I like this idea, but to me "identify the mystery object" sounds more like an introduction to science than art.
And in fact, I had a biology teacher in community college who tried essentially this to illustrate the concept of empirical science.
He did a couple things differently:
- He gave us a list of the possible objects in the mystery boxes beforehand, which probably ruined a bit of the mystery.
- The properties that we checked were more about science-y things like whether it's magnetic, rather than sensory experiences.
It didn't work very well - as I recall, I was the only person in the class who cared enough to actually take the task seriously and solve the puzzle. That might be because I was a 16-year-old kid at the time, and the other students were Serious Adults who weren't interested in playing silly games.
In any case, I'm a total Philistine when it comes to art, so I'd love to understand what people see in it. But I don't see how this pattern is connected to that.
> "I like this idea, but to me "identify the mystery object" sounds more like an introduction to science than art."
Part of me wants to reply: sure, why not! Because paying super-close attention to things is also (from Egan's perspective) a root of a profound scientific understanding of the world.
Note: as you suggested, I think the experience this pattern tries to provoke is essentially different than the one sparked by the stripped-down version you experienced at community college. And it's more than just being more mysterious: if someone knows the categories ahead of time ("check for magnetism" and "here are the possible objects"), they're thinking logically. That's Philosophic (👩🔬) understanding, and it's good, too — but it's in a different world than Somatic (🤸♀️) understanding, which is all about the qualia-based, fractally-complex experience of the world.
Why is this classified in "art", though? Egan suggested that over history the desire to create art springs from that same qualia-based, fractally-complex experience of the world. I'm wondering, now, how true that is.
He cites cave art, but some of the cave art that I saw seemed somewhat representational (ie "tried to be a photograph") or symbolic (ie "tried to stand in for an idea"). And MAYBE some contemporary artists seem like they might be less interested in communicating the complexity of what it feels like to be a creature of flesh and blood in the world than they are in communicating, say, a logical idea. (I would be very surprised if I were 100% correct about this.)
I'm curious — how much do you feel like you understand what I'M trying to communicate here? And if there are any artists reading this, how does this pattern resonate with you?
But my conscious experience doesn't feel fractally complex at all. My subconscious perception hides most of the distinctions so that I'm only consciously aware of a very small amount of complexity in the world at any given time.
That's true for most people, of course. But I might be on the far end of the spectrum. My brain feels naturally tuned to notice the forest instead of the trees. That usually helps with math and programming, but also makes me terrible at fiddly things like painting or running chemistry experiments.
As far as the connection to art, I don't know what you mean by art that isn't either representational or symbolic. You described the third category as somehow connected to "feeling what it's like to be a creature of flesh and blood in the world", but I guess what we've established is that I don't really experience that the way that most people do.
I get the vibe of ‘this seems elementary’ - preschool even. But I totally agree that it isn’t. In grad school, a friend of mine created an artificial a$$hole to help teach physicians how to do prostate exams and what different types of issues felt like. Very analogous to sticking your hand in a box and trying to figure out what you are feeling. And serious important science!
I like this idea, but to me "identify the mystery object" sounds more like an introduction to science than art.
And in fact, I had a biology teacher in community college who tried essentially this to illustrate the concept of empirical science.
He did a couple things differently:
- He gave us a list of the possible objects in the mystery boxes beforehand, which probably ruined a bit of the mystery.
- The properties that we checked were more about science-y things like whether it's magnetic, rather than sensory experiences.
It didn't work very well - as I recall, I was the only person in the class who cared enough to actually take the task seriously and solve the puzzle. That might be because I was a 16-year-old kid at the time, and the other students were Serious Adults who weren't interested in playing silly games.
In any case, I'm a total Philistine when it comes to art, so I'd love to understand what people see in it. But I don't see how this pattern is connected to that.
> "I like this idea, but to me "identify the mystery object" sounds more like an introduction to science than art."
Part of me wants to reply: sure, why not! Because paying super-close attention to things is also (from Egan's perspective) a root of a profound scientific understanding of the world.
Note: as you suggested, I think the experience this pattern tries to provoke is essentially different than the one sparked by the stripped-down version you experienced at community college. And it's more than just being more mysterious: if someone knows the categories ahead of time ("check for magnetism" and "here are the possible objects"), they're thinking logically. That's Philosophic (👩🔬) understanding, and it's good, too — but it's in a different world than Somatic (🤸♀️) understanding, which is all about the qualia-based, fractally-complex experience of the world.
Why is this classified in "art", though? Egan suggested that over history the desire to create art springs from that same qualia-based, fractally-complex experience of the world. I'm wondering, now, how true that is.
He cites cave art, but some of the cave art that I saw seemed somewhat representational (ie "tried to be a photograph") or symbolic (ie "tried to stand in for an idea"). And MAYBE some contemporary artists seem like they might be less interested in communicating the complexity of what it feels like to be a creature of flesh and blood in the world than they are in communicating, say, a logical idea. (I would be very surprised if I were 100% correct about this.)
I'm curious — how much do you feel like you understand what I'M trying to communicate here? And if there are any artists reading this, how does this pattern resonate with you?
I understand the world as fractally complex in a Philosophic sense, like what's described in this classic post: http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-amount-of-detail.
But my conscious experience doesn't feel fractally complex at all. My subconscious perception hides most of the distinctions so that I'm only consciously aware of a very small amount of complexity in the world at any given time.
That's true for most people, of course. But I might be on the far end of the spectrum. My brain feels naturally tuned to notice the forest instead of the trees. That usually helps with math and programming, but also makes me terrible at fiddly things like painting or running chemistry experiments.
As far as the connection to art, I don't know what you mean by art that isn't either representational or symbolic. You described the third category as somehow connected to "feeling what it's like to be a creature of flesh and blood in the world", but I guess what we've established is that I don't really experience that the way that most people do.
So it seems like you're pointing in the right direction, but I'm not sure how much it helps me. It does make me want to go read the discussion on this post again: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/17/what-universal-human-experiences-are-you-missing-without-realizing-it/.
I get the vibe of ‘this seems elementary’ - preschool even. But I totally agree that it isn’t. In grad school, a friend of mine created an artificial a$$hole to help teach physicians how to do prostate exams and what different types of issues felt like. Very analogous to sticking your hand in a box and trying to figure out what you are feeling. And serious important science!