Do you wish there's a god?

[Silver]

There's a distinct difference between eyesight and imaginative delusions.

[Belacqua]

Nature is already filled with beauty unsullied by all the self-display of artists.

But no sense-impression of which we are aware is simply a sense-impression. It is already selected, interpreted, made by the mind. This is one of the things that painting does (among many others): it enriches our ability to perceive the world by working in dialectic with sense-impressions. 

If you spend a few years with Kano School or Rimpa Japanese paintings, the world looks different to you. Specifically, the portions of the world which you perceive as worth looking at, and the way your mind selects and interprets those views, increases. You gain greater access to beauty, a wider ability to see and enjoy -- in short, more perception equals greater pleasure. And greater pleasure in the world -- the ability to see and love its beauty -- changes the way the world is for us. 

Now a person might say "I already enjoy it enough," and for that person I guess it might be true. But he has set up walls for his perception which are not necessary, and blocked for himself all the wisdom which previous artists offer us. 

This is part of what Blake means when he says that when our perceptions are fully open (if that were possible) the world would appear in its truly infinite nature, and that salvation comes from increased sensual enjoyment. The opposite of this is closing ourselves down to the status quo of the interpretations we already have. 

__________________

Here is a painting I like, chosen more or less at random from a number that enjoy. It's Kano or Rimpa; it's not really based on observation. I'm not claiming it's a world-class great work, only that it is a pleasure to look at:

http://japaneseaesthetics.tumblr.com/image/183436547151

Could you plug this into your system for me, and tell me in what way it promotes questionable assumptions, including consumerism of art? In what way does it decrease or distract from nature, or sully nature with "self-display" of the artist? Would the world be better without this painting in it?

[Acrobat]

Then you are basing your moral compulsions on a subjective state.  That's an easy morality.  Doing what you find beautiful, avoiding what you find ugly.  I'd wager that a person doesn't even need moral agency at all to accomplish that.  

Human share a core universal morality, that underlies nearly all of our moral perceptions and beliefs. Call it a product of our evolution. What motivates our perceptions here isn't unique to each person, but rather shared in common with each other. I don't have an easy morality, and you have a non-easy morality. Anymore so then similar moral behaviors observed in monkeys, is distinct among them. The reason you see that its wrong to torture innocent babies just for fun, and I see it as wrong, is not the result of our brains taking two different paths to see that conclusion, but rather our brain used a similar pattern or perception to recognize it. Now maybe you'll articulate some convoluted justification, that aligns with your particular moral philosophy, but that explanation, is one you're making after the fact, and not the basis for why you see it as wrong.

Where realism, and realist compulsion is useful and comes into play..is when every option available is ugly...downright repulsive.  When you find yourself doing something other than chasing whatever it is you may find beautiful.  Or when the bad thing is completely seductive.

I love my wife, love is a thing of beauty. I'd do a variety of ugly things, like kill you if you try to harm my family, in servitude to that beauty. If the bad is more seductive than the good, you'd do the bad. If evolution made bad more appealing than doing good, we'd all being doing bad more often than the good.

We've already agreed that moral values can coincide with aesthetic values, they just aren't content equivalent.  That's what makes it an equivocation, regardless of how you might find pretty things more compelling than ugly ones.  Most of us do, even though we don't find the same things pretty, or ugly.  Your compulsion to beauty can backfire...morally, and, case in point.... in this thread.

I think whatever you have in mind about morality, doesn't align to how morality actually functions and works. You seem to imagine some sort of conceptions of morality as something done like a mathematical calculation, which is a false belief. Morality, particularly if you consider it in an evolutionary sense, works by the basis of aesthetics, the attractiveness of certain behaviors, and the unattractiveness of others. Making some good behaviors more biologically compelling than some bad ones, such as it's more attractive for a mother to stay with their children, than abandon them, it relies on attaching strong feelings and emotions to things.

[pocaracas]

Then you are basing your moral compulsions on a subjective state.  That's an easy morality.  Doing what you find beautiful, avoiding what you find ugly.  I'd wager that a person doesn't even need moral agency at all to accomplish that.  

