what is art?
First, define “art”. What art is may give you a clue.
Art originally comes from skill, but took on a different meaning when technology, which originally also meant “just” art, supplanted it. Later, art became roughly synonymous with aesthetics. In addition, it is often understood as the antithesis of nature. But with that, art touches the meaning of culture, and culture is more than “just” art. In any case, art is a part of culture. The art is a language, and the language I understand very generally as something which reaches from semiotics to linguistics and philosophy or logic to mathematics, thus as everything that is sign, and, if one disregards the fact that each thing has its being-in-itself, everything is sign. Art is thus the aesthetic of signs, the aesthetic of everything.
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Where does art come from?
The mind.
…every brush stroke/pencil chalk or pen mark, is a visual representation of a thought, sometimes with and sometimes without an end vision… ergo Art.
Yes, one can say that art comes from the mind. But the mind is also a very general concept and one-sided when it comes to the question of the origin of art, because the things with which one makes art must also be there. Or are these things also only a creation of the mind?
The mind controls the body, as a means to a specific end, which in this case is art… the first art being wall carvings, depicting the ancient way of ritual and life that was being lived at the time.
The wise, disseminating knowledge to the people…
Art comes from language, in terms of tools it comes from the tool called the hand and the tool called language. Without language, what the hand accomplishes is not yet art. But the hand and the language challenged and encouraged each other so much that the IQ increased enormously, especially where the landscape, its climatic conditions, was favorable for it, and this is especially the case on our planet Earth in Europe, very especially in North-West Europe - the North Atlantic Current, which is fed by the Gulf Stream, provides climatic conditions that are unique: for the latitudes at which Northwest Europe is located, it is never too cold and never too warm, the demands are still high, but easy to cope with because of the climate.
Language is art.
Two types of art:
1-representing perceptions
2-representing reactions to perceptions
Language is art, is technology, science and much more, but without language the others are not possible. And that is why language can also promote what is generally accepted as art. Not everything that is or is not art is accepted or not accepted as art.
Animals have not a linguistic and a semiotic language, but only a semiotic one.
Art like all ideas come from the collective unconscious that everything is attached to, that is why they come to us and not us to them.
While it is true that language and manual dexterity (the ability to use the hands skilfully) are often considered crucial in the development of art, the exact relationship between these factors and intelligence is complex and multifaceted and leads to various forms of expression.
Visual arts, such as painting and sculpture, can convey meaning without the use of language, and we have many examples of primordial humans using colours to depict their surroundings. Language began in many places with pictorial images, and Chinese is an example where that has remained in use.
Language can enhance the interpretation and understanding of art, and artists may use language to communicate their intentions or provide context for their work, but the act of artistry, especially of drawing and painting, has a lot to do with reproducing an impression, a shape, a colour, a shadow, a beam of light and so on, and with language we may later try to explain what we were doing, but I don’t think that it normally precedes the art.
The co-evolution of language and tool use has been a factor in the development of human cognitive abilities, but language was for a long time restricted to lists, measurements, and the like, and building seems to have been a form of expression that was later superseded by written depictions of imagination.
The idea that climatic conditions, such as those in Northwest Europe, may have influenced cultural and intellectual development is a hypothesis that I can’t agree with, considering the structures, writing and images that have been found all over the world.
What you call “collective unconscious” is language too. Language is a collective matter and process (evolution/history) and has a huge part within the unconscious.
To make it clear how I understand “language”, I have created a signature (see there [below]).
In order to gain a better understanding, it is advantageous to know what is meant by “language”. I have a very general understanding of language, because for me language covers everything that has to do with signs - linguistic or semiotic signs (for example: mathematical numbers or functions etc. are signs, in this case symbols, so also based on language). For example: when an animal interprets a track (a sign, namely an index) and then either follows it or not; or a picture (a sign, namely an icon) in which you find what you know and like or dislike; or a traffic light (a sign, namely a symbol) whose colours you interpret to know what you must or must not do as a proper road user. However, animals do not have a linguistic language like we humans do, but have to make do with a more modest form of language, semiotic language.
