[Fis] Fwd: What is Art?
joe.brenner at bluewin.ch
joe.brenner at bluewin.ch
Sun Feb 8 09:16:13 CET 2026
Dear Laszlo
I would also like to congratulate and thank you for leading a most dynamic debate. I would just like to add, if I may, the following citation from Stéphane Lupasco the Franco-Romanian philosopher and logician whose ideas I have tried to develop in Pedro's group and elsewhere:
Thus, art is neither real nor unreal. Reality is the aspect of antagonistic logical order potentialized and objectified, and unreality is the same actualized and subjectified. This is why, in the esthetic experience, the subject and object tend to overlap, or to disappear as such. A work of art will be most esthetic when most semi-subjective and semi-objective at the same time, least real and unreal or better most semi-real and semi-unreal at once. It is interesting to compare these ideas with the well-known statement, re-said by Orson Welles among others, that art is a lie, but in the service of truth.
Comments welcome, on- or off-line.
Best wishes,
Joseph
> Le 07.02.2026 16:27 CET, Csáji László Koppány <csaji.koppany at gmail.com> a écrit :
>
>
> Dear All FiS Colleagues,
> I started the kick-off text nearly a month ago, and I would like to write some concluding words.
> First of all, it was a great advanture, a challenging travel throughDe time and space together, and
> certainly a great brainstorming oscillating around a question that might never be "answered".
> Is art a human phenomenon? What is art? What is the connection between art and consciousness?
> ...consciousness and emotion? etc. Questions arose as we moved our torch's light towards the
> problematics of life and love itself. The cellular memory and instinctual responses, general
> information theory, animal creativity and creative beauty, the attentional angines and the notion
> of impact were all fundamental contributions where we all got something from this conversation,
> at least I hope so.
> Krassimir Markovs extellent argumentation according to General Information Theory, Kate Kauffmann's
> wonderful AI-generated picture which can be a starting point for visual development, and also the
> thinking on cellular level, the physical sensory stimulus, JohnTorday's several inspiring thoughts
> on the role of Area of Broca and other neuroscientific approaches, Francesco Rizzo's emo-
> rational perspective ("neither faith nor science is mediated by consciousness"), New Economy
> of Existance and Knowledge, Pedro Marijuán's many contributions on love, rationality, and
> the balancing between science and philosophy, such as love and the genesis of art, Mark Willam
> Johnson's and Lou Kauffman's short essays, William Miller's letters on the fundaments, and
> at the core - as Pedro said - both transcendence of art and aesthetics linked to the bottom
> and the top of existence. I could extend the list with Marcus Abundis, Gordana Dodig Crkovic,
> Joe Brenner, Jarry and Daniel, etc, and of course, Paul Sunni's revolutionary thinking that
> was aimed to wake us up. Thank you for all! It was a great time to read all that and I am sure
> I learnt much from you. What do you think, could we develop papers from your contribution
> to a book? I am a head of the Research Institute of Art Theory and Methodology, in
> collaboration with the international network of L'Harmattan Publishing House, we have just
> started a new series titled "Art & Theory". We would gladly host that issue... What is your
> opinion, would you submit your thoughts developped to scholarly papers? Hmmm? ;-)
>
> Best for all, with love,
> Laszlo
>
> Francesco Rizzo <13francesco.rizzo at gmail.com mailto:13francesco.rizzo at gmail.com> ezt írta (időpont: 2026. jan. 22., Cs, 7:20):
>
> > Dear László,
> > emo-rationality and critical-discerning consciousness or super-consciousness serve to: -architect or un-discover the economy of the world or the world of the economy of living beings, humans and animals (at least for now, excluding plants, although they are subjects of phyto-sociology); -conserve-enhance and not pollute the inorganic world; -conceive an economic Theo-human-ology or theo-human-logical economy. God became human so that human beings could become God [Aracne, Rome, 2024].
> > Your “human spark” is a beautiful and valuable invention. Thank you.
> > Francesco.
> > Caro László,
> > emo-ra-zionalità e coscienza o super-coscienza critico-discernente servono a: -architettare o s-coprire l’economia del mondo o il mondo dell’economia degli esseri viventi umani e animali (almeno per ora vegetali esclusi, sebbene siano soggetti di fito-sociologia); conservare-valorizzare e non inquinare il mondo inorganico; -concepire una Teo-umano-logia economica o economia teo-umano-logica. Dio sìè fatto umano affinché l’essere umano possa diventare Dio [Aracne, Roma, 2024].
> > La tua “scintilla umana” è una bella e pregevole invenzione. Grazie.
> > Francesco.
> >
> > Il giorno mer 21 gen 2026 alle ore 01:17 Csáji László Koppány <csaji.koppany at gmail.com mailto:csaji.koppany at gmail.com> ha scritto:
> >
> > >
> > > Dear John, Marcus, Louis, Eric, Mark, and all FiS colleagues,
> > >
> > > We have witnessed excellent argumentations that were both inspiring and thought provking. I am grateful to participate.
> > >
> > > I circulate around an easy question after all these considerations: how the cellars' cognitive functions, self-cognition, and consciousness relate to each other, and how "emotion" as a factor links to them. Theoretically, all living creatures differ from crystals, stones, fluid, or aeriform materials by having a kind of "decision-making"--an ability of "willing" that gives them a "plus".
