LightSpectra
me autem minui
[Author's note: I wrote this essay in about two hours. Please forgive its brevity, any stylistic or grammatical errors, as well as its somewhat illogical organization. I wanted to get everything in my head on paper as fast as I could. I also feel it is a bit incomplete; I may write a second part in the near future.]
If human beings did not communicate with each other, then to each other, we would be nothing more than intelligent obstacles. It's hard to think in such terms, because the way we live our lives is inexorably anthropocentric: aside from certain physiological needs like eating and sleeping, almost everything we do is either for the satisfaction of others, or for the satisfaction of ourselves through others. Work, art, love and other abstract gratifications are entirely dependent on human relations. As such, we are what Aristotle called "zoon politikon" (political animal). Most of our needs and desires are centered upon, and thus require, cooperation with other human beings. This ultimately means that one of the most critical abilities for the individual to exercise is to communicate, in order to facilitate human cooperation. We must unavoidably communicate with each other, which can be viewed as both a central characterization of the human being, and also a burden which has to be onerously tolerated.
The difficulty in communication is that an individual person can never perfectly convey the exact idea in his head, to the head of another. This is related to the problem of universals that Plato and his successors have tackled: if one thinks of the species of e.g. 'horse', he invariably thinks of a certain individual horse, with the vague understanding that its primary characteristics are what make its Form or Idea, that apply to every individual in the species. And so, while one can say aloud 'horse' to another individual, and both will vaguely understand the universal idea, both persons invariably will imagine a different horse to represent the universal. (This is to say nothing on the debate on whether universals objectively exist by nature, or are an artificial, subjective means of categorizing common experiences.)
Practically speaking, this is not a desperate hindrance, especially for primitive and simple things; if a horse, any horse, needs to be tamed by the two aforementioned individuals, then whatever minute differences are in their conceptions of the universal of 'horse' are probably irrelevant. But, the impossibility of perfect communication is cause for a psychological crisis in many people, especially for those with contradistinctive thought processes that result in anomalously insufficient aptitude for verbal communication (e.g. people with autism, or personality disorders). Frequently, they take refuge in art, since graphic and aural compositions convey ideas by wholly different means than words. Even so, it can be agonizing to know that whatever specific emotions that one feels will never be completely understood by another. The psychological chasm between two individuals can lead to misunderstandings, and if never properly inculcated, also a complete fragmentation of their relationship. This is obviously undesirable, since human beings must exist contiguously to satisfy our interpersonal needs.
This happening is most clearly observed in the phenomenon of language barrier: for almost every two languages compared, a perfect word-for-word rendition is unachievable. The different words for the same idea have different sounds, rhythm and connotation across languages, so to best convey the same idea in the translation as the original statement, some creativity is necessary to avoid hyper-literalness. But some meaning is always lost because of this; hence the proverb, "every translation is a betrayal."
Language barrier is a magnification of the same problem that exists in all communication, which is that the idea that one has in his mind can never be perfectly implanted into the mind of another. Even if both individuals have the same first language, they have different mental processes resulting in different genetics; and even if both individuals grew up in the same culture, or even the same family, they have also had different perspective life experiences to alter and temper their ideas. On an even smaller level, this problem also applies to the individual. Consider an author who writes short stories. The emotions and opinions that the author had while he wrote the story will not be the same as when the author looks back on his story later. In the future, he is (in a minuscule way) a different person, since his experiences and emotions have grown through time. Even if he has an impeccable memory, the story he wrote before will not have the exact same meaning that it does now.
