Popper on art and objective beauty
Lulie Tanett
Quote:
> "I do not see philosophy as a series of works of art, as striking and original pictures of the world, or as clever and unusual ways of describing the world. I think that if we look upon philosophy in this way, we do a real injustice to the great philosophers. The great philosophers were not engaged in an aesthetic endeavour. They did not try to be architects of clever systems; but like the great scientists they were, first of all, seekers after truth - after true solutions of genuine problems. No, I see the history of philosophy essentially as part of the history of the search for truth, and I reject the purely aesthetic view of it, even though beauty is important in philosophy as well as in science."
-- Karl Popper, 'How I See Philosophy', 1975.
This implies that art is not a search for truth and that there aren't genuine problems in art (which contradicts the Flowers chapter of BoI), and that art is somehow separate form both philosophy and science.
So what did he think art was? How did art/beauty fit into his world view?
FWIW I think his critical rationalism applies just as much to art as anything else, and it's not some special exception, but it looks like Popper himself thought something different. I'm curious what his (mis)conception was.
--
Lulie Tanett
agass
See Joseph Agassi and Ian Jarvie, A Critical Rationalist Aesthetics, in the Popper Series, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008, Chapter 4, §b: Aesthetics, Metaphysics, psychology and Chapter 5, §d: What is Truth in Art?
Joseph Agassi
Judith Buber Agassi & Joseph Agassi,
37 Levi Eshkol Street,
Herzliyah 46745 Israel
Phone +972-9-950-4072
email: ag...@post.tau.ac.il
Web Pages http://www.tau.ac.il/~agass
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Alan Forrester
Disclaimer: my knowledge of music is limited to my slightly dim recollection of "Godel, Escher, Bach", and this stuff I've just read by Popper.
To the best of my knowledge, Popper's most sustained and detailed description of aesthetics is his description of music in "Unended Quest", Sections 12-14.
In Section 12, Popper writes that the creation of polyphonic music was a great advance and proposes an explanation of it. In Section 13, he refutes the idea that music is just an expression of the personality, or emotions, and writes (p. 68):
> In writing a fugue, the composer's problem is to find an interesting subject and a contrasting counterpoint, and then to exploit this material as well as he can.
In Section 14, he writes (p. 69):
> Of course, there can be something like progress in art, in the sense that new possibilities may be discovered and also new problems. In music such inventions as counterpoint revealed almost an infinity of new possibilities and problems. There is also purely technological progress (for example in certain instruments). But although this may open new possibilities, it is not of fundamental significance. (Changes in "medium" may remove more problems than they create.)
I'm breaking here because it seems to me that the next bit should be regarded as a separate argument although it is in the same paragraph in the book. I don't understand why "new possibilities and problems" just count as "something like progress" rather than as actual progress. This problem is not cleared up later.
> There could conceivably be progress even in the sense that musical knowledge grows - that is, a composer's mastery of the discoveries of all his great predecessors; but I do not think anything like this has been achieved by any musician. (Einstein may not have been a greater physicist than Newton, but he mastered Newtonian technique completely; no similar relation seems ever to have existed in the field of music.) Even Mozart, who may have come closest to it did not attain it, and Schubert did not come close to it.
This seems to me to be a subjectivist point: is there some specific person who knows everything that Bach used to know and more, or something like that. Perhaps what he meant is something like this:
"In physics we now have mathematics (tensor calculus) that can be used to write down both Newton's theory and Einstein's theory and understand the differences and similarities between them, do calculations using them and to easily formulate some kinds of alternatives to them. We can also say something about why Einstein's theory is better than Newton's as a result of this progress: it explains more about the structure of space and time than Newton's theory. But we don't have something similar to tensor calculus in music and so we can't tell that we have made progress."
I don't know if this argument is what Popper intended, or if there is something like tensor calculus in music. But I think that even if there was no test for progress, that would just mean that there is progress to be made in coming up with tests of the relative merit of different musical practises or ideas. The final part of the paragraph brings a new argument:
> There is also always the danger that newly realised possibilities may kill old ones: dynamical effects, dissonance, or even modulation may, is used too freely, dull our sensitivity to the less obvious effects of counterpoint, or, say, to an allusion to the old modes.
Why can't you just listen to a piece of music a few times looking deliberately for that kind of stuff and spot it? This doesn't seem to me to be a real problem.
Alan
Tanya
On Oct 30, 11:33 am, "agass" <ag...@post.tau.ac.il> wrote:
> See Joseph Agassi and Ian Jarvie, A Critical Rationalist Aesthetics, in the Popper Series, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008, Chapter 4, §b: Aesthetics, Metaphysics, psychology and Chapter 5, §d: What is Truth in Art?
>
> Joseph Agassi
>
> Judith Buber Agassi & Joseph Agassi,
>
> 37 Levi Eshkol Street,
>
> Herzliyah 46745 Israel
>
> Phone +972-9-950-4072
>
> Fax +972-153-9-950-4072
>
> email: ag...@post.tau.ac.il
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: beginning-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:beginning-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Lulie Tanett
> Sent: Sunday, October 30, 2011 12:39 PM
> To: beginning-...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [BoI] Popper on art and objective beauty
>
> Did Popper think anything coherent about art and beauty?
ithat describe reality. World one is the objective physical reality we
can interact with, world two is the world of subjective mental events,
and world three the world of objective knowledge.
He has interesting things to say about world three (which has
metaphsical knowledge in it, like art). He argues that it's
objectivity comes from the fact that the theories grow as an
unintended consequence of physical reality, world 1. For example
numbers are a world 3 concept--they're completely metaphysical, but
they're a real consequence of the finity of objects in world 1. And
through world 2 we can continue to identify, through problems and
contradictions, more things about the concept of numbers, such as
division, which is a less obvious idea if you were thinking only about
world 1, but follows very much from this idea of numbers. Eventually
you have all of mathematics, which is vast, complicated, unphysical,
but objective.
