Wednesday, 18 September 2019

Here's Another Fine Mess...

I said in a recent blog post that ‘it is easy to argue that nothing is beautiful in an objective sense.’ It now occurs to me to say that ‘no physical thing is beautiful in an objective sense,’ because what about a random act of kindness? Isn’t that beautiful?

Well, yes and no. I would suggest that there is nothing beautiful about the act; it’s the kindness which is beautiful, and kindness is a product of the mind, and matters of the mind are abstract. And if some bystander witnesses the act and gets a lift from it, it becomes a matter of perception. And don’t I keep saying that perception is the whole of the life experience?

Ah, but maybe I now have to revise that dictum because it doesn’t take account of the person who committed the random act. Maybe it should now read ‘Perception and intent are the whole of the life experience.’

So now it begins to get complicated, especially so because we haven’t yet considered the fundamental question of semantics.

And now I ask myself why I’m bothering to write this, and further, why I even bother to think about it? I really don’t have the patience, the commitment, the attention span or the mental dexterity to be a philosopher. I just want to find the place where the unicorns live so I can go and say hello. And if only I could go through life a somnambulist like most people, life would be so much easier.

But I can’t because I was born to think, and some congenital chains have to be borne bravely no matter how old you get. So think is what I do (along with a few other things.)

Am currently listening to some beautiful music, except that it isn’t beautiful. It’s simply a succession of wavelengths which evokes a sense of beauty in me. And now I really must shut up and top up the tumbler. Going to bed fully sober would be little short of offensive.

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