SanteriSatama wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 12:27 pm
Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 11:43 am
Well this conversation between AP and SS as reached the point where the xiphoid points being made seem to have less and less to do with metaphysics, or the topic, and more and more to do with pointing towards cultural dissonance, diverging paths, and duelling personality types and styles of expression, bent on taking affront at every turn. Please, surely there's a way to disagree without all the
twitterish umbrage.
I'll do my best to avoid personalizing, and appreciate the reminder. That said, I don't agree that discussion of geometry and mathematics is unrelated to metaphysics, on the contrary. To begin with, the idea of 'number' is purely metaphysical. Continuity, on the other hand, is not dependent from metaphysical postulation, but appears more like irreducible empirical phenomenon.
I feel it's very important to make sense of what kind of idealist metaphysics and ontology is implicated by the mathematical theory of formalism and physicalism. So that we don't remain trapped and fooled by it.
Sorry about that. I apologize, SS, if I was too dismissive of your points about points and you took any personal offense from my posts, which I admit were a bit too harsh. I have been listening to a lot of classical musical lately and it's hard to stay upset with anyone after dwelling in those sweet melodies and deepening harmonies
From my perspective, we have tried to discuss this many times before and made little progress, but I can see how that's not evident to everyone, especially those who may be new to the forum. So I hope we can recalibrate and attempt to get into the essence of these things.
Interestingly enough, I think the
latest aesthetics essay installment deals with this topic directly, since musical relations and numbers, dare I say formal, rational, integer, arithmetic sort of relations, as you know, do not necessarily point to anything outside of
their own quantitative-qualitative relations. They are very unique in that regard, differing from words and images, and I do believe they speak to metaphysics and spirituality very directly
if we discern how they are actually functioning in any given context. It's a really long essay so I don't expect anyone to have read it yet, but here is relevant excerpt:
Ashvin wrote:Artwork must possess living interiority to combat modernity's nihilism - desires, motivations, emotions, thoughts, and, above all, meaning. With respect to the art of music, specifically, the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer must be briefly addressed. Schopenhauer was notoriously stingy in what he allowed past Kant's impenetrable curtain hiding the puppeteer pulling the strings of the perceptible world. All perceptions of the noumenal world, according to Schopenhauer, were mental images created within the human being in response to the underlying Will which surges within her. These mental images were a sort of Fata Morgana - a mirage that is dreamed up within each person to represent the imperceptible Will. Only two experiences could bypass these mental mirages and deal with the Will directly - (1) deep meditative experience and (2) the experience of music. Why did Schopenhauer say only music could bypass the Kantian divide rather than other arts such as poetry, sculpting, or painting?
These other art forms work from the mental images - the Fata Morganas - that we find in the realm of immediate sense experience or memory and combine into ideal images for the artwork. When we are confronted by the finished product of these arts, we can clearly identify how they have translated such images into forms which distort, distill, diminish or deepen their meanings. Music, however, does not rely on the human mental images in the same way. Rather, music, with her rhythm, notes, melodies (Melos) and harmonies - are direct expressions of the universal Will which bypass the mental images needed for all other artwork. In this way, Schopenhauer came to intuitively understand the numinous 'superiority' of the musical aesthetic. Yet, as is all too common for philosophers of the modern age, he did not reflect on that intuitive knowing so as to deepen its own meaning.
In such reflection, he would have come to realize that it is precisely when intuitive thought permeates the universal Will that we are brought to the shores of the noumenal aesthetic. That is when we come to know that the musical relations do not refer to anything outside of their own relations. Without this simple realization, the deep connection between the music we hear in waking consciousness and the profound sense of curiosity, wonder, courage, and homecoming which it stirs up within our souls is left at the lowest possible resolution - the connection can be said to exist, but we are left with no clue as to why or how. That all changes when the intuitive ideal element is allowed to take its rightful place in our conscious awareness and enrich the marriage of the questioning Soul with the answering Spirit. That thoughtful process of enrichment was the primary focus of a later German idealist who had much to say about and contribute to the aesthetics of Spirit and Soul.
Now I won't know the details of the mathematics behind music like you do, but clearly there is a very intimate relationship and it seems to me that its actually the "formal" mathematical system which allows us to see that most clearly. I realize that sounds like nails on blackboard to your ears, but at least it should show that I am not simply dismissing your arguments to be rude or because I have no idea what they mean. I genuinely disagree with them in the way that you are presenting them and employing them in these fundamentally spiritual topics. The numbers are very important. I have to say, some discussion of this is already in draft Part II of the essay, so I don't want to get into too many details of what I mean, but if you want to continue discussing, I can try to circumambulate the general topic.
