I confess to a dizzying obtuseness about how something I write can be interpreted in ways vastly different from what I had in mind. I'm not being arch with that line; I do mean it was I erring in not seeing how I could be read in different ways.
I wrote: > "I use 'response' when I have in mind 'what I say or > do in specific reply'. So, for me, it comes after my "reacting", the > feeling I have as I experience. I always react, but I often don't respond. > > "For me, > a reaction/experience/feeling is prior to judgment." > Kate interpreted "reaction/experience/feeling" as naming three different events in sequence. She wrote: > > "You [and Saul] agree with each other as to the sequence of > events-experience,reaction,response,judgement." > But that's not what I mean to convey at all. I meant all three words -- " reaction/experience/feeling" -- to refer to the same single event. When I hear a melody, I react to that melody; that reaction is itself a feeling; that feeling is an experience. Probably I should have said there are TWO discrete parts to my CONSCIOUS awareness: the hearing (that is, the aural sensation) and the reaction to the hearing. (They are all but simultaneous.) Sometimes the hearing occasions boredom, sometimes it occasions an a.e. We might put it this way: First there's the hearing-experience, and then there's the reaction-experience. Sometimes that reaction-experience is boredom, sometimes it's simply null -- blah. And sometimes it's an a.e. -- an aesthetic experience. Kate goes on: > "Experience in "aesthetic experience" > is not in the same place in the sequence as experience." > What I'm now trying to clarify is that the "sequence" is composed of only two parts when I'm exposed to a melody -- the aural event, then the reaction event. That is, an aural-experience, then a reaction-experience. Kate goes on: "If all experiences are not aesthetic,then an aesthetic experience is either a reaction or a response or a judgement. One of these experience uses should change If all experiences are aesthetic then something is very strange. A logician might rephrase Kate's first phrase to eliminate an ambiguity. Thus: "If some experiences are non-aesthetic,then an aesthetic experience is either a reaction or a response or a judgement. One of these experience uses should change. If all experiences are aesthetic then something is very strange." If the logician is misinterpreting Kate, it doesn't make much difference, because at no time do I mean to say all experiences are aesthetic. Some are boring, some are blah, etc. To repeat: I always react, but sometimes I don't "respond" in the sense of "actively reply". I don't use 'judgment' in the same way as Saul. If, for Saul, to have a blah reaction or a bored reaction, amounts to making a judgment, then, for him, "judgment" is part of the reaction-experience. As I've said, for me "judgment" tends to involve factors outside the work itself. If a script bored me, I'd reason that it wouldn't please enough people to sell well enough, and I'd decide not to publish it. I don't "judge" that a smell is unpleasant, though if were a chef I might judge a smell is not enticing enough to please my customers. But that'd be AFTER reacting negatively to the smell.