> > >
> > > Nevertheless, this ability is not an art form; it is just a differentia specifica between living ones and those that exist without a decision-making gift (capability). Art seems to be a step further, which elevates the material environment to a level that could be called "super-consciousness", or something like that. Super-consciousness empowers us not only to shape the world but to imagine it in another way, and create "new realities"--in a way that would not be possible physically.
> > >
> > > This kind of imagination--that exceeds the animals' "rationality" (causability?), creativity, and communicative acts...
> > >
> > > Can we specify--and how can we?--such a "plus" (I called it a "human spark" in my initial paper), or is this evolutionary thesis just a delusion?
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > László
> > >
> > > Mark Johnson <johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com mailto:johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com> ezt írta (időpont: 2026. jan. 19., H, 10:05):
> > >
> > > > Yes! Thank you Joe!
> > > >
> > > > On Mon, 19 Jan 2026 at 08:33, <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch mailto:joe.brenner at bluewin.ch> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Dear John,
> > > > >
> > > > > We have not talked to each other recently, but I follow your work with interest and wanted to applaud the last three lines of your 19.1 note: ... "the 'logic' of the Cosmos. Symbiogenesis is the mechanism by which life has acquired the logic of the Cosmos. In other words there is a continuum from the foundations of the Cosmos to life that is expressed in art."
> > > > >
> > > > > The image it evoked was that of my sculptor father, Michael Brenner, making a bust of me at age 10 in his studio in New York. He danced around his easel in a frenzy (frénésie) , chopping away at the emerging marble head, sweating and grunting. Art comes more easily to many, but I suggest that its becoming is always partly unconscious, an expression of the energetic foundations of existence.
> > > > >
> > > > > Cheers,
> > > > > Joe
> > > > >
> > > > > > ------but ---- Message d'origine ----------
> > > > > > De : JOHN TORDAY <jtorday at ucla.edu mailto:jtorday at ucla.edu>
> > > > > > À : fis <fis at listas.unizar.es mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>
> > > > > > Date : 17.01.2026 22:58 CET
> > > > > > Sujet : [Fis] What is Art?
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Dear FIS, I am of the opinion that art is an expression of consciousness, raising the question Art as to what consciousness is? I fell down this 'rabbit hole' twenty years ago, having performed a series of experiments to understand how and why Parathyroid Hormone-related Protein (PTHrP) is necessary for the formation of alveoli in the lung (Rubin LP, Kovacs CS, De Paepe ME, Tsai SW, Torday JS, Kronenberg HM. Arrested pulmonary alveolar cytodifferentiation and defective surfactant synthesis in mice missing the gene for parathyroid hormone-related protein. Dev Dyn. 2004 Jun;230(2):278-89)? The duplication of the PTHrP Receptor gene during the water-land transition amplified all of the vertebrate physiologic adaptations to land- lungs, kidneys, skeleton, skin- and since PTHrP is a stretch-sensitive gene, I tested the hypothesis that PTHrP mediated the vertebrate adaptation to the force of gravity. If cells are exposed to zero gravity they lose their differentiated phenotypes (i.e. they devolve), and when yeast are exposed to zero gravity they cannot conduct a calcium flux, meaning that they are unconscious. Moreover, human consciousness has been driven by bipedalism (Torday JS. A central theory of biology. Med Hypotheses. 2015 Jul;85(1):49-57), freeing our forelimbs for tool making, including language as a tool, and locomotion. Importantly, both language and locomotion are under control by the FoxP2 gene, so that positive selection pressure for FoxP2 would have coordinately stimulated language and locomotion, expressed through our hands and minds as art of all kinds- literature, painting, sculpture, music- in other words, art is a manifestation of our need to communicate with our environment and with other humans.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Furthermore, all of the above is due to the evolution of homeostatic control of energy due to Symbiogenesis (Sagan, 1967), or the assimilation of factors in the environment that threaten homeostasis, including the elements in the Cosmos, the latter being an exaptation (Gould and Vrba, 1982) of Stellar Nucleosynthesis (Hoyle, 1946), or the serial chemical reaction of hydrogen and helium to form the stars, the elements being their byproducts in the exact order of their atomic masses as thec
> > > > > > Your comments and criticisms are welcomed.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Best, John
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
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> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Dr. Mark William Johnson
> > > > Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health
> > > > University of Manchester
> > > >
> > > > Department of Science Education
> > > > University of Copenhagen
> > > >
> > > > Department of Eye and Vision Science (honorary)
> > > > University of Liverpool
> > > > Phone: 07786 064505
> > > > Email: johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com mailto:johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com
> > > > Blog: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Xz-ZVO6Gl_iNyDTo_38-tLZ8zwhM4G_C9qTwUgBAv76-zgr_vHXM_KEOClczRyZDcXKS87qNfQ8KNF9JknUhs8jPWtE$ https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Sy7jan0S4s1YFJpHuN4D-sV3gAfrxhhzBQF7S5MiBU45idZ4yPypxUsX1z9vO1PzMfnDub5JA9QC0iwpcgYHY1M$
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