Human share a core universal morality, that underlies nearly all of our moral perceptions and beliefs. Call it a product of our evolution. What motivates our perceptions here isn't unique to each person, but rather shared in common with each other. I don't have an easy morality, and you have a non-easy morality. Anymore so then similar moral behaviors observed in monkeys, is distinct among them. The reason you see that its wrong to torture innocent babies just for fun, and I see it as wrong, is not the result of our brains taking two different paths to see that conclusion, but rather our brain used a similar pattern or perception to recognize it. Now maybe you'll articulate some convoluted justification, that aligns with your particular moral philosophy, but that explanation, is one you're making after the fact, and not the basis for why you see it as wrong.

I see you've learned something from our earlier exchange.


Except for the last sentence... That one can be thrown right back at you.

[Belacqua]

Nature is already filled with beauty unsullied by all the self-display of artists.

But no sense-impression of which we are aware is simply a sense-impression. It is already selected, interpreted, made by the mind. This is one of the things that painting does (among many others): it enriches our ability to perceive the world by working in dialectic with sense-impressions. 

If you spend a few years with Kano School or Rimpa Japanese paintings, the world looks different to you. Specifically, the portions of the world which you perceive as worth looking at, and the way your mind selects and interprets those views, increases. You gain greater access to beauty, a wider ability to see and enjoy -- in short, more perception equals greater pleasure. And greater pleasure in the world -- the ability to see and love its beauty -- changes the way the world is for us. 

Now a person might say "I already enjoy it enough," and for that person I guess it might be true. But he has set up walls for his perception which are not necessary, and blocked for himself all the wisdom which previous artists offer us. 

This is part of what Blake means when he says that when our perceptions are fully open (if that were possible) the world would appear in its truly infinite nature, and that salvation comes from increased sensual enjoyment. The opposite of this is closing ourselves down to the status quo of the interpretations we already have. 

__________________

Here is a painting I like, chosen more or less at random from a number that enjoy. It's Kano or Rimpa; it's not really based on observation. I'm not claiming it's a world-class great work, only that it is a pleasure to look at:

http://japaneseaesthetics.tumblr.com/image/183436547151

Could you plug this into your system for me, and tell me in what way it promotes questionable assumptions, including consumerism of art? In what way does it decrease or distract from nature, or sully nature with "self-display" of the artist? Would the world be better without this painting in it?

Oh dear; too late to edit. 

The painting I give a link to is NOT Kano or Rimpa. I left out the "not" in that sentence. Silly me.

[Alan V]

I personally think my assertion is a matter of logic.  The more accurate our perceptions, the better adapted we are to realities.

No, it's just atheistic woo, clinging to religious sentiments about truth.

" The classic argument is that those of our ancestors who saw more accurately had a competitive advantage over those who saw less accurately and thus were more likely to pass on their genes that coded for those more accurate perceptions, so after thousands of generations we can be quite confident that we’re the offspring of those who saw accurately, and so we see accurately. That sounds very plausible. But I think it is utterly false. It misunderstands the fundamental fact about evolution, which is that it’s about fitness functions — mathematical functions that describe how well a given strategy achieves the goals of survival and reproduction. The mathematical physicist Chetan Prakash proved a theorem that I devised that says: According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Never."

https://evolutionnews.org/2016/05/evolution_may_o/

"Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. They guide adaptive behaviors. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be. If you had to spend all that time figuring it out, the tiger would eat you."

My use of the word "adapted" was confusing, so I apologize.  I did not intend to refer to evolution at all in my statement.

The fact is that, in the short run, we can thrive by both honest and dishonest means in the modern world.  So the question is not "Why be honest?"  The question is "Why be dishonest?"  I can only think of bad answers for the second question.

---

Nature is already filled with beauty unsullied by all the self-display of artists.