He also talks about world 3 as autonomous. We access more of it
through world 2, but it's 'already there' waiting for us to realize we
can access it. I say 'realize' rather than figure it out, because we
can sometimes 'access' without having figured out that it's good. He
has some sort of example of a music thing that he saw a crowd hear for
the first time (can't remember what it was!) and everyone instantly
understood with no world 2 that it was beautiful and music. Might be
worth looking for, think it's in 'the self and its brain'.
>
> Quote:
>
> > "I do not see philosophy as a series of works of art, as striking and original pictures of the world, or as clever and unusual ways of describing the world. I think that if we look upon philosophy in this way, we do a real injustice to the great philosophers. The great philosophers were not engaged in an aesthetic endeavour. They did not try to be architects of clever systems; but like the great scientists they were, first of all, seekers after truth - after true solutions of genuine problems. No, I see the history of philosophy essentially as part of the history of the search for truth, and I reject the purely aesthetic view of it, even though beauty is important in philosophy as well as in science."
>
> -- Karl Popper, 'How I See Philosophy', 1975.
>
> This implies that art is not a search for truth and that there aren't genuine problems in art (which contradicts the Flowers chapter of BoI), and that art is somehow separate form both philosophy and science.
>
> So what did he think art was? How did art/beauty fit into his world view?
>
> FWIW I think his critical rationalism applies just as much to art as anything else, and it's not some special exception, but it looks like Popper himself thought something different. I'm curious what his (mis)conception was.
>
> --
>
> Lulie Tanett
>
> --
>
> Before posting, read the list guidelines:
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> - Show quoted text -
agass
Ernst Gombrich wrote about the first of these questions. And though Popper hardly did, he fully and emphatically and repeatedly agreed with Gombrich, let me report from the horse's mouth.
Of course there is such an analogy, said Gombrich repeatedly, since obviously there are many inventions in the fine art, especially the invention of new idioms, but artistic quality does not equal idiomatic innovation. What is irrelevant to the fine arts that is vital for the sciences is the ideal to approach: whereas old art is not superseded, old science is.
This is true not only of art but of beauty in general, added Popper, including the beauty we find in science. The electromagnetic theory of Faraday is beautiful in a manner not eclipsed by its successors and incomparable to theirs, yet its verisimilitude is much inferior to that of its successors.
For more see my Science and Culture, Boston Studies,231, 2003, Ch. 4.6.
Lulie Tanett
On 30 Oct 2011, at 12:12, Alan Forrester wrote:
>
> On 30 Oct 2011, at 10:39, Lulie Tanett wrote:
>
>> Did Popper think anything coherent about art and beauty?
>>
>> Quote:
>>
>>> "I do not see philosophy as a series of works of art, as striking and original pictures of the world, or as clever and unusual ways of describing the world. I think that if we look upon philosophy in this way, we do a real injustice to the great philosophers. The great philosophers were not engaged in an aesthetic endeavour. They did not try to be architects of clever systems; but like the great scientists they were, first of all, seekers after truth - after true solutions of genuine problems. No, I see the history of philosophy essentially as part of the history of the search for truth, and I reject the purely aesthetic view of it, even though beauty is important in philosophy as well as in science."
>>
>> -- Karl Popper, 'How I See Philosophy', 1975.
>>
>> This implies that art is not a search for truth and that there aren't genuine problems in art (which contradicts the Flowers chapter of BoI), and that art is somehow separate form both philosophy and science.
>>
>> So what did he think art was? How did art/beauty fit into his world view?
>>
>> FWIW I think his critical rationalism applies just as much to art as anything else, and it's not some special exception, but it looks like Popper himself thought something different. I'm curious what his (mis)conception was.
>
>
> Disclaimer: my knowledge of music is limited to my slightly dim recollection of "Godel, Escher, Bach", and this stuff I've just read by Popper.
>
> To the best of my knowledge, Popper's most sustained and detailed description of aesthetics is his description of music in "Unended Quest", Sections 12-14.
>
> In Section 12, Popper writes that the creation of polyphonic music was a great advance and proposes an explanation of it. In Section 13, he refutes the idea that music is just an expression of the personality, or emotions, and writes (p. 68):
>
>> In writing a fugue, the composer's problem is to find an interesting subject and a contrasting counterpoint, and then to exploit this material as well as he can.
Yes, this is true, I think.
> In Section 14, he writes (p. 69):
>
>> Of course, there can be something like progress in art, in the sense that new possibilities may be discovered and also new problems. In music such inventions as counterpoint revealed almost an infinity of new possibilities and problems. There is also purely technological progress (for example in certain instruments). But although this may open new possibilities, it is not of fundamental significance. (Changes in "medium" may remove more problems than they create.)
>
> I'm breaking here because it seems to me that the next bit should be regarded as a separate argument although it is in the same paragraph in the book. I don't understand why "new possibilities and problems" just count as "something like progress" rather than as actual progress. This problem is not cleared up later.
>
>> There could conceivably be progress even in the sense that musical knowledge grows - that is, a composer's mastery of the discoveries of all his great predecessors; but I do not think anything like this has been achieved by any musician. (Einstein may not have been a greater physicist than Newton, but he mastered Newtonian technique completely; no similar relation seems ever to have existed in the field of music.) Even Mozart, who may have come closest to it did not attain it, and Schubert did not come close to it.
>
> This seems to me to be a subjectivist point: is there some specific person who knows everything that Bach used to know and more, or something like that.
Yes, why would you have to know everything of your predecessors to criticise them, or come up with some better ideas?
> Perhaps what he meant is something like this:
>
> "In physics we now have mathematics (tensor calculus) that can be used to write down both Newton's theory and Einstein's theory and understand the differences and similarities between them, do calculations using them and to easily formulate some kinds of alternatives to them. We can also say something about why Einstein's theory is better than Newton's as a result of this progress: it explains more about the structure of space and time than Newton's theory. But we don't have something similar to tensor calculus in music and so we can't tell that we have made progress."
>
> I don't know if this argument is what Popper intended, or if there is something like tensor calculus in music. But I think that even if there was no test for progress, that would just mean that there is progress to be made in coming up with tests of the relative merit of different musical practises or ideas.
