Marco To Danila,
(with references to Platt and Roger)
I've read your post, but I feel there's a basic misunderstanding. I'll
try to clarify my position. And I'll try to comment your point of art
and intellect being twins extensions of society.
> In asking "Where does Art fit?" Roger and Marco give different
> answers to the question: Should we assign Art to a level by its
> intention/method, or by its effect?
> Roger says: by its method. Art is not Intellectual because it
> doesn't use logic, rationality, etc.
> Marco says: by its effect. Art is Intellectual because it can
> give a person insights into reality that rationality cannot.
First clarification: I don't agree with your intention/method vs.
effects. I'm not focused merely on the effects... also on the purpose.
In facts, about artists, I wrote:
"they try, they make drafts, then they perform, when they think they can
communicate".
Maybe it's for my poor English... isn't intention a synonymous of
purpose? I agree that Roger is more focused more on method than effect,
but, for what about me, the purpose is as important as the effect. And,
furthermore, let me say that focusing on purpose and effects of
something is very pragmatic and close to the MOQ, while focusing on the
method seems to be closer to a scientific and objective taxonomy, based
upon the "substance" of the "object".
Art is not a roulette where random numbers are produced and their value
depends only on their effects. The purpose is as important as the
effect. Of course, if the effect of your art is bad, it means you are
not a good artist. But without purpose the effect is impossible. And
also without method it seems very difficult, if not impossible.
>
> Discussion:
> There are four definitions of art. Platt provided the dictionary
> definitions, which are substantially the same as the ones I wrote.
> "Art" in common language can mean
> a) the fine arts,
> b) craft/skill,
> c) the attempt by a person to create "art", and
> d) the successful (beautiful) creation of art.
Right....
> Marco is referring only to sense (d), which is successful art. He is
> saying that good art can give a person insights into reality that
> rationality cannot. Good art enriches perception, allows a
> person to think about new things, etc.
>
hmmmm ... I referred to all four definitions! As said, I give a great
importance to the purpose. According to Pirsig, a motorcycle maintainer
has to care. What is care? It's the PURPOSE to produce a good EFFECT, by
means of an excellent METHOD. An excellent work to have an excellent
engine, so that the maintainer will be in peace with him/herself and
the driver will perceive the excellence of the work.
And another clarification: if you have perceived a greater attention on
effects, it's because I feel this is what Roger is not considering. I'm
trying to complete his point.
In facts, about art being greater or less than intellect, Roger wrote:
"I don't know that it is less. I think Platt and Pirsig think
that it is greater. To be honest, I don't know yet".
Well, I don't know if he knows, now. I'm just offering my solution...
> This is true and critically important for an understanding of
Intellect.
> But. is unsuccessful art Intellectual? It is not Intellectual
> because it has no effect.
Sorry, this are your words, not certainly mine. Unsuccessful art is
unsuccessful art. Just like unsuccessful science is unsuccessful
science. There are example of unsuccessful science... theories denied by
experiments. Is it science? ... yes as purpose, no as effect. IMO
unsuccess is a sort of mistake of evolution. Biological mutations
usually are unsuccessful. Isn't it biology? Yes, even with no good
effects. But clearly only by means of purpose and unsuccess, sooner or
later evolution will take the RighT way.
> And what about craft/skill, where
> DQ comes in accidentally, or is a secondary reason for creation
> of the object?
DQ comes in accidentally? As secondary reason? It's hard to imagine a ma
sterpiece made accidentally. Or science developed accidentally. Craft
and skill are necessary ingredients. Purpose is another necessary
ingredient.
> These objects can be
> "art" but they have no effect on Intellect.
What "objects"? If you apply your craft just to make money (take for
example the 99,9% of Hollywood movies), it is social art. I offered the
example of the colosseum as a social art. A great skill, a great method,
a social intention (demonstrate the power of the empire). I've never
thought that art is merely intellectual. The purpose and the effects are
my (pragmatic) way to categorize.
> If you say, next, "Well, I want to judge art by its
> intention/method" then
> you agree with Roger, that intention/method is the way
> to categorize art.
>
I repeat, I've never rejected the purpose and the method. Of course I
partly agree with Roger. There's no art without method and purpose. IMO
the effects can distinguish good and bad art. I just say that art has
its own methods (techniques, like painting, or acting) and those
methods, far from being scientific and rational, are
nevertheless methods. And about the purpose, I wrote that science and
art share the same purpose! More than this....
