dunamis

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Hi Dunamis,

I believe the bird builds instinctively and without premeditation. It builds naturally but the only design in the nest is the one we are able to see. The bird is not aware of design. A particular breed of bird will always conform to a design type. A blackbird could not suddenly start building the nest of a crow.

Peter