Or it could be untestable, like philosophy. (Or maybe by 'tests' you just meant criticisms.)
> The final part of the paragraph brings a new argument:
>
>> There is also always the danger that newly realised possibilities may kill old ones: dynamical effects, dissonance, or even modulation may, is used too freely, dull our sensitivity to the less obvious effects of counterpoint, or, say, to an allusion to the old modes.
>
> Why can't you just listen to a piece of music a few times looking deliberately for that kind of stuff and spot it? This doesn't seem to me to be a real problem.
Yeah.
Though this does remind me of something related: Two pieces of music can be good in different ways. Is it the case that there is one objectively best style (to music, art, etc.)?
I guess there must be, and that different styles can still be good for non-artistic reasons (i.e. it would be 'design' -- art with a functional purpose. A cartoon might not be that objectively beautiful, but it's designed to be very expressive).
--
Lulie Tanett
Alan Forrester
I meant criticisms.
>> The final part of the paragraph brings a new argument:
>>
>>> There is also always the danger that newly realised possibilities may kill old ones: dynamical effects, dissonance, or even modulation may, is used too freely, dull our sensitivity to the less obvious effects of counterpoint, or, say, to an allusion to the old modes.
>>
>> Why can't you just listen to a piece of music a few times looking deliberately for that kind of stuff and spot it? This doesn't seem to me to be a real problem.
>
> Yeah.
>
> Though this does remind me of something related: Two pieces of music can be good in different ways. Is it the case that there is one objectively best style (to music, art, etc.)?
>
> I guess there must be, and that different styles can still be good for non-artistic reasons (i.e. it would be 'design' -- art with a functional purpose. A cartoon might not be that objectively beautiful, but it's designed to be very expressive).
I would guess that two different pieces of art could be aimed at solving two different aesthetic problems. So there needn't be a best style.
In physics the Schrodinger equation solves one problem (it's the equation that governs the evolution of isolated quantum systems) while equations in fluid dynamics solve another problem (explaining the motion of fluids). It's not the case that one of them is better they just solve different problems.
A cartoon could just be solving a different problem than a concerto by Mozart.
Alan
Lulie Tanett
> Alan Forrester asks if there is anything in art that resembles the invention of the tensor calculus and what was Popper's opinion about it.
>
> Ernst Gombrich wrote about the first of these questions. And though Popper hardly did, he fully and emphatically and repeatedly agreed with Gombrich, let me report from the horse's mouth.
>
> Of course there is such an analogy, said Gombrich repeatedly, since obviously there are many inventions in the fine art, especially the invention of new idioms, but artistic quality does not equal idiomatic innovation. What is irrelevant to the fine arts that is vital for the sciences is the ideal to approach: whereas old art is not superseded, old science is.
How is it not the case that this
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Ducciomadonna.jpg
has been superseded by this
?
> This is true not only of art but of beauty in general, added Popper, including the beauty we find in science. The electromagnetic theory of Faraday is beautiful in a manner not eclipsed by its successors and incomparable to theirs, yet its verisimilitude is much inferior to that of its successors.
Do you think that we will some day discover a successor that has the beauty of Faraday's but verisimilitude of (at least) his successors?
--
Lulie Tanett
Lulie Tanett
> On 30 Oct 2011, at 10:39, Lulie Tanett wrote:
>
>> Did Popper think anything coherent about art and beauty?
>
> He wrote a few times about his theory of three interacting worlds
> ithat describe reality. World one is the objective physical reality we
> can interact with, world two is the world of subjective mental events,
> and world three the world of objective knowledge.
Is world 2 just when people are wrong about the stuff in world 3? If not, what is it? What's in it?
What problem does this World 1/2/3 stuff solve?
> He has interesting things to say about world three (which has
> metaphsical knowledge in it, like art). He argues that it's
> objectivity comes from the fact that the theories grow as an
> unintended consequence of physical reality, world 1. For example
> numbers are a world 3 concept--they're completely metaphysical,
(By 'metaphysical', do you just mean 'abstract'?)
> but they're a real consequence of the finity of objects in world 1. And
> through world 2 we can continue to identify, through problems and
> contradictions, more things about the concept of numbers, such as
> division,
So World 2 = our knowledge so far of World 3?
Why are these called worlds?
Also what's the difference between a physical instantiation of knowledge of world 3, and world 1? Popper said he was not a 'belief philosopher'. So I'm confused why the subjective thing is being emphasised here.
> which is a less obvious idea if you were thinking only about
> world 1, but follows very much from this idea of numbers. Eventually
> you have all of mathematics, which is vast, complicated, unphysical,
> but objective.
Is this just a fancy way of saying abstract knowledge is objective? (If so, BoI did it better -- see Chapter 5: The Reality of Abstractions.)
> He also talks about world 3 as autonomous. We access more of it
> through world 2, but it's 'already there' waiting for us to realize we
> can access it.
Just like world 1? It's already there and we can access it.
> I say 'realize' rather than figure it out, because we
> can sometimes 'access' without having figured out that it's good.
I'm not sure I understand this sentence; can you elaborate?
> He
> has some sort of example of a music thing that he saw a crowd hear for
> the first time (can't remember what it was!) and everyone instantly
> understood with no world 2 that it was beautiful and music. Might be
> worth looking for, think it's in 'the self and its brain'.
That just means they understand something about the problems it was trying to solve and appreciate its solution, perhaps inexplicitly.
--
Lulie Tanett
Lulie Tanett
I could see how that would be the case if there were aesthetic problems with contradictory answers. If they don't contradict, though, wouldn't the best solution solve both at once?
> In physics the Schrodinger equation solves one problem (it's the equation that governs the evolution of isolated quantum systems) while equations in fluid dynamics solve another problem (explaining the motion of fluids). It's not the case that one of them is better they just solve different problems.
Should we expect there to eventually be something that solves both of these at once? Or is 'it doesn't solve everything' not a good criticism?
> A cartoon could just be solving a different problem than a concerto by Mozart.
Arguably that's not comparing like with like, and music and the visual arts should be judged separately. But maybe replace that by "newspaper comic strip vs manga", or something.
