On one hand Epicurious, on the other the Thinking Thing contemplating its thing-ness
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 5:12 PM, Michael Brady <[email protected]>wrote: > 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 > > -- [image: Inline image 1] [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/png which had a name of image.png]
