From: William Conger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Examining the theory
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:34:10 -0700 (PDT)
--- On Tue, 9/23/08, GEOFF CREALOCK <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From: GEOFF CREALOCK <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: RE: Examining the theory
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Tuesday, September 23, 2008, 10:15 AM
> As to all experience being ultimately subjective: Yes.
> However, is there not
> some substantial difference between "The temperature
> today is 70 degrees F.
70 degrees F is a metaphor as are all measurements.
> and " Being in love is like floating on a cloud, being
> lost in the sky and
> feeling rapturous ..."? Wasn't it you who
> discriminated between primarily
> sense experience and statments of opinion: "Edward
> Albee wrote that play"
> vs. "That play is the most important drama of the 20th
> century and mirrors
> most marriages exactly".
All statements are judgments and all judgments are opinions and all
opinions are metaphors.
> So, all experience is ultimately subjective but some
> experiences are more
> verifiable by others. It's always a matter of degree.
> All experiences being mediated by metaphor: I don't get
> that. "It's 70
> degrees outside" is a pretty plain fact.
One senses the heat before one knows the metaphor of degrees F.
> "It's as hot as the kitchens of
> hell" is metaphorical (or should that be, a simile).
> Perhaps all experience
> may be conveyed (to an extent) by metaphor.
> Leonardo's statement's clarity: I guess we're
> different folks. I don't claim
> to understand EXACTLY what Leonardo meant by
> "improve". I do feel I
> understand some meaning from the statement. Maybe he
> recognized that his
> statement would be ultimately understood in the
> perceiver's own way and was
> OK with the perceiver defining "improvement" in
> his/her own terms. I feel I
> understand less of his explanation of aerial perspective.
> Perhaps that's OK,
You're ahead of me in understanding L's improvement but I thought his
aerial perspective would be as descriptive as one can get. The 3 rules
are: with distance from the observer there is dimunition of size,
dimunition of color, dimunition of clarity. Early perspective centered on
the first, dimunition of size.
> as I have no interest in investigating or translating the
> meaning, as I'm
> surely no graphic artist.
Well, I'm not a psychologist and I do have interest in how we sense, think,
act, and why. Art is pretty close to that.
> I would agree that, as what we mean to convey is more
> emotional/affective/sublime, we may have a greater need to
> rely on, or to
> utilise, metaphor. Not all experience is so meaningful
> though.
Please give an example. It will have to rely on function, why we act
without full information.
WC
>
> >From: William Conger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Reply-To: [email protected]
> >To: [email protected]
> >Subject: RE: Examining the theory
> >Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:40:21 -0700 (PDT)
> >
> >Geoff Crealock wrote:
> >
> > > Who are some of the artists I've read,
> writing about
> > > art? Leonardo da Vinci
> > > and Paul Klee are two examples. If reference is
> made to
> > > sense experiences, I
> > > do get it but when the references are to
> opinion-based or
> > > personal-experience-based events, I tend not to.
> >
> >Are there any experiences that do not ultimately rest
> in subjective sense
> >experience? Are there any experiences that are not
> related by means of
> >metaphor?
> >
> >If you can "get" Leonardo's explanation
> of, say aerial perspective, which
> >is very declarative, what about his statement, "He
> is a poor student who
> >does not improve upon his master"? I would agree
> that the latter statement
> >is quite vague, particularly in not defining what he
> means by improve.
> >
> >Does Leonardo's "improve" refer to art
> quality -- the truly mysterious --
> >or to explicating and demonstrating rules for art
> production? Since art
> >quality is almost always -- certainly always in
> Leonardo's era -- conflated
> >with production rules (like those prescribed for
> anatomic proportions,
> >perspective, sfumato, etc.) how does one eliminate the
> mysterious,
> >ineffable, unclear and non-sensible from the expository
> literalness of
> >production rules? The two conditions are so
> interdependant that one must
> >admit to some incomprehensible insensible element--
> let's call it an
> >information gap -- that must be filled with metaphor,
> something
> >subjectively invented by the reader or perceiver.
> >
> > What I'm driving at here is the idea that
> it's not just that "some"
> >sensory experience forces us to rely on subjective,
> metaphorical
> >substitution for that which is experienced but that ALL
> sensory experience
> >requires subjective metaphorical substitution.
> Incidentally, This is where
> >I agree with Cheerskep in his insisting on the function
> of language to be
> >the search for some "serviceable" link
> enabling people to reasonably share
> >otherwise very mismatched notions or ideas, meanings,
> and the like. He puts
> >the empahsis on the literal IS, a presumed one to one
