I had lunch yesterday with Christopher Hitchens. Well, my dining partner claimed to be C.H. but of course, nobody knows what the tireless, publicity-shy essayist looks or sounds like.
So I said to him, "Chris, I get the Got is Not Great thing of yours and agree with some of it, but riddle me this: If God is an illusion, why is there so much great religious music -- Bach's B minor Mass, Mozart's C minor Mass and any number of other pieces, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Allegri's Miserere, Schubert's Masses, etc., etc., etc.?
Now, don't say these composers were just on retainer and wrote the pieces on commission. That may be true, and obviously these people were geniuses, but surely it was more than genius and money that inspired and informed their work, am I right, my fellow American (welcome aboard, by the way)? Or were the composers just summoning up the feelings, like so many musical method actors?
But alas, answer came there none. No doubt, one would have come if the lunch had actually happened, but I just wonder what it might have been.
Bravo, John!
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't make much sense. Just because something is beautiful or incredibly skillful doesn't meant there has to be god behind it, even if the artist is creating the work "for god." Basically what you're saying is that we as people can never do anything wonderful on our own......... I wonder, then, why should we even try?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, it makes lots of sense. John is presumably not referring to the music simply being beautiful or skilful but that the music is infused with a meaning that is religious- a kind of absolute of truth and significance of life/ infinite depths of meaning, love etc. The mind can create imaginary physical realities that do not refer to reality but it cannot create imaginary emotional worlds...& the mind states that are the source(in the composer) & the destination( in the perceiver) in something like Bach's Matthews Passion are inherently worlds of absolute truth. There is no wish fulfilment here...the greatest of this music is inseparable from this religious state of being
ReplyDeleteHi John,
ReplyDeleteWithin your argument, however, is a problem. One of the ways to prove to children around Christmastime, that Santa Claus really exists, is to note that songs have been written and are being sung everywhere about him.
However, you point to an interesting phenomenon, part of the mass, the part of religious services enacted to bring congregations of everyday people together into mystic experiences, or trancendence.
Here is a quote from the recent Washington Post article On Faith: Christopher Dickey: The Power of Poetry:
We easily associate music with worship, thinking we mean the power of melodies and rhythms sung by choirs and congregations. But the original music of the great faiths is in the words of the holy books and of the prayers. And that is vital, because, as most of us understand, you don't really "explain" music, you feel it, and the experience of great music is transcendent.
I refer to that transcendence, the mystic, the truly religious, something the Santa Claus songs don't bring.
Yours,
Rus
I think you came to the same conclusion, Rus, but Santa Claus would come under the imaginary physical reality that the mind can create. The mind cannot, however, create psychological realities beyond itself, and music at its exalted transcendent best isn't 'about' anything...it is sufficient unto itself, or its own proof of what it refers to.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteThe Santa Claus point I gave above, was that an aspect of John's argument could be made about a made-up character, or what you call an imaginary creation. So, how can there be a "but" in the first sentence of your response?
A problem with philosophy in the last hundred years, is that it stopped having arguments against philosophies, and began to simply develop newer ones--and then use those newer formations as if they argue against the older philosophies, when indeed no such argument has taken place. Thus we have the pickle we're in with evolutionists being so convinced of evolution, that they see no other possible models.
You assert "The mind cannot, however, create psychological realities beyond itself . . ." This idea comes out of solipsism the way you state it, a philosophy that cannot be argued against, the idea that nothing else exists beside one human mind, yours. If solipsim is true, it follows through proof that "the mind cannot . . . create psychological realities beyond itself," because there is nothing else beyond it.
However, if there are external referents, and in this case, if religious music refers to anything else beyond that mind, then it is also possible that the mind can be expanded or augmented. I refer here to the mind itself, not the consciousness, which of course it follows, may even necessarily expand if the mind does. In other words, the psychological mind can grow into realities beyond itself.
