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I have been, certainly. I do not think I am often "struck" by this now, as it has moved past initial revelation into basic knowledge. The list of unknowns is infinite. As the author says, "Our brains have one scale, and adjust our experiences to fit." "Human subcultures are nested fractally; there is no bottom.". Everything is like this. But I wonder if you would agree that I am capturing the essence of "so much remaining unread."
Do I want to believe that there is so much that remains unread? There seems to be an implicit optimism in this question that I do not think I can muster. I would like to believe that there is deep value contained in Trout Mask Replica or The Large Glass or The Birth of the World, to the extent that I have made some minimal effort to sift them or to try to get leads from others. I can recognize some level of significant value in Klee's Angelus Novus because I greatly value some of those his work inspired, and I can work backward to see how his work influenced theirs, and I can imagine that there is more in that piece that I lack the context to recognize.
But on the other hand, the unknowns remain infinite, and life is fleeting. I do not think that there is enough there there in any of those pieces, for me, to be worth the time digging for it would take. And so my time and effort goes to what seem to me to be more fruitful artistic pursuits.
There being no God is entirely conceivable to me. I used to be an atheist; not being an atheist now is a choice I make freely each day. The other side of that choice does not seem mysterious or inexplicable to me.
I would say no. God's existence or non-existence doesn't seem to me to have any significant impact on the correctness of the "A" view.
I think so, but wouldn't mind some elaboration.
There's that quote above: "our brains have one scale, and adjust our experiences to fit." I think that's a pretty insightful description of how the human mind works: we can focus down on some emotion or some aspect until it fills our entire perception. We can work it into our past and our hopes for the future, wind ourself around it till we grow to its shape, obsess over it, bend every other aspect of our life back to it, until it seems to be all that matters, elemental, primordial, a terminal value, the hub of our universe. And we can, I think, do this with anything. The subjective perception of value has no necessary correlation to actual value. Feelings of goodness have no necessary correlation to goodness. And some forms of twisting our minds in this way appear to me to be deeply misguided or actively evil.
I spent a considerable portion of my life chasing Eros, and I went far enough for long enough down that rabbit hole to get philosophical about it, to begin trying to search for transcendence in it, to consider shaping significant portions of my life around it. In retrospect, that seems to have been, as you say, at best a category error, and at worst blasphemy.
Wrath is far sweeter. "The blood sings" is an evocative phrase, but the experience itself is a pleasure beyond easy description. The world narrows, simplifies, clarifies. The hands shake, the teeth grind, the mouth twists into a rictus of sheer pleasure and ravenous anticipation. And that is only the hot, momentary rush; nurtured, over time, a cold fury builds secret and implacable within the mind and the heart, like an avalanche of iron poised to sweep down on the adversary. Down in the chthonic depths of the inmost self, the primordial drives of cooperation, competition, and predation come alive. And high above in the heavens of the rational mind, the sunlike certainty shines clear that one's wrath is Just, that They Deserve It All And More, that this is how it should be, that this is how it must be. Then there comes the flowering of Pride; I am better than them, I will be their downfall, I will lay the snare, I will triumph... There is grandeur there, and ample room for awe and wonder. The pull is strong, easily strong enough to shape a life, to define one's entire existence. Brief though that existence might be, would it be so terrible to be a meteor, to burn so bright as to illuminate the world, even for an instant?
And yet: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." Merciful, smothering calm. Stillness. A sense of hollowness, brittle, like an empty shell. Sanity returns, and with it shame. Here too, "Blasphemy" seems an appropriate term.
I formed most of my opinions about art back when I was an atheist, and returning to Christianity has not materially changed them. Atheist or Christian, I have always been skeptical of emotion; I do not "trust my feelings", and I do not think that others should either. They have swept me up before, and I have experienced what seemed to me a full measure of their extremities, but they eventually pass, and life resumes.
The latter. If scientists can actually demonstrate mind reading and mind control, what would be the point in arguing that they can't do so? Reality is reality. "A" is a caution against a specific lie that we have previously and are currently telling ourselves; it has no bearing on counterfactual scenarios, and can be entirely invalidated by subsequent events should scientists actually succeed in their Abolition of Man.
We do not now control nature in the sense that I perceive "B" advocates to be claiming. But it seems to me that art is much closer to "B" than it is to "A". Its scope seems clearly limited. We have not "solved" it, nor reduced it to pure engineering, but neither does it run rampant, dismaying our intentions and trampling our works. There are artistic misfortunes, but there has never been an artistic disaster, nor, I think, will there be.
I'm given to understand that one of the generally accepted defining characteristics of art is that it is, strictly speaking, unnecessary, optional, chosen rather than compelled, a luxury rather than a necessity. Further, it seems obvious to me that commercial art, made as a job to earn money, is generally considered to hold the least artistic merit, relative to works made out of sheer passion. Would you disagree?
