Re: MD Intellect and Art

[RISKYBIZ9]

ROG SUGGESTS THAT IT IS BETTER TO PUT INTELLECT IN ART THAN ART IN INTELLECT To:Danilla, Marco and Platt RE: Where does Art fit in the MOQ? DANILLA: In asking “Where does Art fit?” Roger and Marco give different answers to the question: Should we assign Art to a level by its intention/method, or by its effect? Roger says: by its method. Art is not Intellectual because it doesn’t use logic, rationality, etc. Marco says: by its effect. Art is Intellectual because it can give a person insights into reality that rationality cannot. ROG: Hmmmmm, careful here.  We need to sort out my argument from other's interpretations of my argument.  I said that intellect/science was a type of Art defined by its methodology.  I don't know if I said that Art is defined by its methodology, other than by being "HIGH QUALITY ENDEAVOR." (And this was Pirsig's definition of Art in ZMM)  In addition, I would like to clarify that the EFFECT CAN BE THE INTENTION.  It doesn't have to be of course, but it CAN BE. DANILLA: There are four definitions of art. Platt provided the dictionary definitions, which are substantially the same as the ones I wrote. “Art” in common language can mean a) the fine arts, b) craft/skill, c) the attempt by a person to create “art”, and d) the successful (beautiful) creation of art. Marco is referring only to sense (d), which is successful art. He is saying that good art can give a person insights into reality that rationality cannot. Good art enriches perception, allows a person to think about new things, etc. ROG: Regarding the last two sentences, I don't know if Marco agrees with these, but if so, I would like to mention that this again limits Art.  Not all Art is about insights or effects on others.  The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, for example, is a metaphor for the ART OF LIVING.  (remember the cycle is the self).  Art -- HIGH QUALITY ENDEAVOR -- does not have to communicate. DANILLA: This is true and critically important for an understanding of Intellect. But… is unsuccessful art Intellectual?  It is not Intellectual because it has no effect. And what about craft/skill, where DQ comes in accidentally, or is a secondary reason for creation of the object? These objects can be “art” but they have no effect on Intellect. If you say, next, “Well, I want to judge art by its intention/method” then you agree with Roger, that intention/method is the way to categorize art. ROG: I think it would be more accurate to say that is how to sort TYPES of Art into science, painting, dance, motorcycle repair, etc.  And again, I think that effect can be the intention. DANILLA: I put intention and method together. Why? The intention of art, as I see it, is to either a) shake people up (bring DQ) or b) show the DQ in an existing situation. The method is to focus on the production of beauty without utility. But what is beauty? Beauty is a result of our perception of a high-quality experience. We can perceive beauty at any of the four levels. (From this fact I assume that Art can occur at any of the four levels.) So the intention of art is to bring or show DQ, and the method is a focus on the production of high-quality experience. It seems to me that intention and method are both essential to the definition of art and that therefore I agree with Roger, that Art should be separate from Intellect. ROG: I agree that it is separate, but i am leaning toward Intellect/science being a subset of Art rather than vice versa. My only caveat to your method is to emphasize that the production of High Quality Experience can be personal rather than public. DANILLA: Then, should Art be a higher level, or something that exists along all the dimensions? Or, as I proposed, a level above the Social that is separate but equal to Intellect? ROG: Again, it seems like we have all been trying to force the greater into the lesser.  Intellect is a better subsegment of Art than Art is of intellect. DANILLA: But first, where to fit the other definitions of art: the fine arts and art=craft/skill? The fine arts are a topic or field that includes all the attempts by artists; “the fine arts” are an artifact of language that isn’t important to this discussion. What about art=craft/skill? Art here is secondary to some other work. I would argue that Einstein, in this sense, is an artist. Beauty/harmony are produced but that was not the person’s primary intention. Art=craft/skill is a problem if we want to create an Art level above the Intellectual level. Because an Art level above the Intellectual level would imply that the Intellectual level created Art for its own purposes, but Art broke away and started organizing reality for its own purposes. Historically, that is not true. The fine artsart with no functional purposeare new. The fine arts began to exist around the time the Intellectual level came into existence, and beauty was no longer were tied to religion. The fine arts are a product of secularization, and also of surplus wealth. Most of what we recognize as art throughout history has been craft art: textiles, religious statues, jewelry, manuscript illustrations, etc. ROG: Let me offer that HQE (high quality endeavor) has always existed, and that living and cooperating can be viewed in some sense as HQE's.  But where they really came into their own is when societies became big enough and complex enough to allow specialization and expertise. Entire new fields of HQE opened up, with the time and ability to develop fine Artistic talent at painting, singing, weaving, knitting, philosophising and theorizing. DANILLA: So I don’t see how Art can be above Intellect. But what about Art as a parallel development to Intellect, both above the Social level? Let’s look at the relationship of Art to Intellect. We know: The experience of art can have an effect on a person’s Intellectual patterns. And Intellectual patterns can affect an artist’s decisions throughout the process of making art. Both of these relationships are “apples and oranges”; I feel that Intellect and Art are two completely different kinds of patterns (even with Marco’s good point in mind). They seem more different from each other than an ecosystem seems from a tree (both are Biological, but the ecosystem is much more advancedanother post someday). Neither Art nor Intellect can dominate each other. ROG: But you are denigrating art to a certain type of HQE. I have deleted the rest of what you wrote, because I have no comments that differ from the above. Science and Opera and painting and Zen are all types of Art -- high quality endeavors.  Scientific/Intellectual patterns have the dynamic ability to bootstrap knowledge and lead to more and more knowledge and technology and hence to significantly modify the world (in good and bad ways), and as such have been incredibly influential and powerful in a limited subject/object rational way that is inherent in the methodology. Every type of Art has its methodologies, intents and purposes, its strengths, and its weaknesses, but Marco has convinced me that Art is absolutely not a sub-element of society, and I now offer that it is not a sub-element of intellect either. I will probably regret writing this tomorrow.  But...Merry Christmas anyways! Rog PS -- The definition of "Knowledge" in an OLD copy of The Oxford English Dictionary: "knowledge is a branch of learning; a science, an art."