• RoboIntegrity
    1
    I posted this on reddit, but can only post on forums where people won't see this. Due to reddit's awful and approaching fascist rules, I literally can't post philosophy on the philosophy forum, and was thus banned. I hope to have this reasoning find a home wherever I can place it.

    Art is Everything & Nothing


    We don't know what we're doing, why we're doing it, and have little clue on what to go on, and it drives us crazy trying to find it. Ironically, there’s an art to driving yourself crazy. There’s an art to becoming uncrazy too. Sometimes we think we have the answer. Usually, that answer is wrong. So we need a way to find answers. There is an art to definition, and an art to creating systems. The art of creating systems we call engineering. We have engineered a way to find answers, and call this philosophy. Usually, we are wrong, or are left with further questions.

    There is an art to asking questions. Questions fall into certain categories. Who, what, why, how, where and when are the types of questions we can ask.

    Who is art? Everyone. We are all art, and artists. No matter what you may believe about yourself, you make art. This is evidenced by what art is.

    So what is art? Everything and nothing. How do we make art? That answer, and the answer as well as nothing is art. There is a classical idea of what art is: music, visuals, movies, etc. That is what society has defined as art. It is only a subset of art. However, non-classical ideas of art are still art. For example, science is an art. Fighting styles are art. War is art. Sun Tzu made a book about it called “The Art of War.” There are too many arts to list.

    I would like to take a moment to differentiate between evidence and proof. Proofs are for the art of math and the art of logic. They are hardened subsets of the art of reasoning and are ephemeral. Evidence is what objective reality presents us. These are substances that behave by certain rules, physics, sciences, etc. There is evidence that art is entirely subjective. One can look at quantum physics as an example. Anything can be art, including nothing; the void. So even in nothing there is art, which means there could have never been conceptually un-art.

    Now onto the art of subjectivity and the art of objectivity. There does seem to exist a subjective universe as evidenced by our own inner thoughts, dreams, and even quantum physics. Anything is possible in your dream because you have written the rules. There is also an objective universe, because, well, you get up and interact with other beings as well as having objective rules to a physical universe. There’s a science behind physics, and there’s an art to Science. I can not stress this point enough. For some reason there is a divide between the arts and the sciences in our method of teaching. This is wrong, as science is an art.

    In the same manner, the art of perception is both objective and subjective. There is a reason we have grand art museums to showcase our most glorious of creations. Now then, there is an objective taste in art, as evidenced by people preferring a picasso over say, a fifth grade drawing of myself and my mom. Yet if my mom had a choice between my drawing of a dinosaur and the Mona Lisa, well, she might just choose my drawing. That doesn’t mean most won’t choose the Mona Lisa.

    This gets into the meaning of life, or what most people are actually referring to as life's purpose. We are here to produce and consume art. There is an art to consuming art, and an art to producing art. We consume art through senses. I'm talking about more than the 5 senses you think you have. You have a sense of self, a sense of others, a sense of emotions, etc. We can also produce art as evidenced by our creative nature. In other words, people are creative. The production and consumption of art come together to form a single consciousness, or soul. The art of consciousness, or the art of soul. I use these terms interchangeably.

    We also have an instilled morality. And yes, there is an art to morality, or a way we should go about consuming and producing art. This is based on balance. Ever have dreams of traveling? Big consumer of art. Ever have dreams of being a star? Big producer of art. So how to solve the problem of if morality is subjective or objective? It's also both, but there’s more to it than that.

    It's both because we have contextual fairness, or the art of being fair in context. This is called the art of fairness. For example, suppose 2 children do an equal amount of work. This work ends up boiling down to a reward for their hard chores well done of $11 to split up between the two of them. There is however, a problem. We have two $5 bills, and a $1 bill available and no change whatsoever. So someone is going to get shortchanged here, and that's where we feel that something wrong is about to happen. There is some sort of inequity. Out of balanceness in action triggers our sense of right and wrong. Badness relates to unfairness. The art of being bad or evil, is the art of being unfair.

