| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
PersistingWhy
Newcomer
2 Posts |
 Posted - Nov 16 2005 : 7:31:09 PM
|
Interpretation is beauty.
Beauty is Interpretation.
Relations persist to exist with no foes between interpretation and words. We, as the people of the world, have formed words to associate every object to something else. We see something new, and we begin to analyze it. We see a blade of grass, as an example, and we connect it to the words "green", or perhaps more meaningful "nature", or "life", "presence". Grass, we know, has existed as long as we, and longer into the depths of "time". By associating any new object, are we not just classifying it, and brushing it past us as another display of life, instead of "taking it in"? It is my contemplation that we should live, and breath in each aspect of life by disassociating every little thing from words. Babies are fascinated, in awe at every new thing in their lives because it is something truly "new", and they are unable to connect the image of this new object to anything they have seen before. Babies are not able to explain the sky as "engulfing", "blue", "existent". To them, as it should be to us, the sky is just what they see. Without association, without words, life gives pure and absolute beauty.
Please respond, I shall be waiting, contemplating.
Your Friend,
Persisting Why.
|
|
|
krapula
Fledgling
16 Posts |
Posted - Nov 17 2005 : 10:55:32 AM
|
Hmmm - first off, I just got done reading G.E. Moore the other day for ethics, so with that fresh in my mind I have a bit of a problem with saying "Interpretation is beauty." Claiming that beauty IS interpretation seems a bit silly to me. If they are truly the same thing, why would we have such different uses for these words? I would have less of a problem with saying something along the lines of "Beauty depends on interpretation" or "For something to possess beauty, it must be interpreted in some way."
Second, exactly why are the words "nature" or "life" more meaningful than the word "green?" Is there a quantitative value to be assigned to meaning? Or is it simply the number of meanings or shades of meaning that may be assigned to the word?
If you have not already done so, I would encourage you to read the writings of John Cage, a modern 'composer.' His thought is very much what you seem to be aiming at. In music, he strove to present sounds in and of themselves, without the mediation of signification.
The problem with abolishing signification totally from life (assuming it is indeed possible) is that it severely limits the "doing" capacity of humans. If we are not able to abstract a signifier to stand for something, it is very hard to see how we may communicate anything to other people. How can you claim that life without association can be beautiful without associating the word/concept of "life" with that of "beauty?" Or without even the notion of association? |
 |
|
|
PersistingWhy
Newcomer
2 Posts |
Posted - Nov 18 2005 : 8:53:42 PM
|
- First I apologize, I misplaced this topic -
I believe that when saying interpretation is beauty, the word beauty can be used as an adjective, instead of beautiful, it is the state of beauty. By saying interpretation is beauty, it is classifying interpretation as beauty. Is it not interpretation that creates beauty in ones eyes. Why do you think I cannot describe interpretation as beauty. I apologize again, but now for the anger that seems to luminate from this writing. |
|
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Nov 20 2005 : 11:55:33 AM
|
quote:
Originally posted by PersistingWhy
- First I apologize, I misplaced this topic -
I believe that when saying interpretation is beauty, the word beauty can be used as an adjective, instead of beautiful, it is the state of beauty. By saying interpretation is beauty, it is classifying interpretation as beauty. Is it not interpretation that creates beauty in ones eyes. Why do you think I cannot describe interpretation as beauty. I apologize again, but now for the anger that seems to luminate from this writing.
PW,
Let me give this a try. There are two different things I want to focus on here. First, in your original post, you said:quote:
Originally posted by PersistingWhy
It is [b]y contemplation that we should live...and breath[e] in each aspect of life by disassociating every little thing from words. Babies are fascinated, in awe at every new thing in their lives[,] because it is something truly "new[,"] and they are unable to connect the image of this new object to anything they have seen before. Babies are not able to explain the sky as "engulfing[,"] "blue[,"] "existent[."] To them, as it should be to us, the sky is just what they see. Without association, without words, life gives pure and absolute beauty.
which suggests that it isn’t interpretation that is (or yields) beauty, but wordless contemplation. To interpret something isn’t to contemplate it wordlessly; it’s to see something as something, which requires a store of words or at least of concepts; seeing a thing as something would seem to be precisely what you maintain babies don’t do. So why do you say:quote:
Interpretation is beauty.
Beauty is interpretation.
instead of saying something like the following instead?
Interpretation gets in the way of the perception of beauty.
The perception of beauty breaks through the veils interpretation creates.
That’s my first question.
My second question is this: aren’t you actually simply mistaken in maintaining that the word “beauty” can be used, in standard modern English at any rate, as an adjective? I believe that in standard modern English it’s invariably used as a noun—check the dictionary—and that not only makes it a predicate nominative (and not a predicate adjective) in the sentence “Interpretation is beauty”; it also makes the “is” in that sentence the “is” of identity instead of the “is” of predication. To say that interpretation is beauty is to identify it with beauty—i.e., to say that interpretation and beauty are one and the same thing—not to say of it that it is itself something beautiful, which I’m surprised to hear you suggest anyway, since you seem to me pretty clearly to think that interpretation interferes with the perception of beauty. See my first question above.
There are words, e.g., “red,” that can function both ways (both as adjectives and as nouns, and therefore both as predicate adjectives and as predicate nominatives) in standard English:
My favorite hat is red.
My favorite color is red.
In the first of these two sentences, “red” is a predicate adjective, and of course the claim is not that my favorite hat is the very same thing as the color red. Instead, the claim is that my favorite hat is a red hat, i.e., that it’s a hat of that color. But in the second, it’s a predicate nominative, and the claim is that the color red is the very same thing as something, namely, my favorite color. And here the claim is most definitely not that the color red is a red color!
That, then, is my answer to your question as to why you cannot, intelligibly, at any rate, describe interpretation as beauty, using the word “beauty” as an adjective. I hope it doesn’t strike you as in any way choleric. Some of the things you’ve said do puzzle me deeply, but none of them makes me the least bit angry. And by the way, I seriously doubt that Joey ("Krapula") was responding to your original post in anger either, though I’ll let him speak for himself about that.
Tom
PS: My reference to standard modern English above is motivated by the fact that the OED does record an archaic use of “beauty” as a verb, but it records no uses of it as an adjective or as any part of speech other than noun or verb.
|
|
|
|
krapula
Fledgling
16 Posts |
Posted - Nov 20 2005 : 2:24:31 PM
|
I apologize if my post came across as angry. That couldn't have been farther from my state of mind at the time - I was simply puzzled.
Also, I think I mixed G.E. Moore with thoughts of my own ("my own" only in the sense in that I am not sure where else I could have gotten them.) The part that I'm not sure I have heard somewhere else was the bit about "If they are truly the same thing, why would we have such different uses for these words?" I've been thinking about how new words come into being only through a particular use for that word, but G.E. Moore says nothing about words having uses. |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Of Words on Beauty
Forum Locked