If beauty is objective, doesn't that mean there is one beauty that is better than all the rest? Or does it mean that there is a set of different standards in beauty, which different styles can meet? Are there are a bunch of 'laws of beauty', which address different aspects of objective beauty's reality? If they don't lead to contradictions, wouldn't a picture that incorporated all of them be the most beautiful?
--
Lulie Tanett
Elliot Temple
On Oct 30, 2011, at 8:56 AM, Lulie Tanett wrote:
> Though this does remind me of something related: Two pieces of music can be good in different ways. Is it the case that there is one objectively best style (to music, art, etc.)?
>
> I guess there must be, and that different styles can still be good for non-artistic reasons (i.e. it would be 'design' -- art with a functional purpose. A cartoon might not be that objectively beautiful, but it's designed to be very expressive).
This is the same issue as whether there is a best flavor of ice cream.
The answer is that knowledge and truth are contextual: "2" is a true answer to "1+1" and a false answer to "5+5". Whether something is a true answer depends on the context -- on what question is asked, what the problem is.
There are multiple musical problems/questions, and so multiple true answers, one for each. Just as there are multiple desert related problems/questions.
"What is the objectively best desert (or style of music)?" is an ambiguous question. Best for what? It doesn't specify what problem is trying to be solved.
-- Elliot Temple
http://beginningofinfinity.com/
Tanya
> > World one is the objective physical reality we
> > can interact with, world two is the world of subjective mental events,
> > and world three the world of objective knowledge.
>
> Is world 2 just when people are wrong about the stuff in world 3? If not, what is it? What's in it?
"◦World 1 is the physical universe. It consists of the actual truth
and reality that we try to represent, such as energy, physics, and
chemistry. While we exist in this world, we do not always perceive it
and then represent it correctly.
◦World 2 is the world of our subjective personal perceptions,
experiences, and cognition. It is what we think about the world as we
try to map, represent, and anticipate or hypothesis in order to
maintain our existence in an every changing place. Personal knowledge
and memory form this world, which are based on self-regulation,
cognition, consciousness, dispositions, and processes.
◦World 3 is the sum total of the objective abstract products of the
human mind. It consists of such artifacts as books, tools, theories,
models, libraries, computers, and networks. It is quite a diverse
mixture. While knowledge may be created and produced by World 2
activities, its artifacts are stored in World 3, for example a claw-
hammer, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and Godel's proof of the
incompleteness of arithmetic. Popper also includes genetic heredity
(if you think about it, genes are really nothing more than a
biological artifact of instructions)."
note for your question "While knowledge may be created and produced by
World 2 activities, its artifacts are stored in World 3"
>
> What problem does this World 1/2/3 stuff solve?
the problems of monism or dualism, while reaching also: how
metaphysical knowledge comes to be objective/how art is objective, why
creating art can be as if the art was autonomous to us, and the
beginning of how the theory of consciousness should be solved.
mostly he felt it was an important argument for defending the
existence of world 3 objects as objective while not conflating them
with world 2 objects which are subjective--which is very common and
leads to really bad ideas like moral relativism and art being
subjective.
>
> (By 'metaphysical', do you just mean 'abstract'?)
> > but they're a real consequence of the finity of objects in world 1. And
> > through world 2 we can continue to identify, through problems and
> > contradictions, more things about the concept of numbers, such as
> > division,
>
> So World 2 = our knowledge so far of World 3?
>
> Why are these called worlds?
felt was a fairly accurate way of catagorising the three types of
knowledge.
>
> Also what's the difference between a physical instantiation of knowledge of world 3, and world 1? Popper said he was not a 'belief philosopher'. So I'm confused why the subjective thing is being emphasised here.
>
> > which is a less obvious idea if you were thinking only about
> > world 1, but follows very much from this idea of numbers. Eventually
> > you have all of mathematics, which is vast, complicated, unphysical,
> > but objective.
>
> Is this just a fancy way of saying abstract knowledge is objective? (If so, BoI did it better -- see Chapter 5: The Reality of Abstractions.)
belonging to world 3, is objective and more importantly why it is. If
you're calling it a 'fancy way' though, I'm too hestitant that there
may be a misunderstanding, even if you think BoI did it better (which
I'll comment on later when we've got these question out the way). It's
not a 'fancy way', it's a tight argumuent.
>
> > He
> > has some sort of example of a music thing that he saw a crowd hear for
> > the first time (can't remember what it was!) and everyone instantly
> > understood with no world 2 that it was beautiful and music. Might be
> > worth looking for, think it's in 'the self and its brain'.
>
> That just means they understand something about the problems it was trying to solve and appreciate its solution, perhaps inexplicitly.
moment that there was this problem and that this music solved that
problem? How do you know they must have already known about the
problem?
(I do actually agree that this idea that we discover world 3 rather
than create it is nonsense. Like BoI says we always create our
theories. BUT there's still the interesting point of being able to
spot the problem and that this music solves it, without being
previously aware of the problem, implicitely or not, because of world
3 being a consequence of facts about world 1)
Tanya
> > World one is the objective physical reality we
> > can interact with, world two is the world of subjective mental events,
> > and world three the world of objective knowledge.
> Is world 2 just when people are wrong about the stuff in world 3? If not, what is it? What's in it?
"◦World 1 is the physical universe. It consists of the actual truth
and reality that we try to represent, such as energy, physics, and
chemistry. While we exist in this world, we do not always perceive it
and then represent it correctly.
◦World 2 is the world of our subjective personal perceptions,
experiences, and cognition. It is what we think about the world as we
try to map, represent, and anticipate or hypothesis in order to
maintain our existence in an every changing place. Personal knowledge
and memory form this world, which are based on self-regulation,
cognition, consciousness, dispositions, and processes.
