[MD] Food for Thought

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Marsha --


> I have just ordered Tsion Avital's book through Interlibrary
> loan.  It sounds mind boggling, but I'm curious.  Is it something I
> need to understand?

I'm not a trained artist, so you'll have to decide for yourself whether
Avital's art book offers a philosophy that's of value.  "Art versus Nonart"
is apparently a translation by John Harries and costs about $80 (US) from
Abe Books, which is too heavy for me.  (I also don't know to what extent the
author develops his philosophy in this volume.)

All I really know is that Avital is an art critic who teaches in Tel Aviv,
Israel with some good connections in the philosophical world.  In the essay
I've quoted, he applies the principles of contrariety -- symmetry/asymmetry,
etc. -- to a creation ontology that closely approximates my own.  I just
thought that a working artist such as yourself might gain something in the
way of a metaphysical perspective from his thoughts.

Incidentally, after giving out a partial URL which accesses something called
"Visual Mathematics", I've discovered that only the complete address
http://www.mi.sanu.ac.yu/vismath/avital1/av3.htm connects you to the
Mindprints page that deals with the philosophical aspects.  (This is the
page I quoted from.)

In particular, I was attracted to the following paragraph:

"The wonder of Creation is perhaps the wonder of the creation of negation.
Everything else is derived from it.  The first verses of Genesis describe
the
first distinctions that God made, which are also the creation of the first
complementary pairs: heaven-earth, light-darkness, etc., but no distinction
is possible without negation, and negation and double negation therefore
preceded all distinctions that followed.  For the same reason
complementarity
too, which was generated by negation, preceded the complementary pairs that
were created. Actually, the first Asymmetry, which according to the Big Bang
theory is the moment of creation, could not be without negation.  In a
humorous vein, one might suggest a different opening for the first chapter
of the Bible: In the beginning God was very bored amidst Perfect Symmetry,
in which absolutely nothing happened.  Then accidentally He sighed, "Oh No!"
This created the first Asymmetry, which brought into being the other
mindprints... and the rest is History.  In other words, there is no symmetry
without asymmetry, and there is no asymmetry without negation; therefore
negation is a precondition for Symmetry-Asymmetry, and the same can be shown
with regard to all the other mindprints.  In a final regression, the
negation of negation is perhaps what created Being, and this is perhaps the
significance  of the proposition that Being was created from nothingness.
There is nothing new about this, since the idea already arose in the
creation  myths and in philosophy, in Western and Eastern cultures, and also
in modern physics."

For me, this expresses in a suggestive fashion what I try to explain in my
thesis, using Cusan logic and Hegel's cosmology as support.  So, in answer
to your question, I would say that if the above excerpt (again, it it
doesn't come from his book) has meaning for you, and isn't too mind
boggling, chances are you'll also benefit from reading the book.  If you do
read it, kindly let me know if you'd recommend it for me.

Thanks for responding, and have a Happy New Year, Marsha.

Best regards,
Ham