9/07/2004 12:29:00 AM|||Andrew|||There is a new address for this blog. Please visit danweasel.com for more philosophical poetry.
|||109454224155725151|||New Blog5/04/2004 03:43:00 PM|||Andrew|||http://gmail.google.com/gmail

I've been enjoying by trial run at Google's new gmail service, and despite various stirrings over privacy issues from Europe, I'm very impressed. Enough to move my primary email action over there, especially since my tamu account is completely spammified. Is that a word, spammified?

In any case, the service is running as a limited test right now, only open to a few users, but I have one invite I can give out to someone else. Email me at the new address if you're intersted in getting an invite.|||108371062733223234|||Gmail4/26/2004 05:41:00 PM|||Andrew|||Some time ago (translation: I don't know when) I was reading one of those books that have the clever little quotes before each chapter, for enlightenment and reflection I suppose. I don't remember the book, and it doesn't really matter, I don't think. But the quote somehow got through; it stuck with me even until today. The quote, attributed only as "an engineer's proverb" was:

"Form is liberating."

For a while, I took this very seriously indeed. Part of my seriousness was because I used to think of myself as an engineer, mathematically minded as I was. And it seemed to ring so true. I had always somewhat rebelled against those authors, like Whitman, who seemed to just fling everything to the air and ignore any kind of structure to their work. I've always liked structure, even (or especially?) in art. In most of my creating, I have always tried to keep form in mind. Not all form is the same, of course, not every poem is a sonnet or a haiku, but I think that every poem (just to continue the example--it works across all mediums) needs some kind of formal structure for it to survive as a poem. In every (good) piece of art, there is a consciousness of form.

It needn't, of course, be an all consuming god, and I don't deny that many people create perfectly beautiful art without any deliberate concern for form. But I think that some sort of form shines through, nonetheless, a consequence of being human, perhaps.

But I've been thinking about this proverb lately, trying to understand it, rather than just believe it. It's pretty clear to me also that an obsession with form can cripple some people's attempts at art. Here's what I've come up with, by way of explanation.

Consider the spark of the artist, whatever piece of spirit that within the aspiring artist, drives her to create, to design, to find and develop something beautiful. Call this creativity, though this term is so sorely lacking that it cannot even begin to approach all of what I mean. I mean everything that makes the artist an artist....but this term will have to do for the sake of this little essay.

Now consider a grand scale, a measure of creativity in a person. My contention is that the usefulness and effect of form in art, is directly related to this spark. For the truly uncreative, the dullards in all matters of art, those that cannot create a whit of beauty (however well they may appreciate it), for them, form is constricting. It serves as a crutch which unduly takes control of the artistic impulse and twists it out of recognition. Form out of control in this way can destroy art; it becomes something created merely for form's sake, utilitarian.

On the other extreme is that person in which the artistic urge, creativity, bubbles up and overflows. She cannot help but create beautiful things, she does it even as she thinks and talks and writes each day. Yet how distracting it is! So many ideas and things disturbing her thoughts, threatening to, by their very variety, to crush the emerging beauty like a delicate flower under an elephant's foot. So many threads that will never be followed to completion because another jumps up just as soon. For this person, I maintain, art, though it flow in her veins, does not always come easy.

Form is not constricting to the true artist. Rather, it focuses and directs all the vibrant energy that wells up within and threatens to turn out of control. Form is the vessel by which the artist completes things, by which she takes the wild ideas of her imagination and turns them into beauty for the world. Form is a loving friend, not a cruel master.

The rest of the spectrum falls in between these two extremes. Does the need for form simply increase or decrease as one follows up and down the scale? I'm not sure. I'm inclined to think that there might be some point, some critical place where the creative urge becomes stronger than form, and that at this point (and beyond) that a dedication to form becomes most supremely useful, not a crutch but a tender lover.|||108302782824665762|||On the Aesthetics of Form4/22/2004 11:20:00 AM|||Andrew|||So I'm finding this guy exceedingly interesting. This quote goes out to a certain friend I know who just happens to be studying Cognitive Science (albiet under a different name) and has even mentioned Piaget to me before.

"So here we have some examples: each is an example showing that scientific theory and scholarly effort are often not, in the specified ways, religiously or metaphysically neutral. There will of course be many more (and they will be much more obvious and abundant in the humanities and human sciences than in physics and chemistry). Consider, for example, contemporary cognitive science: the area including cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of mind. This is a whole congeries of research projects (or perhaps one vast research project with many subprojects) dedicated to the attempt to give a naturalistic account of the phenomena of mind: such mental phenomena as consciousness, desire, belief, intentionality, and the like. These research projects have turned up much that is fascinating and useful and informative. But the fundamental quest--the effort to give naturalistic accounts of mental phenomena--is at least questionable from a theistic perspective; the theist won't, of course, feel the need of a naturalistic account of mind. Or consider Jean Piaget (that great Swiss psychologist) and his claim that a seven-year-old child whose cognitive faculties are functioning properly will believe that everything in the universe has a purpose in some grand overarching plan or design; a mature person whose faculties are functioning properly, however, will learn to "think scientifically" and realize that everything has either a natural cause or happens by chance."