But no sense-impression of which we are aware is simply a sense-impression. It is already selected, interpreted, made by the mind. This is one of the things that painting does (among many others): it enriches our ability to perceive the world by working in dialectic with sense-impressions. 

I agree that perception is an artform in itself, and that art has the potential to expand our perceptions of the world around us, just as literature can.

If you spend a few years with Kano School or Rimpa Japanese paintings, the world looks different to you. Specifically, the portions of the world which you perceive as worth looking at, and the way your mind selects and interprets those views, increases. You gain greater access to beauty, a wider ability to see and enjoy -- in short, more perception equals greater pleasure. And greater pleasure in the world -- the ability to see and love its beauty -- changes the way the world is for us. 

I also agree that art is largely about selection and emphasis, most often because of sensual or aesthetic priorities. That makes it a variety of entertainment.

Now a person might say "I already enjoy it enough," and for that person I guess it might be true. But he has set up walls for his perception which are not necessary, and blocked for himself all the wisdom which previous artists offer us. 

In my own experience, I adjusted my perceptions in any number of ways to be able to see the positive aspects of various kinds of art. The exercise was worthwhile, but I still ended up with specific tastes and now reject a fair amount which I previously appreciated -- for other reasons.

This is part of what Blake means when he says that when our perceptions are fully open (if that were possible) the world would appear in its truly infinite nature, and that salvation comes from increased sensual enjoyment. The opposite of this is closing ourselves down to the status quo of the interpretations we already have. 

Perhaps a better way of saying this is that the world doesn't come with a message at all, it's we who insert our messages into our art. So we have to be cautious about what we are saying, because some people will mistake pictures of the world for the world itself, per Magritte.

Could you plug this into your system for me, and tell me in what way it promotes questionable assumptions, including consumerism of art? In what way does it decrease or distract from nature, or sully nature with "self-display" of the artist? Would the world be better without this painting in it?

Art is about directed attention. Artists use all sorts of different techniques to draw attention: color, contrast, drama, emotion, permanence, talent, and so on. Any given artifact is saying, "This is worth paying more attention to than something else." That is the artist's assertion. Is it always true?

There's a lot more bad art in the world than good art.

[Angrboda]

Even the common claim of atheists here, that they desire truth, can only be true, if truth is something ultimately desirable. There has to be something that draws us to it, to provoke us to seek it. Or else you’re just seeking the feeling of truthiness than truth itself

I was recently discussing free will with several fellow philosophical types, and in response to my suggestion that free will does not exist for some reason, the organizer of my philosophy group said that many, compatibilists, I believe, argue that even if there is no free will, we should behave as if there is. I have responses to his point, but I thought an example of a truth which people would find undesirable is relevant here. The fact of the matter is that truth, depending upon what one values and what purposes one is committed to achieving, may have both positives and negatives with respect to those values and purposes, and the negatives may outweigh the positives. You seem to be arguing that truth being desirable is an objective truth, but since desire itself is subjective, the desirability of truths themselves are also subjective. That may not have been what you sought to establish, but it seems rather germane.

---

If you doubt that truth has intrinsic aesthetic quality about it, then you should also doubt that truth is intrinsic useful. Your desire are for what conscience to and useful, not necessarily truthful.

I'm sorry, is that English, or have you inadvertently lapsed into glossolalia?

[Belacqua]

All right, I'm going to get really picky here, because this is my field. 

I agree that perception is an artform in itself, and that art has the potential to expand our perceptions of the world around us, just as literature can.

I don't think that a mental function is an art form. Art is intrinsically involved with its material, with its presentation, with sharing, etc. And mental images aren't that. It's true that we make mental images -- both Kant and Blake called our perceptive and interpretive faculties "imagination" -- imaging the world -- but calling that art would be a stretch. 

I also agree that art is largely about selection and emphasis, most often because of sensual or aesthetic priorities.  That makes it a variety of entertainment.

I guess so, depending on what we think entertainment is. If entertainment is mere relaxation or enjoyable time-wasting, no. 