◦World 3 is the sum total of the objective abstract products of the
human mind. It consists of such artifacts as books, tools, theories,
models, libraries, computers, and networks. It is quite a diverse
mixture. While knowledge may be created and produced by World 2
activities, its artifacts are stored in World 3, for example a claw-
hammer, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and Godel's proof of the
incompleteness of arithmetic. Popper also includes genetic heredity
(if you think about it, genes are really nothing more than a
biological artifact of instructions)."
note for your question "While knowledge may be created and produced
by
World 2 activities, its artifacts are stored in World 3"
have
the problems of monism or dualism, while reaching also: how
metaphysical knowledge comes to be objective/how art is objective,
why
creating art can be as if the art was autonomous to us, and the
beginning of how the theory of consciousness should be solved.
mostly he felt it was an important argument for defending the
existence of world 3 objects as objective while not conflating them
with world 2 objects which are subjective--which is very common and
leads to really bad ideas like moral relativism and art being
subjective.
> > but they're a real consequence of the finity of objects in world 1. And
> > through world 2 we can continue to identify, through problems and
> > contradictions, more things about the concept of numbers, such as
> > division,
> So World 2 = our knowledge so far of World 3?
felt was a fairly accurate way of catagorising the three types of
knowledge.
> > which is a less obvious idea if you were thinking only about
> > world 1, but follows very much from this idea of numbers. Eventually
> > you have all of mathematics, which is vast, complicated, unphysical,
> > but objective.
> Is this just a fancy way of saying abstract knowledge is objective? (If so, BoI did it better -- see Chapter 5: The Reality of Abstractions.)
belonging to world 3, is objective and more importantly why it is. If
you're calling it a 'fancy way' though, I'm too hestitant that there
may be a misunderstanding, even if you think BoI did it better (which
I'll comment on later when we've got these question out the way).
It's
not a 'fancy way', it's a tight argumuent.
> > has some sort of example of a music thing that he saw a crowd hear for
> > the first time (can't remember what it was!) and everyone instantly
> > understood with no world 2 that it was beautiful and music. Might be
> > worth looking for, think it's in 'the self and its brain'.
> That just means they understand something about the problems it was trying to solve and appreciate its solution, perhaps inexplicitly.
Lulie Tanett
Can you tell me what mistake I'm making in my summary?:
World 1: Physical stuff.
World 2: Qualia and similar? (How is this different from abstract ideas/World 3?)
World 3: Abstract ideas (+ their physical instantiations that we make? Why aren't these just world 1 objects?)
> note for your question "While knowledge may be created and produced by
> World 2 activities, its artifacts are stored in World 3"
Why world 3 instead of world 1?
Or are you saying the *information* contained with them is *about* World 3?
>> What problem does this World 1/2/3 stuff solve?
>
> it solve the problem of how knowledge works in a way that doesn't have
> the problems of monism or dualism,
What are the problems of monism and dualism?
> while reaching also: how
> metaphysical knowledge comes to be objective/how art is objective,
How does it explain either?
What does it say regarding how art is objective?
> why
> creating art can be as if the art was autonomous to us,
How does it explain that?
Why can't you explain that by saying, "Beauty is objective. Abstract ideas exist in reality. We consider something to exist if it helps/is necessary for our explanations. Abstract ideas, including beauty, help us with our explanations so they're real. Abstract ideas are autonomous to us."?
> and the
> beginning of how the theory of consciousness should be solved.
How does it do that?
> mostly he felt it was an important argument for defending the
> existence of world 3 objects as objective while not conflating them
> with world 2 objects which are subjective--which is very common and
> leads to really bad ideas like moral relativism and art being
> subjective.
But my original quote was Popper hedging on whether art's objective or not. Did this World 3 theory come later, or was it not designed to defend that?
>>
>> (By 'metaphysical', do you just mean 'abstract'?)
>
> sure, if you prefer.
>
>>> but they're a real consequence of the finity of objects in world 1. And
>>> through world 2 we can continue to identify, through problems and
>>> contradictions, more things about the concept of numbers, such as
>>> division,
>>
>> So World 2 = our knowledge so far of World 3?
>
> no, see my long explanation of world 2.
>
>>
>> Why are these called worlds?
>
> because it's more elogant then calling them 'sub-universes', which he
> felt was a fairly accurate way of catagorising the three types of
> knowledge.
What makes world 2 and world 3 fundamentally different from each other?
>>
>> Also what's the difference between a physical instantiation of knowledge of world 3, and world 1? Popper said he was not a 'belief philosopher'. So I'm confused why the subjective thing is being emphasised here.
>>
>>> which is a less obvious idea if you were thinking only about
>>> world 1, but follows very much from this idea of numbers. Eventually
>>> you have all of mathematics, which is vast, complicated, unphysical,
>>> but objective.
>>
>> Is this just a fancy way of saying abstract knowledge is objective? (If so, BoI did it better -- see Chapter 5: The Reality of Abstractions.)
>
> It's a way of saying that abstract knowledge, meeting the criteria of
> belonging to world 3, is objective and more importantly why it is.
Can you explain more about how it's more than just an assertion that it's objective? And how it explains why abstract knowledge is objective?
> If
> you're calling it a 'fancy way' though, I'm too hestitant that there
> may be a misunderstanding, even if you think BoI did it better (which
> I'll comment on later when we've got these question out the way). It's
> not a 'fancy way', it's a tight argumuent.
>
>>
>>> He
>>> has some sort of example of a music thing that he saw a crowd hear for
>>> the first time (can't remember what it was!) and everyone instantly
>>> understood with no world 2 that it was beautiful and music. Might be
>>> worth looking for, think it's in 'the self and its brain'.
>>
>> That just means they understand something about the problems it was trying to solve and appreciate its solution, perhaps inexplicitly.
>
> why does it mean that. Why can't it mean that they discovered in that
> moment that there was this problem and that this music solved that
> problem? How do you know they must have already known about the
> problem?
I didn't say beforehand. They could come up with this in real time.
> (I do actually agree that this idea that we discover world 3 rather
> than create it is nonsense. Like BoI says we always create our
> theories. BUT there's still the interesting point of being able to
> spot the problem and that this music solves it, without being
> previously aware of the problem, implicitely or not, because of world
> 3 being a consequence of facts about world 1)
Is all abstract knowledge just a consequence of physical stuff?