Take science, for example:
Every science is language science, science of language (linguistics and semiotics as scientific disciplines). This applies to both the theoretical and the practical (empirical) side of science. As in life in general, where it also applies to both the theoretical and the practical (empirical) side.
The “collective unconscious” is also largely language, as I wrote at the beginning of this post. However, I would rather not use this term, because it has been misused too much by groups that all unanimously follow the same agenda. I mean (a) collectivism, which was already misused by Marx in the direction of communism as the synthesis of the thesis of capitalism and the antithesis of socialism, in order to achieve the alleged “overcoming of the evil” of capitalism (the “bourgeoisie” was meant by this) and thus “paradise”. This collectivism has been linked by neo-Marxism, in particular by the “Frankfurt School”, but also by “post-structuralism”, by “postmodernism”, with (b) Freud’s “psychoanalysis”, which incidentally has nothing to do with “psyche”, but all the more with control (power). This connection is also called (ab) “Freudomarxism”.
Both words - “collective” and “unconscious” are much older than Marxism, which is the oldest of the exploitation systems mentioned here. Nevertheless, they should only be used with caution and otherwise only when it comes to what I have just pointed out.
I did not say “often considered”, but that “the hand and the language challenged and encouraged each other so much that the IQ increased enormously, especially where the landscape, its climatic conditions, was favorable for it, and this is especially the case on our planet Earth in Europe, very especially in North-West Europe - the North Atlantic Current, which is fed by the Gulf Stream, provides climatic conditions that are unique: for the latitudes at which Northwest Europe is located, it is never too cold and never too warm, the demands are still high, but easy to cope with because of the climate”.
Intelligence is language. Intelligence can only be measured by language (signs) - body movements (including hand movements) are also signs (language). There is no other way to determine it, and it can only be measured if one is able to use symbols, and symbols are signs, thus: language. So language is intelligence, and intelligence is language.
Visual arts, such as painting and sculpture, and all other arts cannot convey meaning without the use of language. Meaning is always linguistic. Definitions are also linguistic. Every kind of semantics is linguistic. It doesn’t matter if you try it mathematically, philosophically, or otherwise scientifically, you always use language. Thinking is also language, and a very elaborate form of language at that. When it is systematized, we have called it philosophy since Plato. When it is systematized in a certain way with symbols, we call it mathematics or logic. And so on … There are always two sides: the active side and the passive side. The active side denotes the producer, while the passive side denotes the recipient - whereby both can also be one and the same person and, in the case of the artist himself, must be the same person, because the artist must understand what he is doing and how it is understood by others. If, for example, a Homo erectus wants to produce art, he must not only be the producer, but also the recipient of his work of art. Both require understanding, i.e. language.
No. Language already existed long, long before pictorial images began and even very much longer before the Chinese.
It does. And it did. The interpretation, the comprehension, the communication, the context, the art, the drawing, the painting, and everything else, you have talked about, are language. Animals, for example, know nothing of the linguistic language, which, as I have said (and recently can be read from my signature), animals do not understand, or only in a semiotic way, i.e. that they hear sounds which they understand as commands, flattery, encouragement, invitations, etc., but are not linguistically capable of understanding (they do not know any linguistic grammar and linguistic meaning, i.e. semantics).
You misunderstand language, Bob. You think that language is based on only written language. In reality, written language (including artificial language, which is also called “artificial intelligence” [“AI”]) is the historically last stage of linguistic language, and, as I said, language is made up of both linguistic and semiotic language.
Written language is the penultimate language invented by humans. So it is also artificial. But now, let me say a bit more to the last language invented by humans:
The last of the just said two examples of a completely artificially created language by humans is the so-called “software”, consisting of programs and often simply referred to as “artificial intelligence” (= artificial language). It has been programmed by the linguistic beings called Homo sapiens sapiens.