> I put intention and method together. Why?
Yes, I was wondering just this question..... but over all, why against
effects? It's like to say: food is food if it has the purpose to feed,
and if it has been prepared according to the RighT method of cooking,
but it's not important if it feeds !!!! The cooks have the purpose to
feed, AND the effect to feed. Sorry for my pragmatism :-)
> The intention of art,
> as I see it, is to either
> a) shake people up (bring DQ) or
> b) show the DQ in an existing situation.
> The method is to focus on the production of beauty
> without utility.
Utility? what is utility? IMO you are talking about social good:
celebrity, money and so on. Let me correct your sentence: art can
produce beauty with more than merely social utility. Picasso used to
sell his own pictures: there's nothing bad in it, if only this social
"utility" is not the only purpose. Even science can focus on the
production of knowledge with more than merely a social utility. However,
it's not evil for a scientist to sell his/her own science. It's
(intellectually) evil if the whole purpose of science is only focused on
the achievement of social goods, abandoning the RighT purpose to advance
the line of knowledge towards the Unknown.
However I'd say that the method is one of the ingredients for the
production of Value. But it's not "the focus on the production of beauty
without utility": these seems to me a good definition for the purpose.
IMO the method is to focus on the "purification" of the product.
> But what is beauty? Beauty is a result of
> our perception of a high-quality experience. We can perceive beauty at
> any of the four levels.
> (From this fact I assume that Art can occur at any of the
> four levels.)
>
I've already explained my point on this to Platt. To say that we can
perceive beauty at any of the four levels is not correct. Of course, it
depends on what we mean for "beauty". IMO, the production/perception of
beauty does not deal so much with my biological/social selves. And maybe
also with my intellectual self.
The utility you mentioned is the social good. If we force beauty as a
four level good, you can define your "utility" as the social beauty. I
do prefer to say that it's simply social good.
> So the intention of art is to bring or show DQ, and the method
> is a focus on the production of high-quality experience. It seems
> to me that intention and method are both essential to the definition
> of art and that therefore I
> agree with Roger, that Art should be separate from Intellect.
>
Nice. In one of my recent posts on this thread, I wrote:
"What we commonly call "art" (painting, theatre,
poetry... ) are part of the widest family of "rt", which includes every
activity dedicated to search for excellence. By means of RiTual and
cReaTivity (method and intuition)".
Method IS essential! I've always said it.
Moreover, I don't understand the shift from this assumption (intention
and method are essential) and your conclusion that art and intellect are
separated. Following your reasoning, as method and intention are with no
doubts essential to science (I think Roger agrees on it), science should
be separated by intellect!!!!
Do I miss something?
> Then, should Art be a higher level, or something that exists
> along all the
> dimensions? Or, as I proposed, a level above the Social
> that is separate
> but equal to Intellect?
>
In facts, this is the flawed result. A separated level, but equal to
intellect. A sort of "deus ex machina" to solve the problems you have
created by yourself.
-------------
Then you go on exposing this theory of art and intellect as twin
developments from the social level. It does not convince me.
> But first, where to fit the other definitions of art: the fine
> arts and art=craft/skill? The fine arts are a topic or field that
> includes all the
> attempts by artists; "the fine arts" are an artifact of language
> that isn't
> important to this discussion.
UH? This is a discussion about intellect. Isn't language important to
intellect? Many here suggested language as the DNA of intellect.... By
saying that art is an artifact of language you are maybe stating the
equivalence of art and intellect!!! (or, at least, that art is
intellectual)...
However, I'll consider you use below intellect as synonymous of science
and philosophy. Right?
> What about art=craft/skill? Art here is
> secondary to some other work. I would argue
> that Einstein, in this sense,
> is an artist. Beauty/harmony are produced
> but that was not the person's
> primary intention.
>
Pirsig's point of Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg being artists is not merely
about their skill of good and rigorous scientists. It is about their
capacity to follow the artistic sense of harmony in the attempt to
explain scientifically how universe works.
> Art=craft/skill is a problem if we want to create an Art
> level above the Intellectual level. Because an Art level above the
> Intellectual level would
> imply that the Intellectual level created Art for its own
> purposes, but Art
> broke away and started organizing reality for its own purposes.