-Lulie
Lulie Tanett
What does it mean to say "Warcraft 3 is the best game"?
Why isn't it the case that something that solves a whole bunch of contexts is better than something that doesn't?
Or if it is better, couldn't you say the best thing is the thing that solves the most contexts? If you're speaking generally. If you're talking about a specific problem, it won't do to say something is best even if it addresses lots of contexts, if it doesn't address your specific context.
And you'll always have *some* kind of problem, anyway. Can your problem not be "What is the best in general/most contexts?"? Or is that a bad problem? (If so why?)
-Lulie
Elliot Temple
On Oct 31, 2011, at 11:33 AM, Lulie Tanett wrote:
>
> On 30 Oct 2011, at 05:39 PM, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Oct 30, 2011, at 8:56 AM, Lulie Tanett wrote:
>>
>>> Though this does remind me of something related: Two pieces of music can be good in different ways. Is it the case that there is one objectively best style (to music, art, etc.)?
>>>
>>
>>> I guess there must be, and that different styles can still be good for non-artistic reasons (i.e. it would be 'design' -- art with a functional purpose. A cartoon might not be that objectively beautiful, but it's designed to be very expressive).
>>
>>
>> This is the same issue as whether there is a best flavor of ice cream.
>>
>> The answer is that knowledge and truth are contextual: "2" is a true answer to "1+1" and a false answer to "5+5". Whether something is a true answer depends on the context -- on what question is asked, what the problem is.
>>
>> There are multiple musical problems/questions, and so multiple true answers, one for each. Just as there are multiple desert related problems/questions.
>>
>>
>> "What is the objectively best desert (or style of music)?" is an ambiguous question. Best for what? It doesn't specify what problem is trying to be solved.
>
> What does it mean to say "Warcraft 3 is the best game"?
That's kind of ambiguous. But that game has reach due to a World Editor tool, so it encompasses many types of games.
Among other things, a whole game type (AoS/dota) was created by war3 map makers (it was a group effort with many different maps being made and ideas being shared or copied from others, so the genre was created through incremental progress not someone's eureka moment).
>
> Why isn't it the case that something that solves a whole bunch of contexts is better than something that doesn't?
Well it is better for many purposes, but it's not the best solution to all problems. A problem might be focussed on something it doesn't solve it all, or on solving a single problem really well.
>
> Or if it is better, couldn't you say the best thing is the thing that solves the most contexts? If you're speaking generally. If you're talking about a specific problem, it won't do to say something is best even if it addresses lots of contexts, if it doesn't address your specific context.
Right.
Though even generally, reach and quantity of contexts addressed is not the only concern. Some contexts are better than others and addressing those particular ones matters.
>
> And you'll always have *some* kind of problem, anyway. Can your problem not be "What is the best in general/most contexts?"? Or is that a bad problem? (If so why?)
That problem won't directly improve your life. It's good to also have problems related to your life, e.g. to figure out the best game *for you to play*, *today*.
-- Elliot Temple
http://elliottemple.com/
Erin
On Oct 31, 3:39 pm, Elliot Temple <c...@curi.us> wrote:
> >> On Oct 30, 2011, at 8:56 AM, Lulie Tanett wrote:
>
> >>> Though this does remind me of something related: Two pieces of music can be good in different ways. Is it the case that there is one objectively best style (to music, art, etc.)?
>
> >>> I guess there must be, and that different styles can still be good for non-artistic reasons (i.e. it would be 'design' -- art with a functional purpose. A cartoon might not be that objectively beautiful, but it's designed to be very expressive).
>
> >> This is the same issue as whether there is a best flavor of ice cream.
>
> >> The answer is that knowledge and truth are contextual: "2" is a true answer to "1+1" and a false answer to "5+5". Whether something is a true answer depends on the context -- on what question is asked, what the problem is.
>
> >> There are multiple musical problems/questions, and so multiple true answers, one for each. Just as there are multiple desert related problems/questions.
>
> >> "What is the objectively best desert (or style of music)?" is an ambiguous question. Best for what? It doesn't specify what problem is trying to be solved.
>
They approach this problem using conjectures and criticism and arrive
at a common preference finding a solution they both prefer. So for
this context (who the people are, what they feel like eating, etc.) is
there one and only one objective truth? One true answer to this
problem?
If so, is it a matter of we don't really need to know the one final
truth for a problem like this? We just need to solve the problem to
the degree that both parent and child are happy with. Our idea just
needs to contain enough knowledge to solve our problem (and doesn't
have to be *the* final truth).
Is there even a truth to issues like this?
Or maybe there isn't really an objective true answer regarding the
problem of what to have for dinner, but rather there is an objective
true answer regarding the problem of what *process* to use to solve
problems between 2 people?
-Erin
Elliot Temple
On Oct 31, 2011, at 7:41 PM, Erin wrote:
>
>
> On Oct 31, 3:39 pm, Elliot Temple <c...@curi.us> wrote:
>
>>>> On Oct 30, 2011, at 8:56 AM, Lulie Tanett wrote:
>>
>>>>> Though this does remind me of something related: Two pieces of music can be good in different ways. Is it the case that there is one objectively best style (to music, art, etc.)?
>>
>>>>> I guess there must be, and that different styles can still be good for non-artistic reasons (i.e. it would be 'design' -- art with a functional purpose. A cartoon might not be that objectively beautiful, but it's designed to be very expressive).
>>
>>>> This is the same issue as whether there is a best flavor of ice cream.
>>
>>>> The answer is that knowledge and truth are contextual: "2" is a true answer to "1+1" and a false answer to "5+5". Whether something is a true answer depends on the context -- on what question is asked, what the problem is.
>>
>>>> There are multiple musical problems/questions, and so multiple true answers, one for each. Just as there are multiple desert related problems/questions.
>>
>>>> "What is the objectively best desert (or style of music)?" is an ambiguous question. Best for what? It doesn't specify what problem is trying to be solved.
>>
>
>
> Say a parent and child are trying to decide what to have for dinner.