Perhaps a better way of saying this is that the world doesn't come with a message at all, it's we who insert our messages into our art.  So we have to be cautious about what we are saying, because some people will mistake pictures of the world for the world itself, per Magritte.

Maybe... but we don't just look at the world and insert a message. As we gain consciousness of the world we fill it with meaning -- better, we gain consciousness of the world by filling it with meaning. If the psychologists are right, when a baby is born the world looks to it like chaos. The first meaning the baby finds in the world is that when the big warm thing who gives food goes away we don't like it. And we just go from there. 

So in our conscious state we never perceive the world apart from the meaning and messages we give it. The human world, the phenomenological world, is replete with meaning from the beginning of our consciousness. Only the view of science -- the supposedly non-human view -- posits a world without meaning. But none of us experiences that. It's an abstraction. 

As for Magritte, those jokes get old fast. 

Art is about directed attention.  

Just for reference here: I have a master's in painting from a New York art school, and a doctorate in the philosophy of art from a Japanese university. And I have never heard anyone say that art is about directed attention. 

People used to say that taking a photo is the act of directing attention. But maybe they don't say that any more, what with Photoshop and all. 

Certainly artists want to direct attention. But is that what the art is about? Or do they direct attention in order to do something else? To stick with the names I mentioned before, Brueghel and Rembrandt do more than point. If somebody directs my attention, they sure as hell had better have something good to direct me to. 

Artists use all sorts of different techniques to draw attention: color, contrast, drama, emotion, permanence, talent, and so on.  Any given artifact is saying, "This is worth paying more attention to than something else."  That is the artist's assertion.  Is it always true?

There's a lot more bad art in the world than good art.

Right. Well, some things are more worthwhile looking at than others. That's why it's better to look at the good ones. I would never dispute that there's bad art. But why is this relevant? Art enriches, and some of it enriches more than others. 

Now, going back to what you said earlier, about how the religious classics are lipstick on a pig: Do you remember the chapter in Walden called "Reading"? If you wanted to review that, I think you'd see that the author is decisively and entirely in disagreement with you. If he were posting on this forum, you would tell him that he's wasting his time.

[Angrboda]

I do not understand

I think we'll have to leave it there.

Just a question, Bel. Does spending a few years with Kano School or Rimpa Japanese paintings make you more of a pompous, pretentious, and irrational twat, or less of one? I'm asking for a friend.

[The Grand Nudger]

Human share a core universal morality, that underlies nearly all of our moral perceptions and beliefs. Call it a product of our evolution. What motivates our perceptions here isn't unique to each person, but rather shared in common with each other. I don't have an easy morality, and you have a non-easy morality. Anymore so then similar moral behaviors observed in monkeys, is distinct among them. The reason you see that its wrong to torture innocent babies just for fun, and I see it as wrong, is not the result of our brains taking two different paths to see that conclusion, but rather our brain used a similar pattern or perception to recognize it. Now maybe you'll articulate some convoluted justification, that aligns with your particular moral philosophy, but that explanation, is one you're making after the fact, and not the basis for why you see it as wrong.

The thing you're trying to refer to when you say that we share a "core universal morality", the thing that underlies our moral perceptions and beliefs..is called moral agency.  We share moral agency, as humans, not a common morality.  Descriptive moral relativism and descriptive moral subjectivity are both true comments on human morality.  

This is why precision in language is important, the same issue arose when conflating good songs and moral goods.  You're trying to say something that's true (I think, lol), but you end up saying something demonstrably false, instead.

Referring to some common pattern -in our brains- is a reference to a subjective fact.  A fact about us, you and me.  The fact of intersubjectivity.  

Thing is, we're discussing an item that we don't share, you and I.  Where our moral agency differs, where there is no intersubjectivity.  You've asserted that good songs and moral goods are interchangeable.  That the good and the beautiful refer to the same thing.  If what you're telling me is accurate, rather than a stubborn commitment to equivocation and poor argument...then you simply perceive this differently than I do.