> Historically, that is not true. The fine artsart with no functional
> purposeare new. The fine arts began to exist around the time the
> Intellectual level came into existence, and beauty was no longer
> were tied
> to religion. The fine arts are a product of secularization,
> and also of
> surplus wealth. Most of what we recognize as art throughout
> history has
> been craft art: textiles, religious statues, jewelry, manuscript
> illustrations, etc.
>
> So I don't see how Art can be above Intellect.
>
In fact, art as skill is not the art Platt uses when he talks about the
possible fifth level. Skill is obviously all level. If you just shift
your attention from the question "what is art?" to the (Pirsigian and
Pragmatic) question: "what is the value of art?" you maybe solve your
problem. Motorcycle maintenance is and will be an art/skill, even if not
necessarily intellectual or "FIFTHLEVEList". Its nature, its value, is
in the purpose and in the effects, not merely in what it is.
> But what about Art as a parallel development to Intellect,
> both above the
> Social level?
>
> Let's look at the relationship of Art to Intellect. We know:
> The experience of art can have an effect on a person's Intellectual
> patterns. And Intellectual patterns can affect an artist's decisions
> throughout the process of making art. Both of these relationships are
> "apples and oranges"; I feel that Intellect and Art are two completely
> different kinds of patterns (even with Marco's good point in mind).
The relationships between different levels are null, or very few.
Talking about the relationship between intellect and society, Bodvar
Skutvik once wrote "they are like Fire and Water". If you admit there
are reciprocal influences between art and intellect, you bring a good
help to my point that they are at the same level. To be at the same
level does not mean to be similar. Empires, tribes, families, kingdoms
are all social expressions. Trees and elephants and amoebas are all
biological expressions.
> They seem more different from each other than an ecosystem seems
> from a tree (both are Biological, but the ecosystem is much more
> advanced another post
> someday). Neither Art nor Intellect can
> dominate each other.
>
I used the concept of "environment" (the arena for pattern interaction)
to explain the relationship between a tree and the ecosystem. I offered
Space/Time as the inorganic environment, Biosphere (or ecosystem) as the
biological environment; Economy as the social environment; Public
opinion as the intellectual environment. But this is another story....
> So Art and Intellect are different, but Art can't be above Intellect.
>
> Art can't be below Intellect.
>
> So Art is either on the dimensions, or parallel to Intellect.
>
> If Art is a way of understanding the world, and communicating
> DQ, and is
> unique to humans, and has the same
> kind of social effects as Intellect, it
> seems to me that it should equivalent to Intellect.
>
> Therefore I see Art and
> Intellect as twin developments from the Social level.
Isn't is simpler to see that art can be intellectual? Just like science
and philosophy?
>
> Can a pattern be both Artistic and Intellectual? Not exactly.
Pirsig himself talks about scientists being artists. OK, let's say
RTists. My example of drama being both intellectual and artistic wants
to demonstrate that there are strict connections.
> We could say:
> There is symmetry for bad but not for good. All
> bad Art is not Intellectual
> and all bad Intellectual patterns are not Artistic. But--all good
> Intellectual patterns (product of craft) have Artistic merit,
> but not all
> good Art has an influence on Intellect.
>
I find it a little puzzled. Bad or Good art is art. Bad or Good science
is science.
Science is RTistic as purpose and methods are RTistic.
Art is intellectual as purpose and methods are investigation and
communication of reality.
In both cases, the effects are intellectual (communication of reality,
influence on public opinion... ).
Of course good art and good science are better. I measure this better on
the effects. Man is the measure of things..... of course effects
descend by method and purpose.
> Thus, we suspect that in fact Art might be ABOVE
> Intellect, because all
> good Intellectual patterns are Artistic but not vice versa.
>
> How to solve this paradox? What is the relationship of the twins?
>
Well, IMO there's no paradox.... however.
> Here is my answer:
> Art as a by product of craft/skill--developed early in human
> history. It was
> the first way of showing DQ in order to control it
> (cave paintings), and,
> perhaps, to worship it.
IMO cave paintings were primitive forms of language. Hunters trying to
explain to the family what happened. Remembers carved or painted in the
rocks. Something like modern slides we use during conferences...