> They approach this problem using conjectures and criticism and arrive
> at a common preference finding a solution they both prefer. So for
> this context (who the people are, what they feel like eating, etc.) is
> there one and only one objective truth? One true answer to this
> problem?
There are many things that would have been a common preference they could have found, not just one.
The very best one is not the one they are doing. Their solution objectively solves their understanding of the problem, but it doesn't address some issues they haven't thought of, or it may lack features/benefits they didn't realize were available.
One doesn't need to find the very best solution to have a good life, one just finds enough truth to avoid coercion and make some progress.
>
> If so, is it a matter of we don't really need to know the one final
> truth for a problem like this? We just need to solve the problem to
> the degree that both parent and child are happy with. Our idea just
> needs to contain enough knowledge to solve our problem (and doesn't
> have to be *the* final truth).
Yes, exactly. You anticipated what I would say!
> Is there even a truth to issues like this?
>
> Or maybe there isn't really an objective true answer regarding the
> problem of what to have for dinner, but rather there is an objective
> true answer regarding the problem of what *process* to use to solve
> problems between 2 people?
There is a truth about the best process, yes, and that is important.
But there's also a truth about what is best. Or actually several because "what is best" is ambiguous.
All issues/questions/problems either have a true answer or are vague/ambiguous. There's not really any way for it to be otherwise.
Suppose there were two answers that both seemed true. Doesn't one actually solve the problem a little better? Usually either it does or the problem is a bit vague on what it's asking for so you can't tell.
In the rare case, these two (or more) answers may in fact be equally good. But in that case there is a single truth as follows: this problem has multiple equally good solutions, and they are [complete list of equal solutions].
Getting back to ambiguity of the question of which solution is the best or the objective truth of what they should do, here are some different things that this question could refer to:
- what would the be the best thing with unlimited resources?
- what would the be the best thing with unlimited resources except knowledge?
- what would the be the best thing with unlimited knowledge?
- consider each decision one of the people made, and consider only the options they knew about and decided between. which of those options were the best ones to pick?
- take the options the people considered, and then also add in anything they "reasonably" could have been able to come up with too, and then what's the best? (this is actually itself many different questions, one for each meaning of "reasonably".)
Each of these questions about what's best has one objective truth. At least, to reasonable precision. No doubt at high enough precision all my questions are ambiguous and would need to be improved.
There's an interplay between improving problems/questions and improving answers/solutions. One needs better and better problems as part of progress, and also better and better solutions. Bad problems, e.g. vague problems, get in the way (e.g. by making it unclear which solution is better since it's vague about what it's seeking).
By the way, ambiguous questions also have a single objectively true answer in two different ways of thinking about it. That's neat because they seem like they initially would have multiple answers (one for each question they could mean).
The first way of thinking to give them an objective answer is you answer "that's ambiguous, it's a bad question". And maybe elaborate but the basic concept is to criticize the question and have a policy not to answer refuted bad questions.
The other way is you say, "This is an ambiguous question. The answer is that it could mean [complete list of questions] and the answer to each one is [complete list of answers]". That is a single good answer.
There's more to this topic but I think I commented enough for a start. Feel free to ask more questions on this topic.
Erin
On Nov 1, 1:10 am, Elliot Temple <c...@curi.us> wrote:
> On Oct 31, 2011, at 7:41 PM, Erin wrote:
> > Say a parent and child are trying to decide what to have for dinner.
> > They approach this problem using conjectures and criticism and arrive
> > at a common preference finding a solution they both prefer. So for
> > this context (who the people are, what they feel like eating, etc.) is
> > there one and only one objective truth? One true answer to this
> > problem?
>
> There are many things that would have been a common preference they could have found, not just one.
>
> The very best one is not the one they are doing. Their solution objectively solves their understanding of the problem, but it doesn't address some issues they haven't thought of, or it may lack features/benefits they didn't realize were available.
>
> One doesn't need to find the very best solution to have a good life, one just finds enough truth to avoid coercion and make some progress.
above sentence? Why or why not?
> There's an interplay between improving problems/questions and improving answers/solutions. One needs better and better problems as part of progress, and also better and better solutions.
to objective truth?
-Erin
Elliot Temple
On Nov 7, 2011, at 11:20 AM, Erin wrote:
>
>
> On Nov 1, 1:10 am, Elliot Temple <c...@curi.us> wrote:
>> On Oct 31, 2011, at 7:41 PM, Erin wrote:
>
>>> Say a parent and child are trying to decide what to have for dinner.
>>> They approach this problem using conjectures and criticism and arrive
>>> at a common preference finding a solution they both prefer. So for
>>> this context (who the people are, what they feel like eating, etc.) is
>>> there one and only one objective truth? One true answer to this
>>> problem?
>>
>> There are many things that would have been a common preference they could have found, not just one.
>>
>> The very best one is not the one they are doing. Their solution objectively solves their understanding of the problem, but it doesn't address some issues they haven't thought of, or it may lack features/benefits they didn't realize were available.
>>
>> One doesn't need to find the very best solution to have a good life, one just finds enough truth to avoid coercion and make some progress.
>
> Is the word *knowledge* interchangeable with the word truth in the
> above sentence? Why or why not?
Yes.
>> There's an interplay between improving problems/questions and improving answers/solutions. One needs better and better problems as part of progress, and also better and better solutions.
>
> And these problems are described as *better* because they are closer
> to objective truth?
Yes.
Ideas about what problems are important can be mistaken; it's an area where we can learn. Some problems contain internal contradictions or don't make sense. Some include assumptions or assertions which are false. Some overlook valuable opportunities. Some frame the situation wrong, like they might think you should figure out how to do X in order to achieve Y, but actually doing X will achieve Z instead, not Y.
For example, I might have the problem of trying to learn how Lamarckian evolution works. But I might be wrong to do that: learning (neo-)Darwinian evolution would be a better problem since it's true instead of false.
Problems are usually more complex than they might first appear, and when we describe them we usually leave out some details. If my problem was learning Lamarkcian evolution because I wanted to understand the history of life on Earth, then that's a mistake. If my problem was learning it to understand more about the history of ideas, and I already know about Darwin and want to learn more obscure details, then it's a good idea.
