Hi Brian,
> >Marco:
> >Another thing I've noticed is that my cat *prefers* to sleep on clean
> >dresses, and on my bed when it's well arranged. Otherwise, if the bed is
> >all messed up, she uses to sleep on an old chair. In the past, another cat
> >had different fondnesses. I'd not point to that exactly as an appreciation
> >of *the art of bed arranging*, just I think that many mammals sometimes
> >seem to demonstrate a primitive sense of beauty. As well as they
> >demonstrate a primitive capacity (from our viewpoint) of thought.
> >
> >What the sense of beauty *is*, it's a difficult question. Surely, beauty
> >has the capacity to generate emotions; so, maybe, when we follow beauty we
> >are also searching for emotions. By means of art, this search becomes
> >active and not passive: it's an attempt to investigate and dominate and
> >communicate certain aspects of reality (let's not forget that emotions are
> >perfectly real).
Brian:
> At what point does "beauty" and "quality" become different? To me it seems
> as though you are using the two terms interchangably here. When your cat
> prefers a made-up bed to a messed-up bed, it is making a quality-assertion
> for itself. I'm sure there are many cats out there that prefer messed-up to
> made-up, and is a result of their past static PoVs.
>
> But then, isn't that what art is aspiring to, Quality?
>
> Are beauty and quality different?
Marco:
Well, beauty is a type of Quality. We all prefer to live in a beautiful house,
rather than in a humid cave.... But it is not Quality itself. Truth, for
example is another type. And down to the other levels, there are other types of
value: social fame; biological health..... and so on
In few words Quality is more inclusive. [Of course, if Quality is reality!]
Back to beauty, here is (part of) my original answer to the definition of art
Platt offered. I'm not anymore completely in agreement with what I wrote six
months ago, anyway it still works....
Thanks for your questions
Marco
====================
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marco" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2000 8:44 PM
Subject: Re: MD Intellect and Art
Platt,
> ART 1 (a) The conscious production or arrangement of sounds,
> colors, forms, movement, or other element in a manner that
> affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the
> beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium. (b) The study of these
> activities. (c) The product of these activities; human works of
> beauty considered as a group. 2. High quality of conception or
> execution, as found in works of beauty, aesthetic value.
[...]
> Some have argued that beauty and DQ are synonymous. Perhaps
> so. But in Chap. 30 of "Lila" Pirsig writes, "Static social and
> intellectual patterns are only an intermediate level of evolution." If
> we take him at his word, then there are new levels, above the
> intellectual, to come. And the next new level, as Pirsig suggested,
> might be called a "code of art."
>
IMO beauty is not equivalent to DQ. Of course it depends on our
agreement about the terms we use....
Of course we can find beauty everywhere. But it's hard to say that the
carbon atoms created DNA for its beauty. Or that the ancient humans
decided to live in tribes 'cause it was beautiful. To describe the input
for those evolutions we have the term DQ and it's enough. DNA and tribes
were created as it was "better".
If I look at the Niagara falls, I find the beauty of nature... but this
"me" finding beauty is a person, and is behaving according to a four
level logic. In facts, if I fall down into the water, and the stream
leads me towards the falls, my biological self will have the high
priority, and the falls will be not so beautiful....
And also socially it's hard to recognize the value of such a beauty. The
contemplation of nature is a nonsense, according to the social logic of
success, celebrity, usefulness.
Intellectually... this is the point. From a scientific point of view,
beauty remains a nonsense, so it could be another level, above. But,
tell me. If it is another level, where is beauty now? Now that the
levels are four? I don't deny the possibility to have a fifth level of
beauty in the future... but as long as it is not a level of its own, IMO
art, carrier of beauty, is the dynamic side of intellect. Just like
philosophy, carrier of knowledge, has been for centuries the dynamic
side of society.
In few words, I do prefer to use the term DQ to point to the necessity
of excellence which is pertinent at all levels. IMO the capacity to
appreciate beauty is a very high quality pattern, maybe proper only of
humans, surely active when the biological and social selves are left in
a secondary position... and when intellect abandons for a while its
static positions in order to grasp DQ.
Yes, beauty is the name intellect uses when talks about DQ. Beauty is
the "better" of intellect.
Actually, as you suggest, art is a "conscious" activity. When the RTist
performs his/her own skill, is consciously and intellectually trying to
translate DQ into sQ. He/she is an intellectual knocking on heaven's
door.
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