> The four levels for most of human history were
> Inorganic Biological Social Art. The Intellectual level
> did not exist
> until the end of the bicameral mind (see Julian Jaynes's
> great book "The
> Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the
> Bicameral Mind".). Once the
> Intellectual level was created, it tried to take over and
> rationalize all
> the social arrangements based on religion
> and custom. To do so, it had to
> understand the world, and science (as a study) was born, and the
> methodology of rational thought.
Yes, science created for a social purpose. This is also my point. But
also fine arts created for that. The basic social tool is language, just
like DNA is the inorganic tool for life.
> The Intellect does not
> want to admit how
> much it is influenced by emotion, Art, social
> considerations, etc. because
> it is jealous for its methodology.
>
Science tries to surpass emotions. While fine arts try to dominate them.
Both are in opposition to emotions (IMO emotions are the social basic
value) but with different methods.
> Art, the older twin, continues to work at all four levels (including
> Intellect) through craft/skill. But her feet were cut out
> from under her by
> the fall from bicameralism, and the fine arts are the result. They are
> optional. They do not matter to us in the same way
> that Art does to people
> for whom it is inseparable from "the way we live."
>
As said to Platt in a recent post, during the social age art had a great
importance. Just like philosophy and science. They all have been used to
demonstrate the power of the society. To this social purpose, science
has been more effective (it produces A-bombs!), so science had the
prevalence over art. So that when science took the control of the
evolution (that is, at the beginning of the intellectual era) science
ostracized art. The lack of beauty is very recent effect of it. During
the social age it seems to me that beauty was more protected than now.
That's one of the reasons for we need to correct science.
> (Warning: Personification ahead. What I mean is, the
> person who is acting
> in the particular mode at the time)
> Art cannot shut down Intellect. But Art sees
> that Intellect cannot do what
> Art does, and also that Intellect has limits that it
> usually refuses to
> recognize. On the other hand, Intellect looks
> at Art suspiciously because
> Art plays by different rules. Intellect moves ahead at
> systematizing Social
> patterns, while Art still works on a smaller scale at changing Social
> patterns, but not systematically, and with less
> influence. They agree to
> let each other coexist there's nothing else they can do.
>
> Is DQ directly above both Art and Intellect, or do they each generate
> different levels that are below DQ? I can imagine a day when all
> Intellectual patterns are controlled by a super-Intellectual
> ideology that
> does not allow Intellect any power. (Like the rulers of
> Brave New World,
> who control Intellectual DQ). For Art, no. Right
> now they are both directly
> under DQ.
>
Yes, the giant of intellect. As long as there are different positions,
and competitive ideologies, there's no risk. The only possibility for
the unique intellectual giant will be when eventually a developed fifth
level will find the ultimate solution for intellect. Just like what's
happening for society: the unique giant is possible now that one model
is going to be the winner, thanks to the simple fact that it has
accepted the rule of intellect. IMO it's soon, as intellect is not
completely free from society. But this going to be is an SF novel ....
:-)
> Danila
>
> ----------------
> Postscript
> Marco wrote:
> ART is the skill of cRreaTing sq from DQ. But also, it's the skill to
> perfect and preserve sq, by means of RiTual activities.
>
> Danila:
> You make a good point, that when DQ becomes sq it is because sq is
"good."
> But this happens spontaneously all the time without Art.
Right. It happens through RT. You show again the necessity to use
different terms RT and ART. In this sense, my sentence was about RT.
> Art is different
> from a tree that grows a new branch because it lost the old branch in
a
> storm (sq in response to DQ).
>
> We can call this "good" that organisms perceive "RT". Maybe it is the
> origin of "arete"!
YES!
> But Art is a human activity and I think it should
> be
> considered separately from RT. (Though Art can generate RT).
>
IMO ART is one possible manifestations of aReTe.
> Again you are focusing on the effect--perfecting and preserving
> sq rather
> than on the method, which is "revealing DQ." The two approaches are
> compatible, but I think the approach using its method/intention
> to define
> Art is more productive, because it allows for bad results and
> unintentionally good results as well as good results.
>
I think I already answered to this point. However, let me focus on the
effects of your approach :-). If the conclusion is that we have two
separated and equivalent levels above society, IMHO there's something
wrong.
Ciao.
Marco.
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