Theos-Talk Archives (June 1994 Message tl00021)

  Hello Keith, I found yours introduction of the synthesis
of science, philosophy, religion and art very interesting.
Last winter I did a seminar paper on the subject: "Abstract
Idea in Architecture". In that work I tried to define what
is the essence of architecture.  I also tried to form a
synthesis of all artistic creation, and defined some
relations between art and culture, religion and science.
This is a long story but I try to come to the point as
quickly as possible...

  First I want to introduce a theory of  "subjective world
view", this is a key to understand my approach to the art.
I call this "subjective"- because it refers to how we
comprehend the world in relation to ourselves.

  When we look at the world and ourselves, we see that
there is the outer world and the inner world of our
thoughts and feelings. So we get two levels:

  1. Physical world.
  2. Mental, subjective world.

  The mind's level is the most important, because we feel
that our 'self' resides there and all our understanding,
thinking and feeling is experienced there. This level is
subjective, because we cannot directly feel and know what
the others think and feel.

  When we look further, we  realise that there is a third
level, that is immaterial but yet objective. We can call
this world 'objective' or 'the world of Ideas'. The meaning
of this level is, that there are certain things that have
existence with or without our personal thinking and
feeling, things which are immaterial and free of change.
These entities can be called ideas. An easy example of
these kind of existence is mathematics, we don't make up
mathematics, we discover it laws, and everybody can, and
have to end to same conclusions. Also many logical
structures belongs there, for example the idea of symmetry.
The idea of symmetry can be said to exist even there is not
any manifestation of it at the physical level...

  So we get,

  3. Objective world of ideas.
  2. Subjective world of mind.
  1. Physical world.

  The third level is most difficult to comprehend, we
can't directly look at it, but by correct thinking and by
intuition we can have some experience of it. When we
further examine the Objective world we can say that some
ideas are definite, so that they can be described in words
and by formulas, but some ideas cannot. These objective
ideas that cannot be described by words I call "abstract
ideas".  So we can divide the objective world to two
levels: abstract (or without- form) and concrete (or with-
form). Here I find some correlation to the mental planes of
theosophy, ruupa- and aruupa.

  Also we have a correlation:

  1. Physical    -        Matter
  2. Subjective  -        Soul
  3. Objective   -        Spirit

  This somewhat long definition is essential, because,
according to my opinion, the  art can refer to all these
levels. The first level art is called imitative art (Greek,
mimesis).  The second level art invokes feelings and
thoughts, fine example of this kind of art is popular-, and
folk-music. The third level art points to the logical
structures and to abstract ideas. At the same object of art
all these layers can work together.

  The abstract essence of art is just one projection of a
certain abstract, 3rd level idea.  From one idea there may
be countless projections and manifestations at the physical
level; the same idea can be manifested by music, sculpture,
dance, painting, architecture...

  Also words have different meanings according to these
levels, good, bad, truth, etc. have different meanings
according to which levels they are used with. Word
"morality", is only valid when we have its objective
meaning.

  "Creativity" or "creative" is, by my opinion, synonym to
"being awake" and anonym to "mechanical". Before you can be
creative, you must act un-mechanically, and to act un-
mechanically you must be awake. If we are not awake, we
just live by conventions and by conventional thinking,
never ever even noticing it.

  Peace to all creatures.

  Aki.