The other aspect of the problem of communication is that the way human beings perceive the world is subjective. It is commonly understood that our sensory perception is flawed: blurry vision, mishearings, mistaken feelings, etc. Furthermore, short of a divine revelation being implanted in one's mind, the only way for the individual to interact and connect with the outside world is by using the aforementioned flawed sensations. The fact that we seem to be trapped in our minds in this way, which is the central issue of epistemology, has plagued many philosophers throughout history, especially Plato, St. Augustine of Hippo, René Descartes, George Berkeley, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Robert Sokolowski. Some philosophers have also concluded that since there is no way of confirming the existence of anything beyond their own domain of perception, that nothing exists beyond themselves (this is called solipsism). The difficulties of epistemology will not be discussed in this essay, but I hope that it is understood (even in a vague way) how this contributes to the gap of human communication: before an idea is even fully drawn in one's mind, it is created and shaped by inaccurate apparatuses.
Human beings are naturally aware of the complications of exchanging ideas (though perhaps not on the intellectual level as I have described above). We therefore adjust to this as best we can, and live our lives accordingly. Certain advantages are reaped from our anthropic mental separation: since everything that one knows will never be known by another, his unique perspective allows him to tackle certain problems in a way that no other individual can. This is what we call expertise. The existence of the lie, as well, is only possible because one can know the truth but intentionally convey a contradictory idea in order to fool his antagonist. But, the pressing matter of this essay is the fact that art exists to externalize ideas which are otherwise incommunicable. The artist is in one way burdened by knowing that his delights or sufferings will not be perfectly understood by the observer; but is also in one way thrilled in knowing that the observer will interpret the art through his own opinions and emotions, thus "making the art his own".
Art exists because a complete and perfect "common ground" will never be shared by two individual human beings. We cannot know each others' thoughts omnisciently, and so all ideas will be personalized to some degree. Individuals are axiomatically and permanently separated by (1) the differentness of our individuality, and (2) experiential subjectivity. But, art can transmit ideas (albeit imperfectly) through common human emotions. For example, the turmoil that Edvard Munch felt the moments he painted "the Scream" will never be absolutely held by another person, and neither will the loneliness that Frédéric Chopin felt as he composed his second nocturne, but another can view these works and connect to them in his own way. Thus, even though there is imperfect communication between the artist and observer, and even though the feelings the two hold are not identical, they share a non-temporal link to each other's humanity. In this sense, art is loved because it transcends the individual and has meaning beyond that which the artist intends. This is a possible definition for the word "beauty:" an evocation of feeling through something meaningful in a way universal to human beings.
If human beings did not communicate with each other, then to each other, we would be nothing more than intelligent obstacles. It's hard to think in such terms, because the way we live our lives is inexorably anthropocentric: aside from certain physiological needs like eating and sleeping, almost everything we do is either for the satisfaction of others, or for the satisfaction of ourselves through others. Work, art, love and other abstract gratifications are entirely dependent on human relations. As such, we are what Aristotle called "zoon politikon" (political animal). Most of our needs and desires are centered upon, and thus require, cooperation with other human beings. This ultimately means that one of the most critical abilities for the individual to exercise is to communicate, in order to facilitate human cooperation. We must unavoidably communicate with each other, which can be viewed as both a central characterization of the human being, and also a burden which has to be onerously tolerated.
The difficulty in communication is that an individual person can never perfectly convey the exact idea in his head, to the head of another. This is related to the problem of universals that Plato and his successors have tackled: if one thinks of the species of e.g. 'horse', he invariably thinks of a certain individual horse, with the vague understanding that its primary characteristics are what make its Form or Idea, that apply to every individual in the species. And so, while one can say aloud 'horse' to another individual, and both will vaguely understand the universal idea, both persons invariably will imagine a different horse to represent the universal. (This is to say nothing on the debate on whether universals objectively exist by nature, or are an artificial, subjective means of categorizing common experiences.)
Practically speaking, this is not a desperate hindrance, especially for primitive and simple things; if a horse, any horse, needs to be tamed by the two aforementioned individuals, then whatever minute differences are in their conceptions of the universal of 'horse' are probably irrelevant. But, the impossibility of perfect communication is cause for a psychological crisis in many people, especially for those with contradistinctive thought processes that result in anomalously insufficient aptitude for verbal communication (e.g. people with autism, or personality disorders). Frequently, they take refuge in art, since graphic and aural compositions convey ideas by wholly different means than words. Even so, it can be agonizing to know that whatever specific emotions that one feels will never be completely understood by another. The psychological chasm between two individuals can lead to misunderstandings, and if never properly inculcated, also a complete fragmentation of their relationship. This is obviously undesirable, since human beings must exist contiguously to satisfy our interpersonal needs.