If a person lives and dies without seeing it, do you think their life was necessarily made lesser thereby? I don't particularly disagree that End of Evangelion is a "creative triumph". For that matter, I think the Madoka fanfic Fargo is a creative triumph. And I think the same of Hellboy, BLAME, and the H&K MP5K submachinegun. I think my disagreement is more about the significance of "creative triumphs" in general. I maintain that these are games we play together. Games are a good and proper part of life, and it is well that we should enjoy them. But they are not of terminal or even of very great value. Many things should outweigh them in a healthy worldview, because their scope is in fact too limited to support a central role in our existence.
I'd say I'm cautiously skeptical. I observe that people claim great value in many things. I'm confident that some of these things hold little to no value, and I'm confident that some of those claiming otherwise are either lying or deluded. For this piece in particular, I'll say that I see little to no value, am fairly confident that the value you draw would be sufficiently esoteric as to be inaccessible to me even if I were to actively pursue the context. having not yet pursued the context, I think it less likely but still possible that it holds no real value at all, and you are deluded.
It seems obvious to me that:
Given the above, discrimination is necessary, is it not? Life is fleeting. We pays our money and we takes our chances. And given the above, arguing for or against the value of a thing is useful; whoever is wrong could benefit greatly from correction.
All this is to say, I entirely recognize that value might exist even if I cannot see it. I am at this moment actively hunting for more value down a variety of rabbit holes, some of which might be completely bizarre and inexplicable to you, so it is easy for me to imagine that you likewise are mining gold down a hole that seems bizarre and inexplicable to me.
But do you recognize that value is sometimes, perhaps even often claimed falsely? And further, that sometimes those claiming to perceive the value are themselves misled? You asked if I wonder whether there might be more. I ask if you wonder if there might be less?
I think I would have to say so, yeah! At least a little bit. It's a pretty damn good movie.
Yes, but that's not the same thing as "frivolous". Frivolous means unnecessary is a bad way. Art is unnecessary in a good way. Art is, to use Kant's phrase, purposive without purpose.
Due to technological progress, we're rapidly approaching a point where reality itself will be as "optional" and "unnecessary" as art is. There is a small but non-zero chance that some of us will live to see the advent of the experience machine - i.e. The Matrix, a perfect VR recreation of reality, but tailored to your desires, and with all suffering eliminated (the computer could make sure you have enough excitement and danger to not get bored, of course - but only as much as is necessary. Everyone could be guaranteed a charmed life that is free of major tragedy). And even if we don't live to see it, we can plausibly conjecture that some future generation will, if progress in AI and neuroscience continue.
Now why, exactly, should one not plug themselves into the experience machine? What is the argument for resisting it? This is one of my overriding concerns, and much of what I write here - about art, about suffering, and so forth - should be read in this context.
I simply take it for granted that there is no "rational" argument for rejecting the experience machine, within the bounds of what is currently taken to be rationality. Everyone who is "prudent", who weighs the pros and cons without bias or illusion, who refuses to let themselves be seduced by sentimentality, will inevitably be lead to the conclusion that it's better to simply plug themselves in and let the machines generate wondrous experiences for them until the heat death of the universe.
I think, if you want to avoid this fate, then you have to make a fundamental choice to be oriented towards authenticity qua authenticity for its own sake, the individual subject exercising his capacity for freedom for its own sake, and, ultimately, the horror of reality for its own sake (because why expose yourself to the risk of suffering when you could simply... not?). And art is the physical manifestation of this uncanny excess, the refusal to capitulate to prudence or necessity, man's assertion of his will to continue living against all reason. You are correct that art is unnecessary - but so is existence itself, ultimately. (I believe I should point out that art is not the only practice that can fill this role - in some ways mathematics is even better, and even more sublimely purposeless than art is, because the pleasure that one derives from mathematics is more rarefied, and the potential audience who can appreciate it is so limited.)
I doubt that. It is rare that I am totally at a loss for an explanation as to why people think as they think or do as they do. I am highly empathetic and it's easy for me to make myself feel what others feel, love what they love, hate what they hate. It is the duty of a philosopher to be a brief abstract of humanity.
You're free to provide examples of these rabbit holes if you want to discuss further.
Yes, but I wouldn't phrase it quite like that.
Suppose we have a man who becomes infatuated with an inanimate mannequin, because he thinks it's of supreme value. He neglects his wife and kids, he withdraws from everything else in life, his world becomes centered around spending time with the mannequin to a comical degree. And he dies happy, never recanting or regretting his actions. Was he "wrong" about the value of the mannequin? There was something wrong about his actions, certainly, but I wouldn't say that he was wrong about the value of the mannequin itself. I think that value is, partially, relational (which is not the same thing as arbitrary or solipsistic) - it's a relation that exists between you and someone or something else, it's not something that inheres solely in the object. The relationship that he instantiated with the mannequin is proof of its own validity. But there were other, higher values that rightly had certain claims on him, and his fault was in ignoring those higher values that he should not have ignored.
That would be disrespectful.
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