The link is here, and in fact a whole mess of articles is here.|||108265800187658442|||More Plantinga4/21/2004 01:11:00 PM|||Andrew|||From his essay: "Advice to Christian Philosophers"

"Philosophy is in large part a clarification, systematization, articulation, relating and deepening of pre-philosophical opinion. We come to philosophy with a range of opinions about the world and humankind and the place of the latter in the former; and in philosophy we think about these matters, systematically articulate our views, put together and relate our views on diverse topics, and deepen our views by finding unexpected interconnections and by discovering and answering unanticipated questions. Of course we may come to change our minds by virtue of philosophical endeavor; we may discover incompatibilities or other infelicities. But we come to philosophy with prephilosophical opinions; we can do no other."

There's also a large section all about determinism, free will, and compatibilism in that essay that's well worth reading. Heck, the whole thing's worth reading, even if you're not a "philosopher" of any kind.|||108257826995753554|||Plantinga4/14/2004 11:08:00 AM|||Andrew|||The book I'm reading right now, Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, by Morris Kline, is an absolutely fascinating book. Note that this is reading for pleasure, not reading for class. To give you a notion of the subject matter and how amazing it is, here's a short passage from it:

"At any rate by about 1890, only six thousand years after the Egyptians and Babylonians began to work with whole numbers, fractions, and irrational numbers, the mathematicians could finally prove that 2 + 2 = 4. It would appear that even the great mathematicians must be forced to consider rigor."

Delightful.|||108196611972796335|||Reading Material4/13/2004 08:24:00 PM|||Andrew|||Essayer means to try in French, betraying the Latin roots, and it is this trying that I intend to do tonight. Now that I think about it, most of my posts here take the form of the essay--they are attempts, tryings to get at something true. Now the subject. I don't remember when this first occured to me; unfortunately the whole idea was several days ago when I was in an anti-blogging mood, more or less, so I didn't write anything about it then and have quite forgotten the origin of the idea. Here it goes...

Hate is an interesting emotion, it seems to me. It's been remarked, by many people on many occassions, that hate is essentially similar in character to love. I'm sure that I must have read something to that effect whenever these ideas occurred to me...if I only could remember what it was...nu suth. It's not hard to see why someone might think this though, and I propose to establish exactly what it is that love and hate share. What they have in common is an obsessive caring about someone (or something, I suppose). Not a caring for, mind you, but a caring about. Caring for someone or something implies that you try to help them in whatever way you can, make things easier for them. Caring about someone or something means simply paying attention to what happens to them, independent of what you do with that attention. The extremities of love and hate are characterized by intense caring about. The critical difference is, of course, the reason that such intense attention is paid to someone or something. Let nothing ever suppose that love and hate Are the same thing--they are not. But certainly there is an interesting similarity in their roots, in their common basis.

For those unconvinced, I offer a piece of evidence that serves as support and corollary. Revelation 3.15-16:

3:15 ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! 3:16 So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth!

Here is Christ himself giving a command and a warning to his church. What is it that he hates most? He does hate those who are hot for him, certainly, those who burn with desire for him and do his will. But neither does he hate most those who are cold, those who shun and despise him. From the LORD himself, we are told that to be lukewarm towards the Christ is the worst offense. "I wish you were either cold or hot!" he says, and indeed, better that one be the fiercest atheist than to be a lukewarm Christian, one who mutters through the motions, perhaps attending church, but through it all with little care or passion for Jesus the Christ. In his own words, you can read it there.

The corollary to this evidence, is, of course, that I apply this same idea to my own life. I would rather be hated than to be shrugged at, rather be spit at than be casually ignored. In one sense, there is confirmation and power in the knowledge that one can arouse passion in another human being, whether it is hate or love, negative or positive. If one can arouse passion in another, one has power.

When I thought of that, I thought (rather selfishly) that I should like to begin a campaign of writing severly inflammatory remarks here on this blog, just so that I might arouse the hatred of someone reading. I don't think that's a particularly moral or wise thing to do, and have since abadoned the idea, however, so you won't see me doing it any time soon. I don't seek power for its own sake.

Besides, I think given my views on various things I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine people getting angry about something I might write, given a wide enough audience. I must admit, if I am ever flamed, I will probably relish the moment to its fullness.|||108191306013988342|||Essay on Hate4/13/2004 11:36:00 AM|||Andrew|||I declare, it certainly seems to me that it is. A perfect day in that sense, I mean. Yes, yes, I haven't written in some time now...nearly a week I suppose. Well that's my right, isn't it? And yet I'm ready again to write, I think. First, a secret word. Loveliest of discoveries today, I came across a website where something spectacular is published...none other than...the 22 underpublished stories of J.D. Salinger! Glad tidings! Enjoy.|||108188138683957290|||A perfect day for bannanfish