    So the subjective side of morality still exists and needs to be explained for the problem of evil to go away. There is an art to subjective morality. Sometimes it’s okay to do a little evil just to kill the boredom, or to create some art for fun. Why is this the case? We have a certain amount of art consumption we are supposed to take in. We are inherently bored creatures, and must make things interesting.So if you were to draw upon game-theory, our morality would actually be split up into good/interesting, good/boring, evil/interesting, evil/boring. I’d prefer to stay away from the evil/boring side of things. That’s why good people do bad things. It’s because they’re in an unfair situation, and they’d rather take the interesting option when it is has more value than the good option.

    Now then, what determines our canvas so to speak? Well, there are many ways to go with this. I’m going to go down a rather controversial road and say: God or Gods, a creator, universal architect, etc. The art of God. We are the art of God. For some people God is everything, and God is also Art. For some people there is no God. No God is also art.

    So how does art work? How does it operate? It operates through the art of mathematics. This is how we understand the universe. Speaking of the universe. It consists of space and time. They are both an art. The art of spacetime. Space allows us to measure things. Time allows us to change a creation. There may be more dimensions to space and time, but that doesn’t matter in this particular instance, because they are of the art of dimensions. Einstein combined these two ideas to form relativity.

    So why art? Because art. That may not be a satisfactory answer to some, but it is the answer. It is the one circular form of logic that is correct. So you might be thinking, is there an anti-art? There would be an art to making anti-art. This is in and of itself, is still art. This is the one exception to the binary rule. This is the exception to Dualism, and to the supersymmetry. Art is the void and Art is everything. No matter what, it will always Art.

    Just as there is an art to being right and wrong, there is an art to being correct and incorrect. There is the art of the incorrect. The false. I try not to be incorrect, but can’t help myself because of context. You may be incorrect but still in the right based on the context of the situation. This makes a situation forgivable. Forgiveness seems to be a lost art nowadays. People should be forgiven, because they didn’t have all the information, and are prone to forgetfulness. What is unforgivable is when one has the information and remembers but makes the incorrect action anyways.

    There is an art to making an argument, and philosophizing. There is an art to making good writing. There are an infinite number of arts, and I could go on forever explaining them, and may do that as my goal in life, but I also enjoy the art of mastering other arts. I have mastered the art of the argument, and now intend to master a new art, because I value the art of learning. Finally, and importantly, there is an art to ending things. Art be with you.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    If we were to imagine all possible topics of discussion as a lake, this strikes me as a thrown rock arbitrarily skipping across the surface for a moment. In other words, it seems to be superficially skitting all over the place.

    Maybe pick just one topic, make just one claim about it, then try supporting that claim in a focused, relatively succinct way that has a logical flow to it?

    Make it your aim to say something simple that almost everyone reading would have to agree with. That turns out to be quite difficult in a philosophical context, but it's a good way to approach writing philosophy.

    So, for example, your opening statement, "We don't know what we're doing," is something I don't at all agree with. So we might choose that as your one claim that you try to support in a focused, relatively succinct manner with a logical flow to it. You want your support to consist of relatively simple statements that you believe almost everyone will agree with, and then those statements ideally will imply your conclusion, "We don't know what we're doing." Your aim would be to get someone like me, who doesn't prima facie accept "We don't know what we're doing," to be compelled to accept it instead, due to your simple, straightforward logical support of it.

    You wouldn't have to pick that particular claim to focus on; it's just an example.
  • leo
    882


    That would make for boring art though, and there is already plenty of that around. I see philosophy as stories we tell each other, and I thought that was an interesting story.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    I like (broad-sense) fantasy fiction for stories. For my tastes, philosophy sucks if I want a story. :razz:
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    I liked your art of describing art, philosophy, and, well, and everything else. It had a good flow, a good rhythm.

    To me it was unreadable after the first few paragraphs. NOT you script's fault! My ineptitude or inability to read longer texts than a few paragraphs.

    The whole thing read like prose poetry... somewhat repetitive, in the structure of the language and the ideas. To me the repetitiveness was too much, it was carried beyond my comprehensive faculty... ti was like reading a long list of single adjectives by an imaginary but typical woman to describe herself on a dating site.

    So the strength of your write was also its weakness, but only to me.
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