puff 'n stuff

[anechoic <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I can't remember when this list has been as active with interesting
discussion as it has been in the past few months...very intelligent
reponses have stimulated much in the way of new thought for me...
unfortunately, I'm on a severe time crunch right now with some lectures
coming up and new music to write so I can't get as deeply involved in
responding as I'd like but I will offer a few bullet points:

* this "math vs emotion" divide (excuse the pun) is kinda
silly...mathematics (as used in art - since there is a lot of math that is
purely theoretical) is just a language with which to describe and manifest
the enviroment...I am not saying one is better than the other...just that I
tend to favor seeing and hearing patterns in nature and understanding them
on a variety of levels: aesthetically, mathematically, sensually,
philosopically...it all adds to the richness of my experience of both
creating and receiving art...

* brett: wow! your post read a little like R.D. Laing's "The Politics of
Experience" but seriously, neurobiology is not my field of expertise and am
just relating one of the many theories I have read and have accepted due to
my very limited understanding of how the brain works: all systems
(including our biological wiring) have some delay built in and this
phenomenon becomes painfully obvious when sharing the road with people who
can't drive...since your domain reads stanford.edu I'll assume you have
seen the daily rear-end collision type accidents on 101...some people are
operating at more of a delay than others...so while maybe my defining it as
a "scientific fact" may have been presumptuous, I think it does stand as a
plausible theory in the field of neurobiology...

> it is senseless to say that
>we are never fully aware of the present. our experience is
>always experience of the present state of the brain.
by the "present" I mean: outside stimulus that needs our immediate
attention...I think the delay between external stimulus and it registering
in the brain has been medically proven, no?

>One would say that the words that a person says
>cause us to create (or recreate) meanings, not that a person transmits
>meaning through communication.
my point exactly...most meaning is constructed by the receptor based on
coding, cultural context and personal history...the phase: "The child
bounced the ball" is a good example of how we would all mentally decode
that differently by making a mental picture (by filling in the gaps) and
constructing our own meaning...

* Chris:
>Interesting to note that a world without algebra can be constructed
>though.
yes of course it can and we could all live in caves again but using math as
way to organize our environment goes all the way back to the Egyptians who
used primitive geometry to section off land for farming...

>Western civilization, in particular, has been focused on the
>mathematical organization of space and time.
don't forget that algebra came from Arabic cultures and was not an
invention of Western civilization...the Arabs also used it as a language
with which to understand/organize their environment

> That does not meant there
>aren't other universes that exist simultaneously as our world.
I don't remember implying that there weren't other valid
interpretations...just saying that this is how I tend to organize my
world...again, it is mostly the _receptor_ who creates meaning in art (and
email!)

>Certain
>Native American languages, for instance, have no words for the time of the
>past or the future.
they also had very little technology

>the abstractions we have created to
>describe our world (such as math) are in part responsible for the crimes
>and excesses of our culture.  Fascism was a success in regards to the grid
>and time, numbers used to represent a faceless efficiency.
this is a reductionist view of the world which could spark off many pages
of discussion but I just don't have the bandwidth...but the view you
describe does come up in many rationality/science/progress/western
civilization debates...but using that argument I guess the PC you're using
to write with also contributes to the "crimes and excesses of our culture"?

>and chaos patterns are poorly represented by our
>current maths.
hmmmm...not so sure about that statement although Chaos is a new science
there is enough work done now that we can safely say that chaos is pretty
demonstrable mathematically...Clifford Pickover has done some good work on
this subject...

ok...back to work...good discussions! :)
KIM