This cannot apply if solipsism is true, because there is nothing at all beyond the one mind, nothing for the music can refer to.
Yours,
Rus
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ReplyDeleteGreat post, John. You and Eliz. are doing a fantastic job in Frank's absence.
ReplyDeleteYour wit distinguishes you, JB.
In admiration, I am,
Your Inky Colleague
Well, Rus, I suppose your mention of Santa Claus was appropriate as I see that John was talking about God as an other to which the music was referring. And here Anon's point was probably a valid one. I don't see where solipsism comes into the equation, however. My point is that the inherent reality of the music isn't referring to an outside force of absolute truth, but is itself of this an emanation of this truth. It is itself this spiritual state of being, not pointing towards it.
ReplyDeleteWhen we separate mind & consciousness then I think we are abstracting ourselves into doubtful & dangerous realms where reality is becoming split into imagined states of division & if pushed to its logical conclusion- schizophrenic. Where is this mind that is separate from consciousness?
One's sense of self can be expanded but saying mind cannot create imaginary psychological states or states of being is because if the mind can experience such a state, then this is reality, not imaginary. And so the inherently religious nature of Matthew's Passion as a mind-experience is a reality; any experience of the mind being real. If I experience a bereavement of a loved one, the resulting mind-states may be different from anything experienced previously, but these states are inherently real, not imaginary. And that is what I mean by mind cannot create a state beyond itself as these states must be of this very mind. Otherwise they could not be experienced. The mind cannot imagine an emotional or psychological experience that isn't real.
Hi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteMy point was that you are asserting philosophy where it is not needed--not needed as applied to the trancendent experience of religious music. The way you assert it, is dogmatic, and when the dogma is applied, it takes away from the point made.
Here is your dogmatic point: "the mind cannot . . . create psychological realities beyond itself". This is not necessarily true as I showed. However, it is necessarily true if solipsism is true. This is why I brought the solipist model in, so that the point could be comprehended, so to be seen where it applies and where it cannot, specifically where it would be fallacy in models outside solipsism.
Outside that model is the possibility that the mind can grow, regardless of your new assertion that "mind cannot create a state beyond itself as these states must be of this very mind". It is possible that the mind can grow to new states. And if so, it must be able to grow to psychological realities beyond where it is currently. It is altogether possible that there are realities outside an individual's mind that the individual will be able to perceive in time, the learning that the mind does. It is also possible that there are realities outside the mind of current humankind altogether.
Now, to respond to me, you bring in more dogma--which is fine for you to believe. You may believe anything you like, and I will not try to make you believe otherwise. In fact I love varied belief systems and the people who have them. But in doing so, you detract and distract from the point made about the trancendence of religious music.
It may be true that the mind and its consciousness are the same, which if asserted as absolute, though, is asserted as dogma. But, some are not ready to throw out all of Jung and Freud on such a dogmatic assertion, and I still love contemplating Assagioli. The problem here, is that there has been no basis yet to throw out all the psychodynamic and analytical psychologies--to the degree that we all agree there is no unconscious.
For instance. Let me assert that I am happy right now. Someone might ask me, however, if I have truly worked through all the issues from some of the terrible experiences I have had in the past--am I not harboring depressed feelings? Maybe so. Maybe my mind is damaged in this way, even though my conscious mind seems happy. Sometimes people do this, they say they are happy, and we respond: "Well, you don't sound happy." This is not schizophrenia as such, but it falls into that common-use category as you use the term.
Instead of feelings, though, let's look at thought. My consciousness has been flagged that there very well may be significant problems with your assertions. It calls upon my mind to formulate these words I am writing to you. I am consciously writing them down now. However, some of the ideas seem to be coming from an unconscious area of my mind, versus this conscious area. It is from my mind, as we refer to this phenomenon and possible entity, that my consciousness is drawing words and ideas. Not being physical, but being made up of "mind", it cannot be placed such that I can tell you where it is. I can only point to it as I just have.
Yours,
Rus