Remember, I'm the guy who claims that all thinking is grounded in beliefs, or make-believe. Miller wrongly equates scientific inquiry with appeals to authority. Actually the two are polar opposites. The scientific method is aimed at making the appeal to authority unnecessary or redundant. This was a chief concept of the Enlightenment and led to many breakthroughs, and some downfalls. For instance, by opposing the simple appeal to authority, and replacing it with logic and observation, Enlightenment thinkers began to reject religious teachings; it led to the strict separation of mind and body and to a strict separation of reason from imagination (and a hardening of the medieval-to-Inquisition notion that imagination was the work of Satin and therefore irrational and evil). We still live in the shadows of that attitude and that's why "reasoning" is commonly regarded as proper, realistic, unemotional (and manly) and imagination is regarded as inappropriate, fanciful, emotional (and womanly). The Enlightenment was a mixed bag and we are its products in many ways.
When I refer to "experts" by name, and by mentioning their works, I am only saying that they are my sources and listers can turn to them to follow their logic, experiments, reasoning -- and imagination. In referencing others, I avoid the trap of solipsism. I am not making an appeal to authority as such, claiming that they their findings are infallible, but instead I'm urging listers to go to them and see for themselves. My references to neurologists, the ones whose most accessible work anyone can read, are centered on the re-connection of reason and feeling, the rational and irrational, the logical and the inventive, etc. Why? because I've concluded through my own eclectic studies that our brains and the thoughts they produce require belief as the first and ongoing cognitive function. And this is not original. It goes back to Aristotle, for whom it was a kind of fueling desire. WC ________________________________ From: Chris Miller <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 8:21:58 AM Subject: Re: Rational Discussion and aesthetic quality I've carried the discussion about "dead photos- alive paintings" over to this thread because, as William and I have agreed, " that topic remains a matter of perception, which can be the foundation for facts and logic, but cannot be established by them." Aesthetics must allow for different perceptions, which sets it apart from all the scientific disciplines that demand consensus as proven by fact and logic and ultimately confirmed by authority. When an artifact is discovered in the dirt beneath Jerusalem, an investigative process is begun to autheticate its date. And if authorities within the academic community accept it as genuine, it can be then be used to establish facts that must be logically accounted for within the narrative of ancient history. Since scientific inquiry is the dominant intellectual activity of our time, there is great pressure to practice aesthetics the same way. William is the most enthusiastic advocate of that approach on our list, with continual appeals to authority, especially within neuroscience. A statement about "dead photos- alive paintings" (or good paintings - bad paintings) cannot contribute to any scientific discourse -- and yet it may be quite useful to those who share, or want to share, the perceptions on which it is based. ____________________________________________________________ Handyman Franchises. Click Here. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxaAgv0DiA1tAylZndDapm8Em XzC59QMMHRhjOYCUPQL2rKtzZKTS4/
