[Adam Neely] What is the slowest music humanly possible?

[Sgman91]

[QUOTE=Wealth + Taste;53076606]I meant to illustrate the fact that since there is no "one true" interpretation for any work of art, and the possible interpretations are infinite, attempting to say there is "objective" meaning of any kind whatsoever is vain.

From an objective standpoint anything you say about art is false.
From a subjective standpoint, anything you say about art is true. So long as you really believe it.[/QUOTE]

How is that not a circular argument? You're assuming the meaning can't be objective before you even start.

If I say, "I'm going to create an object with the purpose of hammering nails," but the thing I make is super bad at hammering nails, we can objectively way the object failed to meet its purpose. In the same way, I can say, "I'm going to create a painting to express my joy in life." Why wouldn't we be able to objectively discuss the effectiveness of my painting in the same way?

[Genkaz]

It is important to distinguish the difference between a physical tool created for something an a work of art created by an artist.

A work of art has the capacity of being significantly more subjective and open for interpretation than a hammer does.

An isolated tribesman stumbling upon a hammer would very likely use it for hammer-like purposes, while stumbling upon a van gogh painting would more than likely make him apply that painting in his own cultural context.

Therefore it could be argued the craftsman's original intended purpose for creating the hammer ultimately matters a lot more than a painter's original intention, especially given "happy accidents"

A painting may have originally been created as a way of expressing joy in one age, while accidentally ending up as a genius way of expressing sorrow in a different age, a hammer is still a hammer regardless of how many thousands of years pass, it's still a weight on a stick that generates blunt force impact.

Does the original intention of the artist matter? Sure, however we already mentioned in the thread that it can actually be detrimental to someone's experience of the painting because it resonates with them very powerfully on a subjective level that is COMPLETELY different from what the artist attempted.

[DireWolf]

[QUOTE=sgman91;53077786]How is that not a circular argument? [B]You're assuming the meaning can't be objective before you even start.[/B]

If I say, "I'm going to create an object with the purpose of hammering nails," but the thing I make is super bad at hammering nails, we can objectively way the object failed to meet its purpose. In the same way, I can say, "I'm going to create a painting to express my joy in life." Why wouldn't we be able to objectively discuss the effectiveness of my painting in the same way?[/QUOTE]

Uh, no, I'm not. I feel like I've explained my logic very thoroughly, It's very simple.

If you entertain the notion that there CAN be multiple interpretations (which is undeniably true) then it is [B]impossible[/B] for there to be an objective meaning. Objectivity implies universal truth. Since no two people have the same beliefs, morals, experience, education etc. no two people will be affected in the same way. Thus universal truth is impossible, thus, objectivity is impossible.

[Genkaz]

[QUOTE=Wealth + Taste;53078053]Uh, no, I'm not. I feel like I've explained my logic very thoroughly, It's very simple.

If you entertain the notion that there CAN be multiple interpretations (which is undeniably true) then it is [B]impossible[/B] for there to be an objective meaning. Objectivity implies universal truth. Since no two people have the same beliefs, morals, experience, education etc. no two people will be affected in the same way. Thus universal truth is impossible, thus, objectivity is impossible.[/QUOTE]

I want to read a story about some kind of a massively powerful cosmic being that was capable of creating objective paintings that were interpreted in exactly the same way regardless of who saw them, and then the paintings eventually reached a different equally powerful cosmic being who was still capable of interpreting them subjectively.

[XUZUL]

[QUOTE=sgman91;53075898]Your argument seems to be that because two people can see/hear/experience the same object and get different meanings out of it, then there can't be such a thing as an objective meaning. I don't follow the logic. It may very well be that one, or both, of those people are wrong.

To use your hammer example: Let's say I were to pick up a sheet of paper and claim that it has the purpose of hitting nails into wood. Is that claim equally legitimate to every other claim about the sheet of paper's purpose? No, I don't think any rational person would think so. The ability of a person to make claims about meaning aren't the same thing as those claims being legitimate.

The creator's intention is relevant because a creation is only a success if the thing is good at what it is intended to do, and whatever-is-being-made's optimal use is it's given purpose. A longsword might work as a dinner knife, but it doesn't work nearly as well as a knife made for that job. In the same way, a dinner knife might work as a weapon, but it won't work nearly as well as a longsword. Hell, a dinner knife might even work as a hammer if you swing hard enough, but it will break quickly, won't work great, and would probably be pretty dangerous. So, sure, you can use it for something it wasn't intended to be used for, but it will be suboptimal at that job.

In the same way, art has intention behind it. Some art tries to express a variety of emotions, some art attempts to be beautiful, some art expresses a political position, some art tries to embody a feeling, etc. I'm not sure why we would treat art differently than we treat everything else that people create.[/QUOTE]

Art is not a tool

I get the impression that your mentality revolves around "usefulness". Everything [B]must[/B] have a purpose; it's either black or white

[t]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4lNukDTAMU0/maxresdefault.jpg[/t]

Here's a painting. It doesn't inherently have purpose, it's not a portrait of a person/city/event. Look at it, it will give you an impression, it will leave you with a feeling

Perhaps it makes you feel relaxed, most of it is warm colors. But someone else feels dread, it gives them the impression they're inside a house fire. None of these interpretations is truer than the other. Should the artist say "I was thinking of a house fire", then your feelings are wrong. However you feel relaxed. How are your very real feelings wrong? And can you say that it "failed" at what it intended to be, since you got a different idea of it?

[Curls]

[QUOTE=153x;53076074]I see where you're coming from, but

I mean I can't really disagree with that. In my personal opinion appreciating everything as though it was art does the exact opposite, and actually makes everything more meaningful

[editline].[/editline]

Not to mention, art has an extremely broad and vague definition to begin with, so it's not the same as saying everything is food because food is strictly defined as things I can eat[/QUOTE]

art is something someone puts emotion and thought into, it's something that's meant to be thought provoking and emotional on some scale. Artwork is translating emotion and thought into the senses, even if that art is as limited as it can possibly be, its still the mind being placed onto a sense. This doesn't mean you have to be some kind of genius philosopher, it can range from enraged drunken paint-splatters to a nobles portrait. It doesn't even have to be the artists emotion, it can be entirely up to the user to find the meaning.

It's not about how vague or broad you feel it is, its about how you're making it infinity vague to the point where 'art' itself isn't a word anymore and you're effectively saying non-sense that doesn't mean anything.

Everything is more more meaningful because you put more meaning into everything, not because of some deep ~artistic~ meaning behind it.

[editline]26th January 2018[/editline]

Like hey, because everything is art, that time I shit my pants at school has more meaning, because you know... art man. The sun, the asteroids, mushrooms, toothpaste, its all art.

You can't stretch something so thin that it could be applied as an absolute. By the time you've stretched it this thin, suddenly it's too flexible to be useful. All of human language is limited.