Hmmm, my formatting seems to have caused some confusion. My apologies. The "Make the users..." is Cheerskep's. The Why's are mine.
And no, I don't think Cheerskep's the Saviour. In fact, I have very little sympathy with his position; I guess I find it more boorishly narrow than anything else.. I am, on the other hand, very sympathetic to Armando's. Grappling with questions like the essence of the human form, or what being a rock means, seem to me fairly straightforward bases on which to consider what art is all about. I don't think, on the other hand, think that purely verbal responses are necessarily the best way to proceed with addressing such issues. For an artist, the natural place for the discussion to take place is in art; for a musician, in music; for someone with a scientific bent, perhaps in neuroscience and Bayesian analysis (that was my first formal intro). Each field will tend to have its own means to address an issue like these that will be largely understandable to people within the field, and often obscure to those outside. So when I say "why not try and understand what they are getting at, from their viewpoint", I am simply suggesting applying a little philosophical charity (don't leave home without it), and assume that within the framework of their own natural language (art, science, whatever) their statements have validity. If I were talking to Armando, for example, in person, and wanted to question his notion of the essence of the human form, I would probably ask him to show me, through his artwork and those of others, where it has been expressed well, and where it has not been. We'd probably disagree strongly on the boundaries, but humanly constructed categories are (usually) at best fuzzy anyway. Cheers; Chris On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 5:19 PM, saul ostrow <[email protected]> wrote: > But Cheers is already a missionary among the un-astute - inversely word are > not hallucinatory our belief in them is dellusionary - in the same manner > that you believe that one might make someone understand what they are > getting at - rather than one doing the work of understanding what they > (one) is getting at and as such end the game - in which case may I ask you > what you are getting at using commands as "Make the users describe the > notions behind their noises. Get them to see how psychoactive..." Are you > telling us you think Cheers is the savior > > On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 2:22 PM, caldwell-brobeck < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > Why "Make the users describe the notions behind their noises. Get them to > > see how psychoactive, how hallucinatory, words are, especially that > > deluding > > figment "IS"." ? Why not try and understand what they are getting at, > from > > their viewpoint? > > Cheers; > > Chris > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 3:09 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > In a message dated 7/29/12 8:20:58 AM, [email protected] writes: > > > > > > > > > > And what is the essence of the human form? > > > > > > > All questions of the form "What is X?" are suspect because they in > effect > > > make existential assumptions. Words use the user. > > > > > > "What is genius? What is art?" "What IS a miracle? What IS a ghost?" > "Who > > > ARE you?" Think of so-called "words" as like bacteria. They are > countless > > > -- > > > some helpful, some harmful. If you don't have - in your head -- an > immune > > > system for your "words", to detect and dismiss the bad ones, you're in > > for > > > trouble. Make the users describe the notions behind their noises. Get > > them > > > to > > > see how psychoactive, how hallucinatory, words are, especially that > > > deluding > > > figment "IS". Do that, and you're halfway home. > > > > > > > -- > S a u l O s t r o w > *Critical Voices* > 21STREETPROJECTS > 162 West 21 Street > NYC, NY 10011
