On Aesthetics: the Emotion of Wonder

Recently, I was washing dishes and had a small philosophical moment. The small whirlpool created when I let the water out of the sink caught my eye, and I couldn't help but wonder at the sheer beauty of the physics involved: The air bubbles through the bottom of the falling water and into the middle of the drain pipe, where it rises out of the sink to make way for the heavier water. At the same time, the water moves in a circular pattern down the drain pipe, creating the the inertial effect called centrifugal force. This circular motion pulls the water out of the middle of the spout, making way for the air.

After marveling at the beauty of the event, it occurred to me that I couldn't quantify what I was experiencing at that moment as anything but an emotion. Somehow I had never before realized that wonder is the philosopher's emotion, not just her attitude. Understanding wonder as a passion has made Plato's description of eros much more intuitive for me.

Anyhow, as any good emotion does, this emotion admitted to at least partial explanation. When I tried to figure out why the little whirlpool had made me wonder, the best I could come up with is that it was the simplicity and geometry of the event at which I was marveling, because I could not produce that sort of motion on my own. But it seemed strange to me that I would wonder at a simple geometric motion, because the most difficult motions to achieve are the complex ones -- ones the human body is good at creating. How does the whirlpool deserve wonder in the face of the violinist or the dancer?

There is a poem by W. B. Yeats which I am partial to, called "The Sorrow of Love". It is short, so I can just include it here:

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,
The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,
And all that famous harmony of leaves,
Had blotted out man's image and his cry.

A girl arose that had red mournful lips
And seemed the greatness of the world in tears,
Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships
And proud as Priam murdered with his peers;

Arose, and on the instant clamorous eaves,
A climbing moon upon an empty sky,
And all that lamentation of the leaves,
Could but compose man's image and his cry.

First, I should note that this is a revised edition of the poem. The original is similar in structure, but much different in its ultimate content. The first stanza of the poem is a description of nature and an observation that "all that famous harmony of leaves had blotted out man's image and his cry." The second stanza of the poem is an expression of human sorrow, a sorrow epic in its content (indeed, Priam is a character very extreme in sorrow). For Yeats, this expression of sorrow is much greater than anything found in nature without human beings. Thus, the final stanza of the poem is a description of nature and an observation that "all that lamentation of the leaves could but compose man's image and his cry." Yeats, in his first act of wonder, has observed the world around him, amazed that there could be something so beautiful and sorrowful. But as soon as this observation has been made, the motion of his lover has turned his mind onto the beauty of humanity.

What I want to point out is that Yeats' prioritization of his emotion of wonder (that the human is more wondrous than the world) was appropriate for reasons that Yeats did not mention. In fact, the human mind and the human body alike have an architecture whose specific task is to do all those complex things that the world, by itself, cannot do. Indeed, it is we who do all the doing. Our sheer physical versatility allows us to create spectacular events and works of art, beings whose beauty lies not in a pure expression of geometric simplicity. Works of art are beautiful for their complexity. In nature, the beautiful panorama and the sunrise are events that occurs with ease, because the natural path is the path of least resistance. Conversely, works of art are events that require work. The human hand must force nature out of its normal course and into the course designed by that very hand. But this is only an a posteriori piece of evidence that human beings are more wondrous than their world.

There is, on the other hand, a priori evidence that humans are more wondrous than their world. For the emotion of wonder is an emotion that expresses an explicitly human attitude. I contend that wonder is the most human emotion there is. There can be argument that animals feel at least most of the emotions we feel when love, and it is clear that fear and anger are emotions that we share with animals. In any case, there is at least one thing that there is absolutely no evidence that animals do: recognize and adore beauty. Now those who think that I am making philosophy into the greatest career path ought to remember that wonder is not only the emotion of the philosopher. It is also the emotion of the poet, the musician, the dancer, in short -- the artist. It should not, then, be surprising if the most uniquely human emotion were expressed in its strongest forms as a reaction to the most uniquely human happenings. That is, it should not surprise us if our concept of beauty turned out to be an anthropocentric concept.

Obviously, this is just a suggestion, but I never claimed proof. The only a priori force behind this explanation of the phenomenon of wonder is the anti-Realist suggestion that all experience is inextricably tinged by the human mind that experiences it. Clearly, this suggestion rests on the primary metaphysical claim that we have no knowledge of a world beyond our minds and bodies. But, then, all personal positions rest upon a metaphysical claim of some sort.

As a side note, I should observe that an agnostic or atheistic metaphysical Realist would probably claim that the natural world is the most appropriate subject for the expression of wonder. A theist metaphysical Realist, on the other hand, would probably claim that something like God is the most appropriate subject. But, at least for me, my own experience disqualifies these possibilities. So, at the end of the day, it is the incompatible a priori positions that provide the alternatives for the possible subjects of wonder, and it is the a posteriori evidence that will determine which of these three alternatives obtains.