All software is language, namely a purely artificial one, i.e. one that has been constructed by humans and has nothing more to do with nature at all, as is still the case with hardware. This is because this language is not in a natural body, as the language of humans (linguistic and semiotic language apparatus) and the language of animals (semiotic language apparatus) still do.
By the way, it follows, as the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk has also said, that since the time of computers, more precisely, since the time of software, even more precisely since the time when software was more intelligent than man in a purely rational sense (this began back in the mid-1990s, when no chess player could defeat computer software anymore), all people are condemned to inescapable conservatism, as they were before the Neolithic Revolution and most of them even long after.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8x-cp7SXAs[/youtube]
The crucial passage begins at 9:37.
To make it clear how I understand “language”, I have created a signature (see there [below]).
In order to gain a better understanding, it is advantageous to know what is meant by “language”. I have a very general understanding of language, because for me language covers everything that has to do with signs - linguistic or semiotic signs (for example: mathematical numbers or functions etc. are signs, in this case symbols, so also based on language). For example: when an animal interprets a track (a sign, namely an index) and then either follows it or not; or a picture (a sign, namely an icon) in which you find what you know and like or dislike; or a traffic light (a sign, namely a symbol) whose colours you interpret to know what you must or must not do as a proper road user. However, animals do not have a linguistic language like we humans do, but have to make do with a more modest form of language, semiotic language.
Take science, for example:
Every science is language science, science of language (linguistics and semiotics as scientific disciplines). This applies to both the theoretical and the practical (empirical) side of science. As in life in general, where it also applies to both the theoretical and the practical (empirical) side.
Do you want to deny that the Gulf Stream exists and the North Atlantic Current exists with all its effects on Europe?
Without the North Atlantic Current, we would have climatic conditions in Europe like those in Canada or Russia!
Geology is a pretty serious science.
Do you want to deny that humans are almosts always facing challenges?
The Europeans have not only risen to, but also developed the best for them from the challenge of the weather/climate. The effects of the North Atlantic Current on Europe, especially on the northern half and western half of Europe, are unique on our planet.
That is undeniable!
You can only allow yourself your interpretation because of a historical fact, which, by the way, proves exactly my assertion that the interplay of genetic and climatic conditions has ensured that Europeans have been so incomparably successful. There is not a single comparable example that can even come close to a similar success. This historical fact led to all luxuries: Western technology, which led to the Industrial Revolution and made possible all the other revolutions, i.e. the insane revolutions with all their isms resp. ideologies. Why insane? Most people are not able to adequately handle the luxuries that Western technology - and only Western technology ! - has made possible. We see this everywhere: the more luxury, the more dissatisfied and morbid most people are.
Most humans are not able (probably due to biological deficiencies) to persevere for a evolutionarily long time a really high culture, i.e. also highly technical, highly intelligent, highly luxurious, etc… Luxury is one of the main reasons why they begin to degenerate at a certain point in time. Luxury and its consequences are among the main reasons why this point in time occurs after a certain number of generations. Actually, we should always be in good shape because of the luxury, but that is not the case. It gets worse and worse with luxury, although it is precisely luxury that gives us an increasingly pleasant life. This is a contradiction, yes, but one that can be resolved. After a certain point of time luxury will be destroyed because of the named biological deficiencies and above all the great interests in destruction (one of the many, now officially recognized isms is even named after it: destructionism) in order to get money/wealth and thus power. Without the luxuries that Western technology has brought to everyone, there would probably still only be around 400 million humans on earth today. This means that 7.7-7.8 billion of the humans living on Earth today (8.1-8.2 billion) would not exist at all, and to the same extent (95%) all their ancestors would not have existed either!
Note: The last paragraph refers to the relationship between biology and culture and the relationship between the two and power. Due to lack of space, I have not yet gone into much detail about the negative influences such as control through advertising and brainwashing - all language (see above and my avatar below).
I am by no means alone with my philosophy, more precisely language philosophy, which includes philosophy of science or epistemology.
