NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/postmode/2742

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-22 | 5.3 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Cosma Shalizi)
Newsgroups: alt.postmodern,alt.cyberpunk,talk.politics.theory,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Singularity (Gordon's idea)
Date: 22 Nov 1992 21:32:56 GMT
Organization: Campus Crusade for Cthulhu (Berkeley Tentacle)
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PN: Let's suppose a painting contains a great truth.  How do you tell?

PK: Painting is a non-linguistic act of communication. It can be true
    without you _telling_ [sic; "telling you"?] anything.
    I think the same applies to religious experience. You do
    not expect [sic; "need?"] an explanation from a physicist to believe.

PN: But how do you know if it's true?   If I say a painting is true
    and you say it's false which is it?   If your answer is "true
    for me and false for you" then you're saying it's subjective
    and that the truth or falseness is not in the painting but in
    the viewer.    But I say that a smallpox vaccination renders
    someone immune to smallpox *regardless* of whether he believes
    it or even knows he's been vaccinated.

GF: {Tangential point about the imperfection of vaccination deleted.}

GF: There's also a problem about the difference between subject-
    ivity and objectivity this exchange hints at.  In some cases,
    certain works of art evoke similar responses in people of
    widely differing cultures and conditions.  If a number of
    people, a large proportion of a given population, report
    these effects, even though the effects are entirely subject-
    ive, they begin to have all the attributes of objectivity.
    Thus, if a painting evokes a feeling of, say, sadness in
    93% of those who view it under neutral circumstances, it's
    doing about as well as certain vaccinations.  Could we then
    admit that the painting exhibited "truth"?  Or, if not at
    93%, then at some higher figure?

   Err, no, we couldn't. We could say "This painting evokes a feeling of
sadness in 93% of its viewers." The statement would be true, because it
would be a correct description, while "This painting does not evoke a feeling
of sadness in 93% of its viewers" would be false, because it wouldn't be.
Emotional reactions aren't true or false; statements about them are.
(Emotions might be _inappropriate_, but that's an entirely different kettle
of worms.) A painting might be an accurate depiction of a part of the real
world ("She _did_ have a mole right there on her left cheek, and he did wear
that attrocious green hat, and the watch did drip and run all over the fur-
niture"), in which case it would be "true" in that sense, the way an (un-
doctored) photograph is true. Or the painter could have used some sort of
code to put a message in the painting ("Life is a bowl of cherries, of which
nothing remains but the spat-out pits"*). If the message is coherent (not
on the order of "Stalin tetrachloride how"), it is either true or false,
though of course different people may disagree about which, and there may
be no way to tell who is right. They may not even agree about what the
message is.
   The strongest (defensible) form of the subjectivist position, then, is
"Since the preceived emotional content and message(s) of works of art vary
widely from one reader/viewer/listener/etc. to the other, and it is exceed-
ingly rare to have a way of telling who is correct, we might as well give
up trying, and be content with our own views." I note in passing that it is
a rare subjectivist indeed who does _not_ try to spread his interpretation of
a particularly admired or abhorred piece of art.
    Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
    In Real Life: [e-mail]
    larval physicist & full-time net.junkie

*: (A long note on metaphors.) It has been fashionable in some circles to
say that a metaphor is neither true nor false for longer than I have been
alive; lately, this vice has spread dramatically. The people who say this
are either being disingenious (? sp?), or stupid, or have no idea what they
are saying. A metaphor, after all, is only a compressed simile or analogy.
"Life is a bowl of cherries" is not taken litterally by any except the more
hopeless denizens of an insane asylum. We all know that what is meant is
"Life is _like_ a bowl of cherries," and since most of us like cherries
(and those of us who don't know that many others do) we realize that the
speaker (or writter, etc., etc.) means "Life is basically good, if not
great."  So in a sense, the metaphor is both true (if life really is
good, that is) and false (because life is definitely _not_ a bowl of cherries;
or even a cherry; or any other sort of fruit). This is a particularly cheap
and trivial sense, however, and anyone attempting to erect a deep metaphysic
on it, or even a comprehensive interpretation of mythology, should have
their idealist license revoked. Thank you for your cooperation; we now
rejoin the rant in progress.
--
"What's the use of being an American citizen if I can't swear when I
damn well want to?" - My mother, while waiting in line in Heathrow