realityfiend12 (July 3, 2008 at 7:24 pm)

I don't know what idiot gave you a thumbs down, they clearly are not well skilled in the realms of logic.

bzine62 (April 21, 2008 at 4:32 am)

Amongst the many problems with the definition, it doesn't have any functional validity. The definition does not help one understand what your local newspaper, the Encyclopedia Britanica, your local bookstore, university, art school, gallery or The Metropolitan Museum mean when they say "art". Does Bronzino's "Allegory" selectively *recreate* reality or reconfigure elements drawn from it? If primary colors and right angles can be *abstracted* from reality, does that mean that Mondrian is "art"?

bzine62 (April 21, 2008 at 4:13 am)

Agreed. To add to that there are aspects of the physical world humans cannot perceive without special equipment (infrared light, xrays). I can *see* an apple but how can I tell unaided visually how much heat it's giving off? One can argue that our senses allow us to read the special equipment later, but the point is at *any given point of time* we do not possess complete knowledge of an object's physical attributes.

mattshats (April 17, 2008 at 1:06 pm)

Still others can see objects change their positions but cannot see them move - a syndrome that a philosopher once tried to convince me was logically impossible!"

mattshats (April 17, 2008 at 1:06 pm)

Some patients see a complete world but pay attention only to half of it. They eat food from the right side of the plate, shave only the right cheek, and draw a clock with twelve digits squished into the right half. Other patients lose their sensation of color, but they do not see the world as an arty black-and-white movie. Surfaces look grimy and rat-colored to them, killing their appetite and their libido. (Cont.)

mattshats (April 17, 2008 at 1:06 pm)

Steven Pinker - a fellow Canadian - discusses this at length in "How the Mind Works" and, to quote one particular passage, "When the visual areas of the brain are damaged, for example, the visual world is not simply blurred or riddled with holes. Selected aspects of visual experience are removed while others are left intact... (Cont.)

mattshats (April 17, 2008 at 1:05 pm)

I don't necessarily deny reality, although I won't say it's an entirely unfair accusation. I feel that our understanding of what is real is only tenuous and, even then, it is the mere opinion of human beings operating with limited knowledge of a tiny point in the universe and that, even then, that knowledge is filtered through our fragile brains. I think about things like the potential of other organisms to see in more dimensions, etc. (Cont.)

FpInternational (April 17, 2008 at 5:18 am)

As soon as you deny the existence of reality, discussion of facts becomes ridiculous.

mattshats (April 16, 2008 at 7:23 pm)

Putting aside my disbelief in a truly objective reality.. The 'facts' about what is considered art are human concoctions. Art isn't like an apple where we can dissect it and smell it, feel its texture, taste its juices, watch it grow, etc. Art doesn't represent anything in the natural world. But I suppose neither of us will change our minds on this subject.

FpInternational (April 16, 2008 at 5:47 am)

Humans differ, but the facts of reality do not.