On Mar 6, 2009, at 9:33:42 AM, MarshaV <[email protected]> wrote: At 11:33 AM 3/6/2009, you wrote: > > > Book: The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution > > > > "A lot of what counts as philosophy," he said, "is explaining and > > justifying fundamental human intuitions," including "intuitions about > > the beautiful and the ugly." The problem has been that philosophy > > "doesn't ask where the intuitions come from. ... Human nature is a > > traditional philosophic topic, but let's face it, a lot of it is > > uninformed armchair speculation by people who just happen to be > > geniuses: Hobbes, Mill, Kant.:\" > > > > > > http://www.mercurynews.com/books/ci_11690473 > >Hey Marsha, > >Got it, read it. Interesting if somewhat pedantic. To a Darwinian >everything is explained by evolution, just as to an MOQian everything is >explained by Quality. But, I think anyone interested in the arts will find >the book worthwhile. The following passage near the end especially appealed >to me: > >"The oft-described spirituality of artistic masterpieces, their >otherworldly quality . . . involves a feeling -- experienced by atheist and >believer alike -- that standing before a masterpiece you are in the >presence of a power that exceeds anything you can imagine for yourself, >something greater than you ever can or will be. The rapture masterpieces >offer is literally ecstatic -- taking you out of yourself. Theists may wish >to attribute all this to the power of God, Darwinian humanists to the near >miraculous power of human genius. Both will approach such works as >suppliants: we yield to them, allowing them to take us where they will. " > >This juxtaposition of the humanist with the theist reminded me of Pirsig's >conclusion in his SODV paper: > >"As Bohr might have loved to observe, science and art are just two >different complementary ways of looking at the same thing. In the largest >sense it is really unnecessary to create a meeting of the arts and sciences >because in actual practice, at the most immediate level they have never >really been separated. They have always been different aspects of the same >human purpose." > >The same applies to the artists, scientists, theists, humanists and >philosophers on this site. > >Platt
Hi Platt, Are all five "ists" mentioned in the last sentence of equal value to you? What if I added communist? Marsha ... _____________ Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.......... ... Haven't read the book, but sounds interesting. A while back I read a couple of books: Aurther Miller "Insights of Genius, Imagery and creativity in Science and Art", and Leonard Shlain "Art and Physics, Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light. In these books is described the visionary parallels of art and science. It is conjectured, in fact, that art foreshadows the discoveries of science. This makes sense if we are tapping into Quality, and artists may be more attuned to this while physicists are more capable in making an accepted logic out of it. I like to think of it as a Collective Unconscious (Jung). Another good (short) book is by the Russian artist Wassily Kandisnky "Concerning the Spiritual in Art", where spiritual evolution happens through art. Don't know if any of these has to do with the book Marsha mentioned, but I wanted to share. Willblake2 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
