All individual humans are a form of aesthetics.
In fact,everything has that potential in our minds
we can enjoy it or not.
mando

On Mar 24, 2009, at 10:12 AM, [email protected] wrote:

I despise the effect Heidegger achieved by his use of profound- seeming, occult, opaque, and unexplained terminology. The line 'What exists must be
needed'
is, call it, bogus. I was making a much grosser distinction than William
explores in his more subtle response.

E.g. how many things do you eat in a day that you desire but, in no
interesting sense of the word, "need"? We all of us have given things -- toys,
photos,
jewelry, tickets to the ball game -- that are desired but not needed.

I'd recommend that we also maintain a distinction between "necessary" and "needed". Certain inexorable biochemical facts may mean that various events necessarily left us with cancer or a heart condition, but it seems silly and
vacuous to say portentously, "If your cancer exists, it was needed."


In a message dated 3/24/09 11:01:27 AM, [email protected] writes:


My hunch is that Boris was writing casually to make a point of distinction between human and cockroach attributes, whatever they may be. I am not so sure that clear distinctions like that can be made when we can't get inside the organism of another species with respect to nerve responses, etc. He concludes that cockroaches don't make art. That's a purely rhetorical
comment
for effect since we don't know what nerve vibrations, etc., might qualify
as
cockroach art for cockroaches. That is not as ridiculous as it sounds since
we
know that many species do display themselves in artful ways for mating advantages. In fact, see the science section of today's NYTimes for an article about evolved features of insects and animals that have no purpose
other than display for mating advantage.

But more to the point: The two concepts desire and need are complex enough
to
require close analysis. Does need precede desire or follow it or are the
two
states merely different on the basis of amplification? Aristotle said that desire is a condition of sensing and fantasy. My own idea is that need and
desire (I prefer desire as willful or concscious  desire and need as
unconscious desire) are constructed subjectively and thus filter or shape
our
sensing of experience.

WC

--- On Mon, 3/23/09, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:

From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Boris claims if X exists...
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, March 23, 2009, 11:31 PM
Boris claims if X exists, it must be
NEEDED. Can't anyone on our forum think
of a rebuttal to this? (Maybe try distinguishing 'needed'
from 'desired'?)



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