I have mulled the following notion over for a long time and have essayed a few attempts at getting it down on pixels, but nothing so far. So I will briefly set out what I am thinking:
1. AFAWK, the entirety of the universe is a continuous field in which energy and mass are interrelated and convertible. That is, all of everything is an energy field. 2. The surface of Earth is covered with a variety of "stuff," some of which are inanimate and other are animate. Among the animate, some are self-motivating, auto- and loco-motive. These entities are called living things. 3. The locomotive living things--animals--exhibit the ability to move purposively for an end (digging, building structures, etc.). 4. Some of the animals exhibit the property of self-awareness and the sense of time. (That would be us humans.) 5. Humans exhibit the ability to fabricate things and to communicate with each other in various ways with a great deal of subtlety, detail, and precision. 6. Humans have described "feelings" and "emotional states" that they experience under various circumstances, and these "feelings" seem to be caused by or correlated with the release of or heightened or lowered levels of chemical substances in the brain. Well, that gets us to the status quo. I believe (strongly suspect) that an "aesthetic feeling" is one that is produced or stimulated by the experience (perception or memory) of certain objects or events. I also strongly suspect that the difference between "aesthetic" and "non-aesthetic" feelings is that one is stimulated by previously denominated "art" objects. You see the "Pieta" and you experience a response to an object already known to be an artistic creation. From my personal experiences, every aesthetic feeling I experience is unique to that work and moment; no two are identical, and no two experiences of the same work are identical, either (analogously to the way you speak the same work differently in different contexts and circumstances). There seems to be a similarity of some quality or characteristic in the experience of widely different objects or events, such as Cheerskep's football game or an infant or a view of the Grand Canyon or landing in an airplane (that's mine!), that can be discerned in the aesthetic experience of known works of art. FWIW, I am entirely a materialist. I do not believe that there are "ineffable" or "spiritual" forces or experiences. I do not believe that "inner power" or other mystical and unseen agent acts or exercises any influence in the universe. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
