[MD] Intellectual activity

[Ham Priday]

Platt, Arlo, Ant --


 [Platt to Ham]:
> No doubt in my mind that the aesthetic experience includes
> intellectual and emotional reactions. But, I think it's something more.

 [Arlo]:
> Yes. What that "something more" is, I'd argue, is the entry point
> for DQ.  It is where, in Peircian terms, abductive inference arises.
> It is where, for Pirsig, hypothesis originates.

 [Platt continued]:
> What the term Spirit adds to the phenomenon of aesthetic
> sensibility is to express in some way, however weakly, the
> ineffable something that comes through when confronted
> with great beauty.

[Arlo adds]:
> Yes. The "ineffable something", in my opinion, is Dynamic Quality.

[Ant injects]:
> Pirsig's account of the Dynamic flash of insight regarding
> hypothesises reminds me of John Lennon's similar account of
> how the Beatles song "Across The Universe" was written.

So, I take it that Dynamic Quality (euphemistically called "Spirit") is that
"ineffable something" which is responsible for any or all of the following:
aesthetic sensibility, intellectual reactions, emotional reactions,
abductive inference, hypothesis, and (for John Lennon, at least) poetic
inspiration.

What is remarkable to me is that a creative source so powerful and so
multi-functionally significant cannot be defined -- even as a metaphysical
or epistemological principle.  It hangs in limbo, above the level of
intellect, having no comprehensible purpose except to provide man with an
epiphanic "flash" when he is least expecting it.  Surely such a powerful
force in man's experience deserves more metaphysical recognition than to be
arbitrarily labeled Dynamic Quality.

I contend that this aesthetic phenomenon, this "supra-intellectual
sensibility" that is unique to man, is the "realization of Value" in the
relational world.  Finite value is not an extracorporeal entity or level -- 
it does not transcend man's conscious awareness, but is the differential
foundation of it.  I think Pirsig got close to defining it when he suggested
that what we don't experience has no value to us, or to put it conversely:
all experience has value, whether good, bad, or indifferent.  For the
essentialist, the subjective realization of this "spectrum of conditional
values" is the very purpose of life.  Such an epistemology will not work as
a "collective" or universal principle.  It is specifically a function of the
individual's value-sensibility.

Just as an experiment, I entered the key words "epiphany of value,
philosophy" into my Google research bar and found a blogger site called
"Philoso?hy Talk" in which Alexander Nehamas, a Princeton professor,
discusses Platt's favorite subject from a photogenic perspective.  Here's a
portion of the professor's article:

"The sense in which there is more to beauty than meets the eye is not that
it is "inner," but that it is not likely to meet many eyes.  That is,
beauty, generally considered, is a product of love and not, in general, its
antecent cause.  That's what locates it in the eye of the beholder.   BUT
BEAUTY THAT IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER IS NO LONGER ONLY SKIN-DEEP.

"It is this beauty that I find philosophically interesting and important.
It applies equally to people and things, particularly works of art.  It
certainly is valuable, although I am not sure its value is intrinsic, as Ken
suggests (it may be -- I really am not sure).  But its value, along with the
value of all the "aesthetic" features that are associated with it, is very
different from the moral values that seem to have acquired a monopoly over
human life in philosophy and public discourse.   Moral values, broadly
speaking, depend on the similarities and connections that require us to
treat each other impartially, fairly and equally.  The values associated
with beauty, by contrast, depend on the differences between various human
beings and give preference to individuality, autonomy and personal style."

(For Platt's information, the entire article can be found at
http://theblog.philosophytalk.org/2005/03/beauty_skindeep.html .)

I was struck by the similarity of this posted comment to Arlo's and Ant's
quotes:

"Beauty is the moment of recognition. When you transcend from self to being
the moment that is universal truth, the univeral truth of beauty. Everything
else is individual, cultural or biological, in other words up to
interpretation.  It is not the object, it is not the anticipation of the
moment, it is not winning over others, it is the moment the vail is lifted.
The realization of the look in the eyes of a love one, the look of love for
you, is not the beauty of them, or your perception, rather the beauty is the
moment of realization.  The realization of finding a public phone booth when
lost in the wilderness, the realization of the elegance of a mathematical
proof, a fundamental truth, a realization of what is true is not the raw
material, but the beauty is the moment itself.  Epiphany is beauty; beauty
is epiphany.

"God said to Albert, don't you see it?
Why yes!  It seems so clear now, so elegant, so beauty, E=MC2."

Essentially yours,
Ham