-Priam's Pride

Metaethical Fiat and Moral Outrage

An interesting metaethical situation presented itself to me today. It is important to note that I have not yet done any research on metaethics, so these are virgin thoughts. It is likely that many (or possibly even all) of my points have been made by other people somewhere, but I do not know who or where.

Sarah and I went to the Renaissance Festival in Hammond, LA today. As far as Renaissance festivals go, it was quite mediocre, but this is not the point. We and some of our friends had purchased a heaping plate of Mediterranean food and were picking at it by ourselves on a set of wooden bleachers. We were having what counts, by any standards, as a lighthearted adult conversation. Being who we are, we spoke vulgarly at times and with sparse use of swear words for emphasis. As it turned out, a rather typical middle-class family had seated themselves next to us. As soon as I noticed them (and was surprised by their presence), I decided to stop using language that might be deemed inappropriate in front of children. However, I let this decision slip my mind, and incidentally uttered the word "fuck" without thinking about it. The father of the family had, apparently, had enough of our swearing and, with a note of irritation, asked if we could cool it with the "f-bombs". We were done eating, so I asked my friends if they were ready to leave the area.

These are the facts of the situation prior to any ethical judgment. What I wish to do now is explicate the events ethically. Clearly, my decision to stop swearing was an ethical claim that I made upon myself; this much is obvious. Loosely speaking, I probably made the judgment based on an ethics of personal reciprocity: I imagined myself bringing my young kids to a Renaissance Festival and dealing with the burden of them picking up new vocabulary words. It is important to observe that I was not necessitated to make this decision. That is, my ethics could have been different. I could, perhaps, have used an egoist ethics (which one of my friends did). In this case, I would observe that I had paid to attend the Renaissance Festival and had not agreed not to swear. Therefore, I was not ethically bound to not swear. Perhaps other plausible ethical assessments are also possible, but it is enough that there is more than one.

The father's reaction is also important. The father actually made two speech-acts when he asked my to stop dropping F-bombs. One speech-act is the actual request that he made: he was genuinely asking a favor of me. This speech act is not an ethical speech act, because he did not make a claim over me with it. Had this been his only speech act, it would be as benign as if he had asked me to pass the salt, which is generally considered an ethically neutral request. And by any plausible ethics, he would not be wrong to ask me to do so.

The second speech-act that the father made with his single question was moral outrage. His irritation revealed that he had expected that I would come to the ethical conclusion that I would come to and adhere to that conclusion. This irritation that this expectation had produced is evidence that he was holding me to an ethical standard (his own ethical standard) and that he was disappointed that I had failed.

What I find interesting about this contrast is that the father had imposed his ethics upon me before finding out what my ethics was! He did not simply ask if I would stop swearing, and judge from my reaction whether my ethics agreed with his -- that I should stop swearing. If I were adhering strictly to what I had agreed to do, then I might have said no. To elaborate this ethics further, I intend an ethics, here, of egocentrism. Such an ethicist might agree to do things that he was not bound to do by law, but only on the basis that it benefits him. For example, in this case, if I really thought that the children learning swear-words from me would not harm me or my world in any way (especially considering that they will learn them anyway), then I might be well justified in telling him that I would not stop swearing. As a matter of fact, I really do believe that his children learning swear-words from me, in particular, will not affect my world in even the remotest way. I could have been such an ethicist. Nevertheless, he did not pause to find out whether I was an egoist ethicist or a reciprocation ethicist.

Now not only did I make a mistake in forgetting to adhere to my own ethics; he made a mistake in holding me to his own ethics before determining whether such a metaethical claim even made sense. That is, in order for him to be able to ethically make an ethical claim upon me, his ethics must first demand that it is the only legitimate ethics. Naturally, there are many ethical systems which make this claim (many extreme religious systems, for example), but it is difficult to determine whether this appropriate. What we would find, should it be acceptable, metaethically, to demand universal acceptance of one's own ethical system, is that the entire field of metaethics would reduce to fiat. That is, the only metaethical principle is: 'All persons ought to share my ethical system'. Let us call this the Principle of Metaethical Fiat ("Fiat" for short). It is quite clear that such a metaethical move is simply implausible, because it would preclude the possibility of a peaceful plurality of ethical systems: we would always be at each other's throats forcing our own ethics down each other's throats. Therefore, if there exists any further metaethical principle, this additional principle would preclude the Fiat. For if there were any other metaethical principle, then it would be a principle of toleration, but the Fiat is a principle of non-toleration. Therefore, the Principle of Metaethical Fiat is inconsistent with any other metaethical principle.

