Sunday 30 May 2010

knowing the maker

These thoughts are further reflections on vicarious experience of things: trees, the sea, clothing, each other. Speculating that the aesthetic sense is in some way a regulatory process in the perceiver as it responds to coercion, disruption and exhortation leads me to think that through that regulatory process some 'knowledge' of another mind is at work, in a way which facilitates the possibility of successful communication (which is vital for the perceiver). In art, we come to know the artist because my regulating processes of perceiving their art are not that different from theirs in making it. But this throws up an interesting issue when we consider the beauty of natural phenomena. My regulating processes in perceiving natural phenomena are also an appreciation of the 'mind' that made them. But what's that to a good atheist??

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