Movement in Imagination

At first, I groaned when I saw the page count, but I quickly forgot that I was reading fourteen pages when I started reading. Despite having moments when I felt it was getting a bit winded, this read was very interesting and insightful. What Imagination Is... It had a lot of interesting ideas and theories that I found myself smiling the whole time.

i really enjoyed this break down that he did between opinion, knowledge, sensation, and imagination. I vaguely remember it being said that imagination was not a sense but by the end, it had seemed to morph into a sense of moment. He had a lot of different views, especially regarding animals as relying on instinct and imagination because they lacked the capacity for opinions or knowledge. It makes me curious to see how these philosophers would react in modern times with the vast amount of intellectual animals that was have, especially the dolphins and primates who have a large understanding and can even give opinions of what types of food they like. Or the such.

I simply really enjoyed this reading.

Perception and Reality

Avicenna's works we read were wordy and certainly not what we're used to reading (especially as artists; not regularly exposed to scientific writings by education or trade). On my second time around I got the overall vibe that the scientific discussion Avicenna was working out, in both On Vision and On Nature, was centered around the relationship between our perception of reality and reality itself and the dissonance between the two. Naturally several questions come to mind: Does what we see really exist? What things in existence don't we see? How would we be able to measure the existence/non-existence of any thing? How can we manipulate what we see or perhaps even it's existence?

I'm currently in a workshop entitled "Hyperspace". The premise of the class is the marriage between science and art (specifically quantum mechanics and sculpture/drawing). In class today we were discussing an excerpt of Hyperspace by Michio Kaku, which describes the four known forces of the universe. We tangented off into discussing perception and the fact that humans are the least perceptive of all animals; all we can visually/physically acknowledge is a very small sliver of the entire (or what we know of) spectrum of known reality. We are aware, and make use of, such invisible things as radio-waves, microwaves, radiation, etc. Quantum mechanics itself is basically a theoretical science of the unseen and practically unmeasurable. Crazy world, huh?

Luminance, Light and Ray

This was an interesting reading. For the most part I understood what the <> were doing, however at first I was a little unsure if I should be reading them or not. It was interesting to see the different ways of explaining luminance, light and ray. One of my favorite parts throughout the reading was the part he talks about luminance in reference to animals that glow. Not only how do they glow, but do they really glow throughout the day and we just can't tell because it's light out, or do they stop glowing throughout the day and only glow at night. Depending upon the surrounding background and it's value of "darkness", you can see the animal glowing easier. Do they have a weaker glow during the day and use less energy, or do they use the same amount all the time?

3/2/11

For some reason I can't stop thinking of the idea of what God looks like from last class period. Most people envision God human like and St. Augustine contrasts this with a description of God as an entity, which seems to make so much more sense. I think people associate God as human like to seem closer to God, as though it is possible to be like him. Also, I believe this association is made because of the idea of Jesus being the son of God, therefore we think of God as a being rather than an entity. Since I am always in this world of sight and visioning at art school, I think envisioning things without ever know what they will actually looks like is extremely interesting. Imagination is so very important.

On Vision, It's Confusing

I...don't really know what I just read. I read over a few passages a few times, but still, I couldn't really make sense of what I was reading. I managed to jot down a few key points, but for the most part I felt as if I was reading the same passage over and over again. I found myself reading the same word almost five times in one sentence. It got boring fast and I found myself more interested in the background noise going on than what I was reading.

needless to say I'm disappointed with the selection, but mostly myself as well for not having the attention span to truly understand what he was saying. Hopefully in class tonight, what I was reading will become clearer than it is now. Right now, I only have this vague idea of light and its relation to color.

One thing in this writing jumped out at me more than anything else, and that was when the argument against astrology was made. He says that if it is said that the planets control the actions of man, then it takes the blame for the sinners. And so it does; if you can't help what you do, then why try? However, I find it funny that he can present this idea against astrology, and yet fail to see the argument it presents against religion. It is something I have thought of before; the idea of fate, and destiny, that 'God has a plan', has often irked me. It takes the meaning away from our choices, it's an excuse to avoid change. It is also a way to find comfort from grief, saying that 'god has his reasons'. Though I understand the need to find comfort in even such an illogical fantasy, it does not excuse it. I have heard people say to me, 'no, we control our fate, not god, it's our choices that lead us to fulfill his plan, and our destiny'. Sorry folks, that's called free will, and is, in fact, the opposite of fate, so thanks for making my own argument.
As for events in my life that have led me to my beliefs, I have to say, that if there is a god pulling the strings of the earths fate, he's a sadistic bastard.

Learning from life

Tonight's posting suggestion: St. Augustine was greatly troubled by the death of his friend, which made him reconsider how he thought about life. Have you had an experience that caused you to change how you think about the world and/or your place in it? What was the experience, and how did it change how you think?