Many well-known philosophers have said similar things, though not exactly the same as I have.
I developed my philosophy over a long period of time and started very early on - initially with a focus on science (language) and history resp. evolution.
There is nature with its bodies in it. To understand this more precisely, physics came into being. But even the physicists would only see bodies without knowing that they are bodies, if the physicists did not use language, i.e. would remain without understanding and therefore without knowledge of them - like an animal that can also see the bodies, but knows nothing about them in contrast to the physicist and also almost all other humans.
The bodies that the physicist sees can only be recognized when the bodies move, i.e., give signs, and these signs are language - and nothing else.
The most interesting question for me is why people of the highest culture in world history are willing not only to abandon their culture, but even to destroy it. I have already given the answer: on the one hand, they themselves are so in their biological way of being, and on the other hand, it is the forces of power of very few that control, exploit and drive the masses to their downfall. The reasons for this are clear. The effects are dramatic, a tragedy.
Even in the Stone Age, some humans exploited nature to such an extent, i.e. achieved a luxury that ultimately caused them to starve. In Stone Age Burgundy, for example, humans drove wild horses towards a slope, which they then fell down and were then eaten by the humans. This was continued until there were no more horses there. Those humans were too greedy and probably not able to hunt sustainably. It is just easier to make as much hunted prey as possible and not worry about the consequences. It is a greedy behavior, albeit still primitive, with luxury effects, which in the end almost always result in the death of the luxuriated greedy. Man becomes comfortable and puts up with the downfall. This can be observed again today: most humans know what is going on against them, are otherwise too comfortable to defend themselves against it.
The first luxury was brought to humans by fire.
Two further examples of greed, which makes us forget that every hunter-gatherer must focus on sustainability in order not to become his own victim in the end, are the inhabitants of Easter Island, which made with their wrong, because unsustainable, economic behaviour the island uninhabitable, and the Aborigines of Australia, which made with their unsustainable, economic behaviour almost the entire continent uninhabitable.
The song of a bird, the braying of an ass, the hooting and hollering of a primate…the beginning of art.
The relationship between intelligence and language is complex, and there are varying perspectives on how intelligence should be defined and measured. Of course, language is a significant aspect of human intelligence. Still, it’s not the sole indicator or measure of intelligence, but one of the multiple intelligences identified by psychologist Howard Gardner.
verywellmind.com/gardners-t … es-2795161
Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences suggests that intelligence is multifaceted and encompasses various abilities, including musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic intelligence, in addition to linguistic intelligence. Linguistic intelligence involves proficiency in language-related activities, such as reading, writing, speaking, and understanding spoken and written words.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman introduced the concept of emotional intelligence, which involves understanding and managing one’s emotions and the emotions of others. This form of intelligence is not solely dependent on language but involves interpersonal skills and emotional awareness.
resilienteducator.com/classroom … explained/
Non-verbal intelligence, including spatial reasoning, pattern recognition, and problem-solving skills, does not necessarily rely on language. People can demonstrate high intelligence through actions, problem-solving abilities, and non-verbal communication. Different cultures may express intelligence differently, which may not always align with a standardised linguistic framework. Cultures may value different forms of intelligence, including practical skills, social intelligence, or creative problem-solving.
I would argue that the experience of art is inherently non-linguistic and that the aesthetic impact of a painting or sculpture is felt on a sensory and emotional level. The appreciation of beauty, emotional resonance, and the impact of an artwork can be immediate, and it does not always require verbal interpretation. Art can also transcend linguistic and cultural boundaries. Paintings, sculptures, and other art forms can evoke emotions, communicate cultural ideas, or express abstract concepts without relying on linguistic symbols. Colour, form, composition, and symbolism can convey meaning directly to the viewer. While language can provide context and interpretation, people from different linguistic backgrounds can still appreciate and interpret visual art meaningfully.
