Those damn cute elephant&monkey paintings

We’ve seen them, the interesting little article online showing some ADORABLE elephant with his trunk wrapped around a paintbrush, paintings broad, quick strokes on a canvas..

Most of the vendors that sell these animal paintings donate a portion of the proceeds to the zoo or animal rights groups. Strangely, these paintings don’t look half bad. In my opinion, they are nearly indistinguishable from an abstract artist’s work. But are they art?

As many would say, the one thing that separates humans from the animals is art. We are smarter, have more complex brains, and have produced amazing inventions. Zookeepers merely give the animals a paintbrush and an empty canvas. They have no concept of art history; they cannot be inspired by the works of Michelangelo or Rodin or Kandinsky.

Is it any different depending on the animal? Along with elephants, monkeys (chimpanzees in particular) also participate in these zoo animal painting classes. ‘Monkey paintings’ as they are known, were a fad in the 60’s in many famous modern art museums. We humans undoubtedly can relate more to chimps than to elephants. Does this mean what they do is art? Their work is aesthetically pleasing and could easily be confused with a human’s.

I believe that this cannot be considered art. It is limited to human beings with higher thought. Just because a monkey can hold a paintbrush and makes nice-looking strokes does not make the piece art.

Gorillaz and Philosophy

Del tha Funkee Homosapien’s rap on the Gorillaz hit “Clint Eastwood” delves deeply into seemingly Descartes-ian philosophy. The line “Y’all can me now ‘cuz you don’t see with your eye, you perceive with your mind” is similar to what Descartes suggests in his 1st meditation –we cannot trust our senses because they deceive us.
“feelings, sensation that you thought was dead/ no squealing; remember that it’s all your head”
In Descartes’ 2nd meditation, he proposes dualism: the human mind and body are two separate entities entirely. Del urges us to realize that everything we know is perception and that it’s all in our heads. Our entire reality that we have made for ourselves is centered around our perceptions.

Kant dealt with the huge problem of phenomena vs. noumena, or the world as is appears vs. the world as it is. According to Del, if we see through phenomena, he does not appear to exist. But we can see him if we use noumena, because that is how the world actually is.
“Now, time for me is nothing because I'm counting no age”
Many people argue that time is nothing more than a Judeo-Christian concept and it is hard to describe exactly what is time and what would life be like without it? Del completely disregards the concept of time and refuses to count or measure it.

Anyone wanting to see the music video (recommended because it's awesome) can watch it at this address
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoQYw49saqc

Phantom Pains

While talking in class about the 1st meditation, I thought about phantom pains. It shows that we cannot trust our senses. When an amputee suddenly feels pain in his long-lost leg, or when he gets the feeling of 'telescoping' (when an amputee feels that his amputated limb is gradually shortening), his phantom pains are confusing him. Biolgically, this makes sense; the limb is gone, but the nerves still exist.

Things like phantom pains show how much our senses deceive us. Basic principles are called into doubt and our senses, even though that is all we are used to, should not be trusted.

In this analogy, we should be freed from our sense of pain, which is simply a 'preconceived notion' in order to "lead our mind away from the senses".

Class Summary 2/18/11

Last class we discussed Aquinas' ideas on God as the cause of existence. He compared God to a train that pulled the other train cars behind it, and no train car could go off the track, as he controlled all of them. But God's cause is different than parents causing a child, or builders causing a building.
We also learned to evaluate cosmological arguments, including asking questions like "Why should we accept that the universe had a beginning?" and "Can the universe just BE there?" (all questions i've thought of as well, considering that many people just assume that there has to be a meaning and a beginning to the universe)
There were the Aristotelian causes: Material (i.e. a cup), Efficient (i.e. parents of a cat), Formal (i.e. why a cat acts the way it acts), and Final (i.e. medicine)
My favorite analogy made in that class was that the universe was like a giant clock, with God being the clockmaker and all of his creations are mere cogs. There are somany cogs each turning, working together to form one giant clock. Einstein himself said that after WWII, he wished he had been trained a watchmaker.
We discussed the several problems with Design, including the argument that because human designers are finite, why then could the world's design be finite?
We briefly touched on Gaunilo, who stated that just because we have a notion of something doesn't show that there is anything in reality that corresponds, giving the example that we can picture the absolute perfect island, with white sand blue seas and endless amount of anything we want, but that does not mean that the island exists. I found this argument very well-put and it successfuly argued against the idea that because we know the meaning of God, then God must exist.

ontological

This week we discussed several Ontological arguments. One argued that the meaning of God makes God an absolutely necessary being. If we know the definition, God must exist. For example, if we know what a triangle is, we must know that a 4-sided triangle cannot exist. I believe this argument is complete bullcrap. I can comfortably say that I know what the common definition of God is: an omniscient, benevolent ruler and creator. However, being so stubbornly atheist, I can outright deny that there is a God. The comparison to a triangle is also stupid; I know what the idea of a triangle is, but I can also see triangles, work with triangles, and draw them too. Can’t say the same about God, no matter how many years of reflection and stuff I’ve had.