If my problem was learning about ideas of people whose names start with L, then it makes sense. But, that is itself a bad problem (unless maybe I'm working for an encyclopedia and we divided up the work by L? you can usually come up with some sort of exception. though i don't think that's a very good way to organize encyclopedia creation). I'd have a better life if I found better criteria for choosing who to learn about, that focussed more on my interests or their importance, instead of the arbitrary fact of the first letter of their last name.
Elliot Temple
On Oct 31, 2011, at 11:27 AM, Lulie Tanett wrote:
> What makes world 2 and world 3 fundamentally different from each other?
It's not important if the worlds are fundamentally different. They have differences and those can be useful in discussing some issues. For discussions where the distinctions seem unclear and problematic, and it's not helping make the discussion better, don't use the 3 worlds idea.
-- Elliot Temple
http://fallibleideas.com/
Elliot Temple
On Oct 30, 2011, at 3:39 AM, Lulie Tanett wrote:
> Did Popper think anything coherent about art and beauty?
>
> Quote:
>
>> "I do not see philosophy as a series of works of art, as striking and original pictures of the world, or as clever and unusual ways of describing the world. I think that if we look upon philosophy in this way, we do a real injustice to the great philosophers. The great philosophers were not engaged in an aesthetic endeavour. They did not try to be architects of clever systems; but like the great scientists they were, first of all, seekers after truth - after true solutions of genuine problems. No, I see the history of philosophy essentially as part of the history of the search for truth, and I reject the purely aesthetic view of it, even though beauty is important in philosophy as well as in science."
>
> -- Karl Popper, 'How I See Philosophy', 1975.
>
> This implies that art is not a search for truth
No it doesn't say that.
It says the "purely aesthetic" view of philosophy, explained above (seemingly -- with broader context the reference might be to something further above), does not regard philosophy as a search for truth. That view sees philosophy:
>> as a series of works of art, as striking and original pictures of the world, or as clever and unusual ways of describing the world
This view Popper is criticizing is a bad view with elements of relativism and subjectivism. It sees ideas as a matter of taste, to appeal to various kinds of sensibilities other than truth.
Good ideas are not merely ways of seeing the world, or clever descriptions, but have objective value and substance.
This leaves the question of why Popper used the phrase "purely aesthetic" in reference to that bad view. It's because of the "various kinds of sensibilities" mentioned above, aesthetic taste is a major one.
By saying this, Popper is not, however, saying that these ideas he's criticizing are correct about the nature of aesthetics. He just used a little of their terminology which is not endorsement.
Also note that when he rejects a "purely aesthetic" view of objective philosophical and scientific truth, that is literally quite correct: they are not purely aesthetic disciplines but involve other stuff.
> and that there aren't genuine problems in art
It doesn't say that anywhere in the passage and Alan provided a quote where Popper directly says there are problems in art.
> (which contradicts the Flowers chapter of BoI), and that art is somehow separate form both philosophy and science.
The passage doesn't say that and even directly contradicts it by saying, "beauty is important in philosophy as well as in science".
Being important to it means there's connections, rather than it being separate.
Lulie Tanett
>
>> Did Popper think anything coherent about art and beauty?
>>
>> Quote:
>>
>> > "I do not see philosophy as a series of works of art, as striking and original pictures of the world, or as clever and unusual ways of describing the world. I think that if we look upon philosophy in this way, we do a real injustice to the great philosophers. The great philosophers were not engaged in an aesthetic endeavour. They did not try to be architects of clever systems; but like the great scientists they were, first of all, seekers after truth - after true solutions of genuine problems. No, I see the history of philosophy essentially as part of the history of the search for truth, and I reject the purely aesthetic view of it, even though beauty is important in philosophy as well as in science."
>>
>> -- Karl Popper, 'How I See Philosophy', 1975.
>>
>> This implies that art is not a search for truth and that there aren't genuine problems in art (which contradicts the Flowers chapter of BoI), and that art is somehow separate form both philosophy and science.
>>
>> So what did he think art was? How did art/beauty fit into his world view?
On 30 Oct 2011, at 11:33, Agassi wrote:
> See Joseph Agassi and Ian Jarvie, A Critical Rationalist Aesthetics, in the Popper Series, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008, Chapter 4, §b: Aesthetics, Metaphysics, psychology and Chapter 5, §d: What is Truth in Art?
Unfortunately I couldn't find/understand the parts in those sections that were meant as a response to my questions. If you could summarise, that would be most helpful.
Here are my thoughts on Chapter 5, §d in general:
> "What is truth in the arts?"
Same as truth in physics, morality, and anywhere else: correspondence to the facts (in this case aesthetic facts, facts about what makes something beautiful) -- which can be discovered via conjecture and criticism.
> "What, after all, could it mean to say "this work of art is false". False to what? False to the facts of the case?"
Yes, exactly. The facts of aesthetics (not physical facts -- or not necessarily physical facts; I'd guess there's some overlap).
A work of art can be false in that the answer to the question "is this beautiful?" is no.
> "We often do not know whether a message is intended in the first place or not."
Does the intention of the artist matter? In physics, a theory doesn't change if its creator intended something different.
> "note that we speak of truth not only as a matter of information. There is such a thing as true friendship, true love, true workmanship. These are much harder to specify than true information"
What is truth in those examples other than true information? (Seems a bit mysticism-y? Or just not explained. Later it uses the word 'genuine', but that doesn't explain the difference either.)
More thoughts on this section in my post 'Agassi's Aesthetics: Explicability' December 15, 2011, 08:47 GMT.
--
Lulie Tanett
Elliot Temple
On Dec 15, 2011, at 12:58 AM, Lulie Tanett wrote:
>> "We often do not know whether a message is intended in the first place or not."
>
> Does the intention of the artist matter? In physics, a theory doesn't change if its creator intended something different.
The term "message" is ambiguous here.
It can mean a communication, in which case intention matters.
Or it can mean "a significant point or central theme, esp. one that has political, social, or moral importance". If it refers to kind of objective meaning or point or knowledge, then intention does not matter.