These considerations on the Fiat entail that this principle is, effectively, a principle that there is no metaethics. If metaethics is determined publicly (and I believe that it is because metaethics is much more useful to the public than to individuals), and there are public contributors to the definition of metaethics who hold any other metaethical principle (and it is obvious that there are), then the Fiat is false. Simply put, if there exists a public metaethics, then the Fiat is false.

Thus, the father was bound by metaethics to discover my ethical system before he could be ethically justified in holding me responsible for having violated an ethical code (the code, that is, not to swear in front of children). He simply assumed that my ethical system was the same as his. This is evidence of a shift of blame. As soon as the father revealed his irritation, he broke his own ethical code just as surely as I broke my own. The most interesting thing about this dual violation is that in pointing out my personal error, he made an error of his own. And his error, as an offense against me, is an error for which I was justified in expressing moral outrage toward him. In fact, he was not justified in his moral outrage, whereas I would have been justified had I been morally outraged. In fact, had I been outraged, I could simply point to the fact that he sat next to us, and that there were plenty of equally comfortable places he could have taken his family. Thus, I could show him that he was presumptuous in expressing moral outrage to me, since he is equally responsible for sneaking up so close to a group of adults. Indeed, adult conversation is not surprising to hear from adults in a casual atmosphere.

But I did not express any outrage at all. Instead I was embarrassed because when he accused me of acting unethicaly, he was accurate in the accusation. In other words, the father was epistemically unjustified in his assessment of my ethics, and because his epistemic misstep factored into his action, he is guilty of epistemic irresponsibility. But despite this guilt on his part, I admitted my own guilt and we left his family because I decided I was likely to forget about the decision against swearing again.

Thinking back on this event, it is quite surprising to me that he was unjustified in being morally outraged, but became morally outraged anyway. One might find it equally surprising, on the other hard, that I was justified in being morally outraged, but did not become morally outraged. I'm not sure why I was so quick to forgive his presumptuousness. I should note that there are often times when I get morally outraged by the presumptuousness of others. Even when someone assumes that I believe something that I actually do believe, I am still prone to moral outrage because of presumptuousness. To the reader, this fact about my own ethical code is rather insignificant, but to me, it is evidence that there is something different about assuming ethical reciprocity.

But is it really a plausible ethics to adopt egoism rather than reciprocity? If moral outrage is the indicator of an ethical claim over others, then I invite the reader to examine her own instances of moral outrage, and determine whether it diminishes when one finds oneself as guilty as the accused. Intuitively, it seems that a person faced with such a fact would be likely to calm down, though this could again me a simply oddity about myself.

In closing, I would like to note that I believe that what I did is what Jesus actually meant by the phrase "Turn the other cheek" (assuming he ever said it). I don't think he was suggesting the slave-ethics that Nietzsche accuses him of. Unfortunately, many of his followers seem to believe that he did suggest this slave-mentality, but that is neither here nor there.

-Priam's Pride

The City and the Mausoleum at Night

Another old anecdote.

Saturday, October 02, 2004 (edited, October 27, 2008)

When I stayed in Rome for a semester last year, we would frequently go to a city near campus called Albano (supposedly, it was founded by Aeneas, but he probably never existed), where we would go to bars or just hang out. Anyway, one of the most unique memories I have of Albano is the walk back to campus (we rode the bus there, but it was too late to ride the bus back). There were two sites that I always loved seeing: a panorama of the city of Rome from hill Albano was founded on, and the mausoleum on the side of the road.

A friend of mine, Kate Wolfe, used to describe that spectacular view of Rome as a sense of loss. She said that she loved seeing the City at night, especially Rome, because (as I interpreted her) it was like a human attempt to reach toward the beauty of the stars. What was lost were the real stars, because when a city is lit up all night the way Rome is, the light makes the the stars impossible to see. We have overwrought our emulation of the stars, because we block them out. To me, on the other hand, it was a succinct image of the desire that humanity seems to have to touch the divine. Our greatest dream is, if only in a small way, to finally do something that God can be proud of; to do something that the Cosmos can smile upon. However, she was still bothered by the fact that in seeing the brilliance of the City at night, she always had to sacrifice the stars themselves. And I don't know which is better to hold on to either. The only reason that the City outshined the stars was because we were so close to it, but everyone knows that those stars are so brilliant that they can cross an enormous chasm of space and still be clearly visible. The City is beautiful, but the stars are still the grand model. This is not to say that I think we should attempt to replicate the stars -- no, let the City remain only an analogy to the stars. Even better, let the stars remain visible to me at least in some places.