St. Augustine's Confessions

The part that interested me the most is the seventeenth entry that concentrates on the relativity of parts to their whole. Richard Mattsson for the past four (close to five) weeks has been my figure drawing teacher and I second his declaration that the class in fact seems more like a situational drawing class because the model only constitutes for a part of the whole of our drawings. Giving to much precedence to the figure alone, Mattsson warned us, would inevitably result in an incomplete documentation of what we have directly observed. The environment around the figure is just as important as the figure itself because the environment supports the mass of the figure and grounds it in space. Thus these parts I am depicting ought to be developed simultaneously so as to do justice to the whole of the drawing and retain a sence of unitfy and uniformity. The addition of information that has no overall effect on the whole drawing should be disregarded as superfluous and something like a smoke screen for greater problems negelected in the drawing. The mojority of the rest of the time St. Augustine just sounded like he was groveling pitifully. A little melodramatic for my taste.

Augustine

I interpereted this text as saying that we should resist being too caught up with what exists on earth but focus more on our souls, and on god. Augustine feels guilty for falling into a depression over the loss of his friend not becasue it is wrong to mourn the dead, but because he only focused on the death of his friends physical body, and forgot about the fact that his friend had moved on into the afterlife and that his soul would still live on. He also lost his focus on god becasue he sought out consolation from his friends and not from god. Therefore, he got too distracted with the earthly, and forgot about god.
I especially enjoyed the passage where he explains why he so admired Hierius, and admitted that the only reason was that everyone around him did, so he followed the crowd. I like the quotation, "What is it that I am in love with in another which, If I did not hate I should neither detest nor repel from myself, seeing that we are equally men?" in this passage, Augustine talks about how his society loves and admires actors and atheletes. This is significant becasue our society worships celebrities in a similar way.

I find Augustine in myself!!??

OK, so I read book IV. It was pretty juicy, The beginning was long and super boring, I felt like I was reading the bible with no preconceptions of the stories! I found Augustine a lot like myself in my childhood, Always faithfully calling out to God, and then I think about my life now... A backslider. The book made me think about my heathenistic ways...I didn't like that. I found one quote interesting ,"being seduced and seducing, being deceived and deceiving". I'm gonna leave that open for all y'all to interpret!! OK see ya at class!!

St. Augustine, Confessions

Hmm, well let's see. I quite enjoyed this reading. As I was reading I had a few questions, like one for example is, well he was talking about God, and in the beginning he talked about liking astrology, but still preaching about God. Isn't astrology against the Christian faith, or maybe not against, but frowned upon. Because I know, that for me growing up as a christian I wasn't allowed to believe in magic, or astrology. But anyways, enough about that. It seems that he was attached to many personal relationships, one having a huge impact on him. I really liked what he had to say about friendship. And I also liked the few paragraphs where he had to mourn the death of his friend. What I got from this is, that beauty is having many good relationships, or having a good relationship with a certain someone, or someone who you greatly trust. I'm not really sure, but I'm guessing we'll discuss this in class. I really liked when he said "What a great difference there is between the restraint of the marriage bond contracted with a view to having children and the compact of a lustful love, where children are born against the parents' will, although once they are born they compel our love." Not that I can relate to this, but I'm sure this is true. And well besides that, I think that's all I understood. Maybe I didn't understand that much, but even if I didn't understand the reading, I still found it sort of entertaining.

Augustine

This was a little hard for me to read, but for the most part I think I understood it. I don't really have any strong thoughts or opinions on it at the moment, but I am interested to see what will be said about it in class.

Marcus Aurelius

Sorry if this post seems a little late, sometimes when I try to make a post it doesn't work, so I have to come back when I get chance to write it again.

I loved everything Marcus Aurelius had to say. His method of handling life reminds me of when Plato spoke about art and the irrational emotions it inspires people to have. To me it seems as though Marcus Aurelius tries his hardest to subdue his emotions, irrational or not, and replaces them with cool logic and reasoning. As we all know this is extremely difficult and I can see where writing these meditations would be extremely useful for him. I wonder if emotions can be completely ignored. I aways hear people saying not to bottle up your emotions. When practicing the habits of Marcus Aurelius, am I just bottling them up, or keeping them in check? I feel more capable of doing great things when I'm in his mindset; almost unstoppable. But then morning I wake up in a lazy mood. You know those days when all you want to do is sit around with some friends an watch movies. Then I think of his mediation (64) that laziness and sleepiness are just pain in disguise, that you just need to remind yourself that "I'm giving in to pain". At that moment I just don't care. Yeah so what? I deserve a break. Next time I feel this way I will make a conscious effort to push through those unproductive feelings, not to give in to Freud's Id ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego) I shared this reading with a few friends and they loved it as well. He truly is an inspirational man.