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From: punch@pleiades.cps.msu.edu (Bill Punch)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Some views on Aesthetics
Message-ID: <1990Oct10.194910.23185@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Date: 10 Oct 90 19:49:10 GMT
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I have been pondering a lot over the concept of aesthetics and what
that might mean from the sort of rationalistic point of view recently
espoused in a number of articles. It is interesting since I am
involved in some "AI in music composition" work and what counts as
"aestheticaly pleasing" is an important issue.

First, Minsky's position on emotive/aesthetic (broadly including
things like anger, love, awe, mystery etc.) vs THINKING seems correct,
to me at least.  It seems odd that some view these as different "sides" of
the human experience, that the aesthetic is the more "human" than
the rational, and is really a throwback to views of hundreds of years ago.
"Society of Mind" makes a number of points about how the emotional
aspects of thinking may have come to play important roles in mediating
conflicting needs, emotion guiding which need to follow and for how
long. In any event, even if you disagree it is a well laid package
worthy of consideration.

But it still doesn't answer the question of what aesthetic IS,
especially from the viewpoint of experience. Since I have neither blue
sky nor sea here, what is it about say, Vaughn Williams Sym No 5 that
evokes a sense of wonder in me, or reading to James Weldon Johnson's
"Creation Story" or whatever.  Why doesn't "Mary had a little lamb" or
"Jack and jill" do the same thing?

Again, there is clearly an element of sociology and education
involved. For example, opera to me is a learned art form, I never
really "got it" till I learned more about it. The same can be said of
expressionist painting, trying to understand WHAT they were doing made
HOW they did it all the more fascinating, awe-inspring. OK, I concede
all that, but is there something more?

Two responders have already offered opinions, which I hope I don't
butcher in review. Eliot Handleman stresses the "here and now" aspect
of direct experience. Awe is not something one contemplates afterwards
but rather experiences RIGHT NOW, an intermingling of direct
experience with ones personal referent if you will. He claimed:

::Now I want to stress these forms of actuality as being the occasion
::of the only forms of intersubjectivity known to the human mind. I mean,
::by "intersubjectivity," the potential for qualities of experience which
::are not directed, or conducted, or steered, by my primary selfhood. 
::If awe-inspired by the blue sky I in sense momentarily become the 
::blue sky -- I "get into" it, the way you can "get into" your favorite 
::music or an engaging film, or anything else engaging.

Stephen Smoliar notes that by being "awe-inspired", one may not just
be experiencing, but perhaps referencing like crazy to other stored
experiences that have affected us deeply, perhaps from long past. He
notes, with my ed. comments in {}:

::We cannot avoid responding to {an awe-inspiring event like} the sea
::on the basis of any number of memories we have had, including books
::we have read, movies we have seen, and (particularly in my own case)
::music we have heard.  (Vaughan Williams is forever with me.)  In
::other words whenever I react to the sight of the sea, my mind is
::VERY BUSY, indeed; and if it were not busy, I would not be having
::that reaction.  If I detach my mind from the experience, the sea
::becomes just as "stupid" as Minsky's blue sky and Rembrandt
::collection...

Thus there are two, not necessarily conflicting, views on aesthetics
here, one driven by the actuality of the experience and the other by
that experience's referents. So to add to the confusion let me throw one
more into the pile.

What about certain experiences doing a direct hook-up into
(evolutionarily) primitive emotional aspects of our minds? That is, we
no longer directly remember our first child-hood experiences (Minsky
notes that our minds have been made over so many times by experience
that we have lost those memories) that played more directly on our
emotional nature. As we have grown, the emotions are better shielded
by various cognitive structures, but there remain some particular
kinds of experience (musical, literary, physical) that "kick" directly
those emotional parts. In other words, some experiences let us by-pass
those developed cognitive processes and "more directly experience" the
emotional aspects of our minds. This captures both the actuality of
Eliott's ideas and requires the referents of Stephen's (what gives us
that direct route depends on experiences we associate with that
emotion). It all sounds kind of Freudian (yuck), but it is a mechanism
that might be more explicit than other mentioned. This is not an
anti-cognitive view, emotions are thinking just like any other
thinking, but that KIND of experiencing/thinking is what we generally
call aesthetic.

Opinions?

					>>>bill<<<
					punch@pleiades.cps.msu.edu