Re: MD Intellect and Art

[RISKYBIZ9]

ROG RESPONDS TO MARCO AND FINDS IN THE END MUCHO AGREEMENT To: Marco with likely relevance to Danilla and Platt and anyone else who is interested in High Quality Endeavors (ART). Re: Intellect and Art Marco, If you want to put certain types of art into the intellectual level, it seems perfectly reasonable to me. I would certainly disagree if you felt all art went in there, but you have written that you don't go this far.  So, we in the end we agree on much.   Some comments..... MARCO: My current thought about methodology is that it's an excellent technique of refining intellectual patterns. But it's a dangerous weapon: this obsession of science for the method is strictly related to the concept of truth and objectivity: the methodic experiment should prove the eventual truth of a theoretical premise, objectively and independently by any observer.�� This objective science well knows that theories are in some way aesthetic, but considers them of no value as long as the objective unaesthetic� method will not confirm them. IMO the MOQ shows that this assumption is merely an illusion: the method is aesthetic just like the theory.� In the passage about. [snip] By this point of view, it's easy to see the limit of the scientific objective worldview: objectivity is an illusion, the method itself is artistic. ROG: I think you know I agree with the above.There are probably inherent limitations in any artistic endeavor.  Each methodology had its intentions and effects, to use Danilla's terms, as well as its potentials and limitations. MARCO: It's the "art of� the intellectual maintenance": an excellent aesthetic tool� for intellectual patterns refining. IMO as the motorcycle maintenance does not create the motorcycle, the method does not create the intellectual pattern. ROG: The methodology or technique is part of the creation or at least the refinement process, but I think you go on to say the same thing somewhere else.... MARCO: I don't know if we agree here. However, more about method below. As you say, the point is not whether science is an art. It's whether Picasso is an intellectual. Let's go on. ROG: I concede!  He is an intellectual.  Seriously.   MARCO: IMO RT is the process by which DQ becomes sq, at every level. RT is not merely intellectual: we could say there's an intellectual rt, a social rt, a biological rt and even (maybe) an inorganic rt. ROG: I will stick with "High Quality Endeavor."  I agree that HQE leads to creative exploration of quality. MARCO: Bur ART is human. Its role can be social (the Colosseum). Can it be also intellectual? It depends on what we call "intellect". The Aristotle's mistake you mention is, IMO, that he has subordinated Good within the scientific truth. That is, he considered the scientific truth as equivalent to the whole intellect. The correction I suggest, according to my comprehension of the MOQ,� is to make it possible for the scientific method to grant equal dignity to art. ROG: ???? Why do you want scientific methodology to "grant equal dignity to art?" We already agreed it is artistic whether they grant it or not. MARCO: Given that he was an (excellent) painter, I'll try to explain again why I see him as intellectual. That is not that I see him as a scientist. I consider artists being (also, not merely!) intellectual as they share the same purpose of scientists. This purpose is to increase the knowledge of universe, to advance the horizon line towards the unknown. This "mission" was given originally by society to science, in order to increase the social power. Then science saw it was good, and transformed this "mission" into a purpose of its own. Definitely this purpose is, as we well know, evolve towards excellence. ROG: Yuck.  More anthropomorphizing!  "One day,science woke up and got out of bed and ate scrambled eggs and was jealous of art and"....... I know I sound like a broken record, but I find this treating the levels as personified Greek Gods is of little value and much misinterpretation (and yes, I know Pirsig engaged in this rhetorical approach). MARCO: The mistake of western science has been to consider this "advancement towards the unknown" as something of finite. There have been times in which it seemed to be possible. So they have lost the "concept of the conceptually unknown".� Pirsig suggests a great correction for this mistake. Pirsig also suggests that artists never lose this concept. And also Pirsig shows that science� hardly admits that this universe it studies is not merely made of substance, particles, energy, proteins, cells, and so on... Emotions, "giants", dreams, ideas, imagination, ghosts, states of mind...� are as real as "matter". Even more real than matter, as they are made of higher quality patterns. ROG: Yes.  I've already agreed to all this.  I will, however suggest that matter is made of the same patterns as the others.  All are simplifications or abstractions derived from the dynamic flow of experience. MARCO: IMO art demostrates a great capacity to investigate these aspects of reality. Better than any science, independently by the scientific method. And independently by the eventual concept of "The Conceptually Unknown" reintroduced into science (the Pirsig's correction). My impression is that you have a sort of mystic vision about artists. You see them as pre-intellectual (or pre-static). You admit they can grasp DQ, but you seem to say that only if they are also scientists (like Einstein) they can transform their dynamic experience into intellectual patterns. IMO Picasso was not mystic. If he was mystic, he had not transformed his� dynamic inspirations into pictures. By putting his visions of reality into a static picture (using a method known as painting, maybe not scientific, but however a method) he refuses to be merely mystic and tries put into a static form his interpretation of reality. ROG: Different technique or methodology.  I concede!  Picasso was an intellectual! MARCO: Dario Fo has been ostracized by the "social" media, like the TV, for his ideas and message. He is manifestly a Marxist. His art is both beautiful and intellectual. Surely he is not a scientist. So, I conclude, there's a way to be intellectual even without a scientific method. ROG: But I bet he is loved and adored by the 'liberal" SOCIAL set.  Come to America sometime.  Here the media is liberal. (Note a basic disagreement with JoVo's comment a while back that liberal =intellectual and social = conservative.  They are both social parties, though I may agree that liberals tend to have more faith in intellectual ideas.  