February 2, 2016

[Quick note before this begins: before this is read by an objective critic,
I dont have a good way of judging these words on their true merit.
Currently, I cant pinpoint logical holes or fully develop the premises behind
statements because I have not actively discussed much of this with anyone
besides me, myself, and I. Any and all criticism is welcome and
appreciated.]
Today I was presented with a very interesting piece of writing by my
brilliant friend Joseph Lawal. Actually, I was linked to the document by
Patrick, but Joseph was the mastermind behind the real work. The piece
itself concerned the nature of art, what qualifies as art, and what is the
purpose of art in human understanding of purpose. Truly fascinating!
Hopefully I can contribute something of value to this discussion, although I
suspect I will run off on some tangent as I usually do. But I suppose that is
the purpose of these writings, to help myself write with clarity and direction.
Before talking about art, I should preface this portion of the discussion
with my thoughts on dualism. Thanks to consistent prodding by Patricia
Edwardo about the subject as well as my own personal musings, I must
admit that the idea is slowly growing on me. My current level of knowledge
regarding the matter (believe me, I have no illusions about the palpable
limitations of my abilities) tells me that science does not currently have an
explanation for why consciousness 1) is a necessary product of evolutionary
biology and 2) how consciousness could ever come about through evolution.
Being the skeptical person that I am, this kind of argument
immediately jumps off the page as similar to the God of the Gaps
argument with which we are all familiar. My reductionist side wants to
conclude that there must be a physical explanation for consciousness (or the
immaterial mind) that science has not yet discovered. Sometimes I wonder,
though, if I am simply too stubborn to accept the possibility that I may have
presupposed the correctness of reductionism and naturalism. It is for this
reason that I want to study metaphysics, for how else am I to reconcile my
apparent necessity for understanding with the desperately impotent
scientific explanations currently available to me?
Because I am trying to rediscover the foundations for my belief in
anything, humoring dualist premises could actually serve as a means to an
end. Given that I am only human, my mind, as all human minds, will
eventually run into a wall as it pushes to uncover the secrets of the world
around me. This is where I must concede my present knowledge of certain
subjects so as to leap over the wall that hampers my progress, with the
ultimate goal of uncovering some truth later in the process that will give me

the tools I need to break down that wall. In other words, I will assume a
priori that certain metaphysical claims are true in order to gain insight into
the problems that peak my interest.
Let me point out that I am by no means proposing that my logical
processes here are infallible when rigorously scrutinized. I admit that I am by
nature limited in this faculty, which is yet another reason why these writings
are so important. Instead, I ask that any reader remain objective towards
these arguments, judging them on their actual merit with minimal bias or
presupposition.
So, how does this relate to art? Here, I will use Josephs writing as a
sort of diving board into the topic, trying as hard as I can not to misinterpret
his main points. Basically, as I understand the metaphysics of the question,
art as a physical thing (i.e. a painting or sculpture) is different from art as an
abstract concept. I will elaborate further:
We are incapable of perceiving directly the abstract concepts that exist
in the universe. Because of this most unfortunate restraint, we are forced to
rely on only representations of the abstract object in question. Now if it were
theoretically possible to produce a representation of the object that is exactly
identical to the object, we would be able to perceive the perfect form of that
object. But herein lies an impossibility, because the object is by definition an
abstract object, not a physical one, meaning we cannot possibly hope to
recreate it perfectly.
In order to achieve maximum accuracy in our understanding of this
abstract object, we must use an alternative method to understand its
dimensions. I like to conceptualize this like dropping rocks into a pond and
watching the water ripple toward that abstract object, bouncing off of it as it
makes contact. This method allows us to make out the rough shape of the
abstraction, even though we cannot see exactly what it might be.
Going back to art specifically, my current belief is that we can feel the
abstract form of art in our lives, even though we cannot directly see it. This
could come in the form of inspiration or meaning or appreciation for some
aesthetically beautiful landscape. Beauty, in my mind, is something that we
can only perceive emotionally, and our senses only allow beauty to be
transmitted to our emotions. It is here where I think dualism becomes key,
because we may know where in the brain beauty is perceived or what stimuli
elicit pleasure, but we are incapable of understanding exactly what it is that
ingrains that beauty into our central being, or where in the brain we would
consciously be able to perceive that beauty, even as an abstract thing.
Why is this feeling that we are in contact with something abstract
important? Well, as I have worked it out in my head, a perception of