Semantics is the study of meaning, and it primarily deals with how words and symbols convey meaning in a language. It examines the relationships between words, their meanings, and how these meanings are structured and conveyed in sentences. However, although semantics is a key aspect of language study, it doesn’t exclusively apply to spoken or written language. It can also be relevant to other symbolic systems, including non-verbal communication, such as gestures, symbols, or visual elements in art.
As demonstrated above, semantics doesn’t exclusively apply to spoken or written language.
It is generally accepted that, although the development of writing was not a linear process, early forms of communication likely involved simple symbols and gestures before evolving into more complex linguistic systems. Before the advent of written language, human communication likely relied on gestures, facial expressions, vocalisations, and possibly simple symbolic representations. Early humans used symbols and signs to convey basic information about their environment, such as the presence of food or the location of a threat.
Over time, human societies began to develop systems of proto-writing, which involved symbolic representations that may not have had a standardised or fully developed syntax. These early symbols could have served as mnemonic devices, recording important information or events. The transition from proto-writing to fully developed writing systems marked a significant leap in linguistic sophistication. Ancient civilisations, such as the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Chinese, independently developed writing systems to record complex information, stories, and administrative details. These early writing systems used symbols or characters to represent words or syllables.
Some civilisations, such as the Phoenicians and later the Greeks, made significant advancements by developing alphabets representing individual phonemes or sounds. This innovation greatly enhanced the expressiveness and efficiency of written communication. As writing systems evolved and became more standardised, they played a crucial role in developing complex societies, preserving knowledge, and communicating sophisticated ideas. Writing allowed for the transmission of information across time and space.
But you are putting the interpretation first, not the non-verbal impression a scene makes, which is deemed worth representing. Beauty is often ineffable, and all attempts to reproduce it are emotional responses. Beauty is often perceived as a subjective and complex experience beyond simple description. People may encounter beauty in various forms, such as nature, art, music, or even human relationships, and find it challenging to capture or articulate that experience’s essence fully. Artists, writers, musicians, and creators often grapple with the challenge of representing beauty in their work. They may use their respective mediums to evoke emotions, stir the senses, and create an aesthetic experience that resonates with others. That may be semantics, but it is not necessary language.
But here we are talking about art, and linguistic or semiotic signs are not always necessary for art. Art can encompass a wide range of expressive forms that go beyond the use of words or explicit symbols. While language can be a powerful tool in artistic expression, many art forms rely on visual, auditory, tactile, or other non-linguistic elements to convey meaning and evoke emotions.
A child’s first “re-presentation” of what presents itself, is often awe. The gaping mouth is expression enough for the impression made by the beauty that presents itself.
The relationship between language and intelligence is not “complex”, because both basically mean the same thing. Basically!
You seem to have not read my text. ALL signs are language - including mathematical numbers, functions, statistics, etc, ALL signs.
There is no such thing as “non-verbal intelligence”. Everything that an animal or a human being does non-verbally is language too, must also be understood in every process, i.e. the meaning of what is done must be understood - the semantics, and this is only language: (a) semiotic (what you mean by “non-verbal” is semiotic) and (b) linguistic (human language - non-oral and oral - it can be partly and passively understood by higher animals, but only on a semiotic level, because animals do not understand the linguistic semantics and grammar). And again: Written language is also linguistic language (if it were not, then it would only be understood semiotically - try to read/understand a text omly semiotically). Written language is based on oral linguistic language.
By the way, every intelligence test is language too, so it can also be used to test intelligence/language. It would be something like a hyperintelligence test.
You argue with “emotions” or “sensors”, but neither of them is of any use for the understanding itself, for the intelligence itself, but must also be interpreted, both by the sender and the receiver. This is also how art was created. An animal that wants to draw attention to itself does not do so without understanding, without knowledge, without intelligence, i.e. without language, in this case: semiotic language. Otherwise, the animal would not do it. Instinct is a program, and a program is also language. We hardly notice this program.