I've already explained to you that and how good can present itself as ugly to me.  This is an irreducible fact of my perception that no argument of yours has any force to alter.   It differs from yours, and while there may be intersubjectivity between us on some other thing, and while we might both possess a moral agency, nothing about either of those two things changes this thing.

Just as it seems fairly uncontroversial to me to state that chasing beauty is easier than embracing that which we find repulsive, which you disagree with for some silly odd reason, lol. 

I love my wife, love is a thing of beauty. I'd do a variety of ugly things, like kill you if you try to harm my family, in servitude to that beauty. If the bad is more seductive than the good, you'd do the bad. If evolution made bad more appealing than doing good, we'd all being doing bad more often than the good.

Maybe you'd do the bad in the event that it were more seductive than the good, and if you base your moral system on chasing the beautiful and avoiding the ugly due to how you can't distinguish between the good and the beautiful it wouldn't be surprising when or if you did so.  You're just one gorgeously bad idea away from skullfucking your neighbors toddler, huh, lol?  

There's something to be said for the idea that evolution "made" the bad more seductive than the good, though it could be phrased much more accurately.  Controlling or mediating the compulsory effect of those destructive impulses we refer to as our animal nature or instinct is one of the goals of ethics.  We note that popping some jackass in the mouth might be a compelling idea, the conception of which grants us satisfaction and we may even find the thought beautiful...seductive.  Nevertheless, we contend that it would likely be wrong.  

I think whatever you have in mind about morality, doesn't align to how morality actually functions and works. You seem to imagine some sort of conceptions of morality as something done like a mathematical calculation, which is a false belief. Morality, particularly if you consider it in an evolutionary sense, works by the basis of aesthetics, the attractiveness of certain behaviors, and the unattractiveness of others. Making some good behaviors more biologically compelling than some bad ones, such as it's more attractive for a mother to stay with their children, than abandon them, it relies on attaching strong feelings and emotions to things.

I can tell you for sure that what I have in mind about morality isn't how morality commonly works and functions, lol.  

I'm a realist, but descriptive moral subjectivity and descriptive moral relativity are -still- true comments on human morality regardless of what position a person takes.  Your morality may be based on aesthetics, the attractiveness or unattractiveness of an idea...in which case it's a subjective morality.  It refers to some fact of what you find pretty, or ugly.  You and I differ on what ideas are or aren't attractive.  That irreducible fact above.  This isn't to say that I can't also find beauty in good things, only the acknowledgement that this is not always the case.  This isn't to say that I don't also fall prey to the seductiveness of an idea, conflating it as a moral good, only that I'm capable of recognizing a difference between them.  Your subjective moral framework is an equivocation, and the easy chase of those things you find beautiful.  I do that sometimes, myself, I just don't elevate those mistakes to the status of a moral framework.  

-and still...it's clear that none of this has anything to do with gods..and you can;t come up with any explanation of how it would. I can accept that you find some ideas beautiful and take beauty to indicate moral content. You could, if you weren't such a complete tool, accept that I can see ugliness where you see beauty, even if we both see that thing as good, lol. We're only talking about how two people view the world, how two people view the moral landscape. The relative accuracy of two peoples vocab. The nature of two peoples moral systems. It can be a fascinating conversation, an exploration of the difference between you and I, but neither you nor I are gods, neither of our moral systems makes any reference to gods. You make reference to the subjective facts of what you find beautiful, I make reference to the objective facts of some matter regardless of what I may find beautiful.

As a discussion on reasons why you believe in god, or why anyone else would..this is a complete non-starter. Neither position is going to yield theism or atheism. You can find atheists here who would largely agree with you, and yet this has no effect on their atheism. You can find theists here who would largely agree with me, and yet it has no effect on their theism.

Ironically..it's -very- easy to make a "biblical case" with a "sophisticated theology" between the good and what we find attractive. We're all fallen, dontchaknow? Your comments as regards the specifics of your moral framework and compulsion align nicely with your alleged human corruption. They would be a validation of that notion. Nutters don't get everything wrong, they get some things right for the wrong reasons.