Blah blah blog post blah

Last week I briefly touched on the subject of whether people are alive if they are brain dead. I wanted to expand on that with a recent, controversial case: the Terri Schiavo case Terri suffered from extreme brain damage after going into full cardiac arrest and collapsing. She was in a coma for 2 ½ months and then a vegetative state. The only thing keeping her organs functioning was her feeding tube. Although her husband attempted to get her tube removed, but Terri’s parents insisted that she was still alive and conscious. After years of petitions and appeals, her feeding tube was removed.

Is being in a vegetative state still considered “alive”? Terri was not able to move her limbs or speak during this time. But does being alive mean that your brain is working
or your body is? Healthy people’s brains and bodies work in sync. She was able to stay alive through the tube, but she was entirely dependent on that tiny little feeding tube.

Doctor Manhattan and Existence

"A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally, there's no discernible difference. Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts. Why should I be concerned?"

This quote was spoken by the character Doctor Manhattan from the graphic novel Watchmen. He had just witnessed a fellow ‘superhero’ fatally shoot a pregnant woman and, even though he could have, did not stop it from happening. Although he sounds completely inhuman (and in many ways is), Dr. Manhattan does make a good point. There is no structural difference between a dead body and a live body.

What he says about life and death being “unquantifiable abstracts” is very interesting. We cannot clearly calculate or measure them. How do we know we exist? There is no equation for proving that we do. True, most people argue that once our heart stops pumping blood to our organs we are dead. But what about the brain-dead? Is a person still considered alive if their brain will never function again? The amount of atoms they possess is equal to that of a normal, healthy human’s, but in essence they are vastly different.

Pleasure or Paradise?

Which do people seek more, pleasure or paradise? First let me begin by properly defining the two. According to dictionary.com, pleasure is worldly or frivolous enjoyment; enjoyment or satisfaction derived from what is to one's liking. A paradise is a state of supreme happiness; bliss. Now knowing these definitions, think about it; is what you truly seek worldly pleasures or absolute happiness?

I thought about this question while reading Voltaire’s famous satirical novella Candide. In this story, our protagonist Candide somehow ends up in El Dorado, a secluded utopia. Everything is perfect there, but he wants to leave. He is in love with a beautiful woman and would rather pursue her than live in paradise.
The story’s ending is not a happy one; he leaves paradise and finds his girl, but now she is old and ugly. They spend the rest of their dull days farming without pleasure and far away from paradise. Take it from the Most Interesting Man in the World: “I don’t always have the option. But when I do, I choose Paradise.”

Art and the Bean

Our discussion of what art truly is really got me thinking about something I saw during a recent trip to Chicago. Pictured is what is known as the “Cloud Gate” (but more commonly, “The Bean”). It is a giant sculpture in the middle of Millennium Park in downtown Chicago. But is this bean truly art?

It is highly reflective, reflecting the beautiful Chicago skyline. But what if the bean reflected something ugly instead, like a run-down neighborhood, or a war zone? Would it still be considered a beautiful work of art? If someone makes a mirror, and a gorgeous supermodel steps in front of it, does the creator have the right to call his mirror “scenic”?

Considering the bean’s central location, anyone can come up to it and touch it. There are fingerprints all over that thing. But when we thing of a classical work in a museum, touching a piece there might get you thrown out. If the bean were in a museum and people were restricted from touching it, would it also be considered art?

Going Greek

After first discussing what philosophy is, I was reminded of the Greek myth of Sisyphus. For those who do not know, Sisyphus was a very clever King who cheated death when it was his time to die. As punishment for his craftiness, he was sent Hades and ordered to push a heavy rock up a very steep hill. Before he reached the top, however, the boulder would always roll back down, making Sisyphus start the whole process over and condemning him to eternal frustration. I thought this was similar to the field of philosophy because no matter how hard we try, we will never fully ‘push the rock to the top’ and find definite answers to what we are looking for. It is a long journey, which may never be completely fulfilled.
This whole philosophy course is a break from the norm for me. I’m currently a psychology major, hoping to eventually get into psychological research and experimentation. For an area of science like that, everything must be founded on reason and definite, grounded facts. Even though this is not what I’m used to, I look forward to the murky, uncertain waters of Philosophy.