This happening is most clearly observed in the phenomenon of language barrier: for almost every two languages compared, a perfect word-for-word rendition is unachievable. The different words for the same idea have different sounds, rhythm and connotation across languages, so to best convey the same idea in the translation as the original statement, some creativity is necessary to avoid hyper-literalness. But some meaning is always lost because of this; hence the proverb, "every translation is a betrayal."
Language barrier is a magnification of the same problem that exists in all communication, which is that the idea that one has in his mind can never be perfectly implanted into the mind of another. Even if both individuals have the same first language, they have different mental processes resulting in different genetics; and even if both individuals grew up in the same culture, or even the same family, they have also had different perspective life experiences to alter and temper their ideas. On an even smaller level, this problem also applies to the individual. Consider an author who writes short stories. The emotions and opinions that the author had while he wrote the story will not be the same as when the author looks back on his story later. In the future, he is (in a minuscule way) a different person, since his experiences and emotions have grown through time. Even if he has an impeccable memory, the story he wrote before will not have the exact same meaning that it does now.
The other aspect of the problem of communication is that the way human beings perceive the world is subjective. It is commonly understood that our sensory perception is flawed: blurry vision, mishearings, mistaken feelings, etc. Furthermore, short of a divine revelation being implanted in one's mind, the only way for the individual to interact and connect with the outside world is by using the aforementioned flawed sensations. The fact that we seem to be trapped in our minds in this way, which is the central issue of epistemology, has plagued many philosophers throughout history, especially Plato, St. Augustine of Hippo, René Descartes, George Berkeley, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Robert Sokolowski. Some philosophers have also concluded that since there is no way of confirming the existence of anything beyond their own domain of perception, that nothing exists beyond themselves (this is called solipsism). The difficulties of epistemology will not be discussed in this essay, but I hope that it is understood (even in a vague way) how this contributes to the gap of human communication: before an idea is even fully drawn in one's mind, it is created and shaped by inaccurate apparatuses.
Human beings are naturally aware of the complications of exchanging ideas (though perhaps not on the intellectual level as I have described above). We therefore adjust to this as best we can, and live our lives accordingly. Certain advantages are reaped from our anthropic mental separation: since everything that one knows will never be known by another, his unique perspective allows him to tackle certain problems in a way that no other individual can. This is what we call expertise. The existence of the lie, as well, is only possible because one can know the truth but intentionally convey a contradictory idea in order to fool his antagonist. But, the pressing matter of this essay is the fact that art exists to externalize ideas which are otherwise incommunicable. The artist is in one way burdened by knowing that his delights or sufferings will not be perfectly understood by the observer; but is also in one way thrilled in knowing that the observer will interpret the art through his own opinions and emotions, thus "making the art his own".
Art exists because a complete and perfect "common ground" will never be shared by two individual human beings. We cannot know each others' thoughts omnisciently, and so all ideas will be personalized to some degree. Individuals are axiomatically and permanently separated by (1) the differentness of our individuality, and (2) experiential subjectivity. But, art can transmit ideas (albeit imperfectly) through common human emotions. For example, the turmoil that Edvard Munch felt the moments he painted "the Scream" will never be absolutely held by another person, and neither will the loneliness that Frédéric Chopin felt as he composed his second nocturne, but another can view these works and connect to them in his own way. Thus, even though there is imperfect communication between the artist and observer, and even though the feelings the two hold are not identical, they share a non-temporal link to each other's humanity. In this sense, art is loved because it transcends the individual and has meaning beyond that which the artist intends. This is a possible definition for the word "beauty:" an evocation of feeling through something meaningful in a way universal to human beings.