something naturally implies the abstraction of that thing, whether the

existence of that abstraction is true or not. It is difficult to give a good
example of what I mean because anything that can be conceived in its
purest form is not actually an abstraction. Ghosts cannot be considered an
abstraction because we can roughly picture the form that a ghost would
take. Art, on the other hand, does not have a definite form of which we are
aware, so it would qualify as an abstraction.
Anyway, the fact that we perceive the abstraction of something does
not necessarily validate the case for its existence, but perhaps this is where
we derive the necessity for a physical representation of a theoretically
existing abstract object. The physical manifestation of that abstraction could
allow us to hone in on the nature of the object of our inquiry, or art in this
case.
Allow me to raise another point that I find potentially relevant: If we
are slaves to the laws of the universe, as I believe we must be, considering
that we are at least in part physical beings, then our creations are also
confined by the natural limitations of the universe. (I do not see an inherent
contradiction in saying that we are both confined by physical laws and
accepting the duality of the mind, because the immaterial mind is
inextricably linked to the physical mind, and thus requires that the physical
mind exist in some particular way. This needs to be fleshed out.) It logically
follows that our physical representations of art are hopelessly limited by the
ability of the physical universe to replicate any abstract objects that exist
within it. This is to say that humans are incapable of creating anything, but
can only reorganize the materials given to us by the laws of the universe.
This conclusion seems significant to the discussion at hand for two reasons:
1) If we can only create things that already exist, then all possible
representations of art already exist somewhere in the universe, but
need only be discovered by intelligent life.
2) Because representations of art are known to exist, since we have
created them, the abstract object of art can also be known to exist.
Now, here is where some more complications arise. Firstly, how can we
be sure that we are not simply assigning meaning to a meaningless object?
What if we cause art to seem like a representation of something because it is
only our nature to do so? How can we be sure that an abstract form of art
really even exists? How can we be certain that all of these perceptions
cannot be reduced to chemical processes in the physical brain?
Another possible fallacy with the second reason stated above is that the
representation of an abstract object does not actually prove something to
exist, otherwise we could make anything out of anything and use that as

evidence of some abstract objects existence. The defense that I have come
up with on this front is that an object that can be perfectly recreated by
physical means is not a truly abstract object. Furthermore, the simple
existence of an abstract object is self-evident in the perception of that object
through the medium of the physical representations of that object.
Im inclined to say that the argument must then revert to the reductionist
attacks that I mentioned above. What I have effectively said in my defense
in the previous paragraph is that a representation of some non-abstract
object only proves the existence of the idea of that object, just like creating a
lightsaber toy only proves the existence of the conceptual possibility of a
lightsaber. But the question still remains as to why physical representations
of art would be any different from that toy. Wouldnt we have only proven
the existence of the idea of art as an abstract object? Im not sure what the
answer to this question would be, and I certainly have to delve deeper into
the issue to fully understand it.
Disregarding the second reason given for the significance of my
conclusion, the first reason is still valuable in its own right, and here I believe
Joseph and I would agree. There is some meaning in the pursuit of art for
personal enrichment, and I want to say that society should value the
humanities in balance with the hard sciences. I can picture this as the
fundamental pillar of humanism, which is another belief system that I have
to explore. (It is incredible just how much there is to learn! It is both
exhilarating and intimidating at the same time.) I do not want to try to make
the case for this proposal because Joseph already did that beautifully. I could
not do it justice by repeating it here.
To wrap up this paper, I have thus far assumed duality of the mind and a
few metaphysical claims to be valid without special qualification. This is
where philosophical discourse really has its value; I hope that I can refine the
statements made here in the near future because this topic genuinely
intrigues me, but I regretfully fail to fill the holes in my understanding on my
own. This is only step one towards enlightenment.