Personally, I'm not sure if this faith is very intellectual though. Seems we need more healthy intellectual scepticism on many of these so-called intellectual solutions -- and critical scepticism IS IMO intellectual) MARCO: You ask me to differentiate intellectual patterns from social patterns. IMO social patterns have the original basic purpose to improve the possibilities of the biological individuals; they are made of those emotions which make it valuable the social interaction among biological beings. Intellectual patterns have the basic purpose to increase the knowledge of universe; they are made of a socially shareable code and make it possible the communication of a description of reality. ROG: OK. Sounds like a good definition to me. MARCO: I take some of your examples: A childish request for cookies is a "thing". It is social if it's merely a request for the mother's attention. It is biological if it's real hunger. It is intellectual if the kid is a genius and well knows how many calories has to eat everyday in order to survive. ROG: OK.  I would sort it as: The request for a cookie is social -- period. Desire for a cookie is primarily biological. Analysis of  a cookie's chemical composition is intellectual. The art of baking a cookie is artistic (though not very intellectual) The art of truly savoring a cookie could also be artistic. Certainly we can sort differently, but my main question is with your definition of the intellectual level and how it pertains to these examples.   Is requesting a cookie an example of  "take a small piece of DQ and put it into a coded and socially shareable form?" If not, why?  If so, why the caveats that some requests are intellectual and others aren't.  I need clarification here. [ Sorry, I see below that you do clarify this, but I left it here so you can see how my response progresses] MARCO: Laws are "things". They are social if they have been created to solve social problems, in order to prevent a social discontent, or merely increase the government popularity. They are intellectual if they have been created in order to assure the application of human rights as necessary basis for intellectual development, despite of the social emotions measured by polls. ROG: You really do seem to focus on intent.  But OK.  I would sort it as: Laws are social codes. They of course can be influenced by intellectual theories, or they can be "refined" by an intellectual/artistic methodology of creation, trial and error. I don't disagree any more with your analysis of Swan Lake.  I still wonder though how "the cries of beasts" is sorted in your intellectual definition of "take a small piece of DQ and put it into a coded and socially shareable form."  Your above examples seem to show that you yourself sub-sort different examples meeting the supposed intellectual definition into various levels.   Perhaps I just misunderstand though.  And as a reminder, I agree that intellectual patterns must shareable, I just find this condition to be insufficient.  This is part of the methodology. [Again, I see you DO answer this objection below] MARCO: It [Motorcycle Maintenance] CAN (not MUST) be social and shared. To be "Social and Shared" is not to be "Socially shareable"! However, Motorcycle Maintenance is a "thing". It is social if I use to drive my motorcycle in order to improve my biologic possibility of movement, and if simply "I like to drive it" with my fellows bikers. It is intellectual when I use it as a metaphor or example of RiTual, in order to explain how universe works. Pirsig did it, and shared socially his insights by means of a book. A novel. Artistic, I guess. I think you have listened about it...� :-) ROG: Actually I was referencing the metaphor for life.  The cycle is the self and all.....  my point is that High Quality Endeavor, ie Art does not have to be social or shared.  Intellectual Art does, but again this is not sufficient as a definition here either.  Are you sure you want to keep your definition of intellect as broad as it appears to be at this time? [Ditto -- as below you don't -- sorry] MARCO: Logic (and science) is a good tool (not truth itself) for the investigation of� some aspects of reality: this has been the mistake of Aristotle. IMO the art of painters and dramatists can be a good tool for the investigation of other aspects of reality. IMO There's no hierarchy of science over art, or of art over science, within the intellectual level. ROG: Agreed.  I am starting to think it makes more sense to view intellect as a particular subset of Art defined by its methodology and purpose.  I will go along with you now that you can place intellectual methodologies that are other-than-scientific too.  Composition, rhetoric, opera, and so on.  I may not have come to this conclusion without this discussion though, so I thank you very much.  I add that my acceptance is tentative.  Consider it a trial theory.  As I think you will notice, I try to explore new views.  Adopt theories and see if they make sense and hold them up to logical and other aesthetic requirements. (Sometimes they do, often they don't) MARCO responding to my point: >Intellectual patterns are of necessity socially shareable, but this is not >their defining characteristic. Agree. It's a necessary but insufficient condition. The defining characteristic is in their purpose: they must be created/used in order to investigate reality. ROG: Oops!  I see now that you have refined your view too!  Sorry.  I now accept your definition as fully reasonable.  Please disregard some of my earlier criticisms. I tentatively agree with the definition of intellectual patterns as "High Quality socially-shareable endeavors to investigate reality."  Do you accept this too?  Science and math and logic and opera and rhetoric are all therefore different techniques or methodologies of exploration and sharing. I will accept your division based on intent with the additional clarification that there are different methodologies or techniques to achieve or pursue this goal. MARCO again to my point: >Intellectual patterns are differentiated by their methodology. I substitute method with technique (IMO method is a technique). Technique is a tool to refine patterns. It can distinguish good patterns from bad patterns.�� Method does not create patterns. ROG: Agree strongly.  Certain lower quality patterns are identified, 'refined' and/or eliminated according to the methodology/technique.  I like this concept.  Seems very high quality. Are we ready to wrap up our discussion?  Thanks again, this one has been first class! Rog