The mausoleum was much different, though. It was far more striking than the City. I never saw the mausoleum during the day, so I can only describe it in the ominous context of the midnight hours. We only saw it from behind a chain gate. It was a concrete structure that, in the dark, might as well have been black. It was set back from the fence about 20 feet, so it was just close enough to be visible in detail. This part of the road was always quiet. Perhaps the cars knew what they were passing, so they took different paths, in order to respect the silence of the dead. Of course, that probably didn't happen, but it seems that way, at least to my memory. The most interesting part of this mausoleum was that from the outside one couldn't tell whether there was a body in any one particular compartment or not, except by a single red light. Each compartment had a tiny, bright, red LED light on the front of it, to indicate that it was occupied (and would be for eternity). I couldn't help but think that as time passed, and these people were forgotten, they would gradually come to be known in the eyes of the living world as nothing more than red lights. An entire story, great enough for 10 tragedies and comedies at least, reduced to a single red light. How much wisdom did that light bear, and how much guilt? Every time I passed that mausoleum, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content that those little red lights were required to convey. This loss seems to me much more tragic than the loss that Kate saw in the lights of the City.

I don't think I will ever forget those two things. They are enough to make me want to go back to Albano one day...

-Priam's Pride

Goodbye Alex Ezell

This is an old anecdote from a previous blog that I no longer use, but whose content I want to preserve.

Thursday, September 30, 2004

I recently found a few letters from an old friend. I hadn't spoken to her in about five years. I waited a few days before I called her to maybe catch up, have a nice conversation, who knows? During that time, I thought about maybe 100 things to say to/ask her. When I actually talked to her, not only did she not remember me very well, but she also wondered why I even called. I said I was just curious (I was). After six minutes of chat (no real conversation), she told me that she had to go. In dismay, I realized that she was saying goodbye forever. Of all those 100 things, I had the opportunity to say maybe two. Of all the possible conversations I had imagined, the one that I hadn't came to pass. That's what I get for telling the future. Goodbye, Alex Ezell.

It seems to me that perhaps she was telling me something about myself. She seemed to know that those two people who used to talk have long since perished. Whoever I am is foreign to whoever she is, and it would only be a confusion of our personalities to attempt to find something in an old friendship. We would be pretending that we were still those foolish children we once were (not that we aren't still foolish children). I think I am satisfied with the way that that relationship ended; would that others could end so well.

-Priam's Pride

A Cruel Little Galaxy

I live in Baton Rouge and decided to stay in the city for hurricane Gustav. Now it was an annoying hurricane for sure, but it wasn't really that bad in terms of catastrophes. The hurricane proper isn't the subject of this post anyway. The day before the hurricane, while it was still offshore, the sky was completely cloudless. At one point in the day, I noticed that a layer of fast-moving clouds as far as the eye could see had covered half of the sky. It was the outer bands of Gustav. I had never seen the edge of a hurricane before. I had Sarah take a few pictures of it, but I don't know how they came out. If they are decent, I will post them.

Anyhow, I noticed how peaceful and orderly the clouds were, despite the fact that they moved faster than normal clouds. They were very light, bright and had some gaps between them. In short, they seemed like friendly clouds not like hurricane clouds. I thought to myself that these were just the outer clouds orbiting the violent center. The spiral shape of the hurricane immediately made me draw an analogy to the galaxy in which we live. I thought about how the calm outer bands are like the calm part of the galaxy where we live, and that the violent center of the hurricane was like the star-cluster in the center of the galaxy. Even the empty center of the hurricane seems analogous to the theorized giant black hole in the center of the galaxy.

But if the hurricane were really like our galaxy, then it might have little intelligent beings occupying a droplet on one of these outer bands that I was watching go by. I thought, maybe these beings don't know that they are hovering over a planet with other intelligent beings. Maybe they don't know that their existence (which, admittedly is only a week or so), depends on the existence of a large destruction machine that brings misery to those without the financial means to overcome it. I wondered how they would feel about living in a universe whose very existence necessarily causes other people misery. Then I thought that maybe we are those little people. Maybe, we are three-dimensional beings in a three-dimensional galaxy which is really just a storm of a four-dimensional world, causing those four-dimensional people anguish (but at a much higher energy level).

Now, I know this analogy doesn't work perfectly. Hurricanes are three-dimensional objects, just like galaxies, so relying on alternate dimensions for the analogy is a little implausible. Not to mention the fact that modern science treats the world as a four-dimensional entity. If the analogy were perfect, it would not tell us very much about the world: we would just be comparing a thing to itself. What is really interesting about a good analogy is the ways in which the two things are not alike.

-Priam's Pride