Semantics is not just about words. Even in ancient times, it did much more than that. Semantics deals with ALL signs. In linguistics, these are phone/phonemes, morphs/morphemes, words/logemes, sentences/syntactemes and texts/textemes, as well as with all characters/graphemes; in semiotics, these are all other signs, i.e. all those that are not linguistic. There are evolutionarily subordinate signs to linguistics, which are purely semiotic, and those which are evolutionarily/historically superior to linguistics, i.e. belong to metalinguistics, or to philosophy, to logic, to mathematics, and which are both semiotic and linguistic, because they can be traced back. And that is exactly what intelligence research does. They conduct language research.
Semantics is a language discipline. It is about meanings. It is all about meanings. Von Humboldt dealt with this very intensively, as did many others, and later, for example, Sapir and Whorf. In this case, when it comes to attribution, it does not matter whether mathematics also does semantics (it does) or other disciplines do. Semantics only has to do with language, because all the others can be traced back to it - and must be if you really want to do good science. All other attempts at semantics are subordinated to the semantics of langunage science (either linguistics or semiotics), because everything can be reduced to it.
And also philosophy can make a lot of contributions here, because it comes from the meta-level, just like logic and mathematics.
There are reasons why certain branches of science are partly opposed to this, because they do not want to lose the power that they have been given, because certain people can use them to better control the mass of people.
You use a trick when you talk about “communication” to distinguish it from language. That is how you colour when you want to talk down or get rid of something. Communication is language, but not in such a way that it comes before it or stands above it, but the other way round: communication is an aspect of language - nothing more.
I have told you how language is to be understood. You do not go into it, because you always use words that distract from it. If you understand language the way I do, then it already exists before communication. Communication merely serves as a placeholder for focussing everything on information (see the lobby for computers and the internet - both of which are also nothing more than language). But language is more than information, more than communication. You in particular, who like to deal with emotions, should understand this very well. Is the influence of the media (also just language) stronger on you with regard to communication theory and therefore information theory? Communication theory and therefore information theory are good theories - I have studied them myself for a long time - but they are not enough if one wants to investigate language itself, on which they are also based.
If we go along with and believe the communication theory and therefore the information theory 100%, then we are lost, because that robs us of our humanity. And the reason for this lies in the fact that we are more than beings of communication and therefore of information. We are beings of language - like all other living beings - and we have placed ourselves above the other living beings by beginning to expand and develop language: from semiotics to linguistic (oral and written) language.
Written language is a great development, an important component of language and has revolutionised many things, first with the book, then with the Computer and the Internet, right up to artificial intelligence, which should actually be called artificial language. The alphabet with consonants is the best that has ever been developed, because it allows us to read much more effectively and quickly. In the case of the other writings, the writing itself must always be deciphered, so that there is no time to deal with what has been said much more effectively.
I am „putting the interpretation first, not the non-verbal impression a scene makes“, because your “non-verbal impression” is not non-language (the English language does - unfortunately - not have an adjective for the noun “language”). Beauty and all the other things you mentioned must be interpreted. A baby is not capabel of interpretation beauty, for example, but the beauty is there. It can only be done by interpretation, and interpretation is a matter of semantics, either semiotic semantics or linguistic semantics.
And your “art forms” that have to do with “visual, auditory, tactile, or other non-linguistic elements” are NOT non-language (the English language does - unfortunately - not have an adjective for the noun “language”), they are language, because language is always involved - in semiotic or linguistic or in both semiotic and linguistic forms.
You relate too much to things and far too little to what things do. They give impressions through the signs, which either come from themselves and are then interpreted by us (this way or this way or that way …) or are interpreted by us into them.
Your answers clearly tell me that you have not understood what I mean by language. I explained it to axtra several times and even created a signature for it. Perhaps it would help you if the English language would finally offer an ajective for the noun “language”. The English language does not distinguish between the hyperonym (superordination) “language” and its hyponyms (subordinations) “semiotics” and “linguistics”, so that many misunderstandings are preprogrammed.