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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear All, </div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">The information everyone receives when
inscribing in the list contains three posting rules. </div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">"The FIRST RULE: Maintaining the
academic & scholarly code of conduct; messages not abiding by
it should be ignored."</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">And that's the case of the message
below. Some of the comments are typical style of social networks,
and not of this list.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">So, please, ignore it.</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">--Pedro</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"> </div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">El 31/01/2026 a las 0:17, Paul Suni
escribió:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:B3C04670-3350-49CC-A826-59B641ECE6F8@gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
Dear Katherine, Pedro, Laszlo, Francesco and FIS,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>AI has challenged humanity to grow up and evolve spiritually.
Did any of us get that memo? How about waking up, folks? In my
view, the vector approach to art is regressive in light of AI,
but as it may bring technical people into artistic discourse, it
has value. As an expression of anti-westernism and obvious
careerism I loathe Laszlo’s work, as I imagine that Hannah
Arendt might have done too, and no doubt Ayn Rand would have
done - unless they would have regarded it as Wolfgang Pauli
might have done - as “ not even wrong.” </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I find it vacuous, contrived and subversive, but it has a
wonderful list of references by familiar Western thinkers, which
shows that Laszlo has good scientific taste. Nevertheless,
playing with vectors is always fun. AI is made up of vectors and
nothing but vectors - trillions of them. I can see how academics
without a mathematical background might be excted. Someone
should send Laszlo’s paper to the French Revolutionary
Communist, Alan Badiou. He gets a lot of social credits among
his French collectivist comrades by noodling on elementary math,
in vacuous ways.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thank you Kate for refreshing my memory about Hannah Arendt
and Ayn Rand - two intellectual giants whom I love a lot. They
thought radically for themselves and let their inner light shine
on the world. They were 100% about authentic wellbeing, in my
view. Also, it is worth mentioning that they expressed
themselves throroughly in a gender climate that oppressed women.
Now, that the gender tables have been entirely turned thanks to
Feminism, and my race and gender are on the shit list of the
Global University, I admire them even more. I am certain that
Arendt and Rand would not admire Feminism in its contemporary,
Bolshevik form.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Francesco, I am delighted that you remind me of my capacity
for religious ecstacy. When I disconnect from FIS - my last
attempt at social intellectual engagement, then I imagine that I
will return to a more blissful plane. To me, the social domain
represents the domain of evil. What Hannah Arendt called the “
Banality of Evil” is too palpable in my mode of social cognition
here and everywhere. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Pedro, I don’t think that a proper vectorial correlate
between art and the interior can be found. Actually, I think
that art and AI share the basic information theoretic
mechanisms. Perhaps I’ll elaborate some day. The trick is to
find in generative AI what represents the interior and what
represents the exterior, and how the dynamic betwen them unfolds
in AI. That is, in my view, the trick. to making progress
concerning the problem you posed. However at the moment, I
cannot bring myslef to continue participating in this question,
because my revulsion of Laszlo’s work is so profound that it
makes me feel ill, physically.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Cheers,</div>
<div>Paul</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfMessage">
<div><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On Jan 29, 2026, at 8:40 AM, Katherine Peil
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ktpeil@outlook.com"><ktpeil@outlook.com></a> wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr"
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">
<div dir="ltr"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hi Paul, et
al,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Y</span><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">our points
are well taken and echo the lovely Hannah Arendt,
with a touch of Ayn Rand as well. </span><span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">And
you have put your thumb on the deeper meaning and
function of the painful category of emotional
experience - the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>True
South</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of </font><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>“</b></font><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3"><b>self-preservation”</b>.
Basic feelings of fear, disgust, sadness and anger -
and their fight and flight responses - are our
hardwired safeguard against social manipulation and
domination of the individual within any collective.
These “violations” are simply our social hacking of
the reward~punishment aspect of Pavlovian learning,
and applying third<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">party control
through social bribes and threats. This has been
one of humanities greatest failures in not
understanding the “self-regulatory” nature of
emotional signals, as well as
how biology defines “self-identity”.</span></font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font><font size="3"><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, the
deep, abstract, structure of identity is</span><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>both</b></span><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>an
autonomous whole (an embodied individual </span></font><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">navigating</span><font
size="3"><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in its
local </span></font></font><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">environment),
and a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">part<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>of a
greater collective whole - all the way down to the
electron in an atom (if not entangled “particles” in
the quantum domain). For example, the
"external” valence electrons<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">function as
the connective bonding within an atom as a whole,
while the behavior of electrons within “inside”
shells, are parts of that greater whole. So the
electron - a fundamental particle - is Both a part
and a Whole.</span></font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font size="3"><font
face="Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"
size="3"
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This same
Part~Whole identity structure is mediated all
the way up the evolutionary ladder, evidenced in
the self/not-self identity distinctions in </span></font><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">cellular</span></font><font
size="3"><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></font><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">differentiation</span><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font
face="Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, genetic,
epigenetic and immune regulation. (If the </span></font><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">individual</span><font
face="Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> loses sight
of its collective identity, for<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">example,
cancer results.)</span></font></font></font></font></div>
<div dir="ltr"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr"><font size="3"><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Fast-forward
to human psychiatry and the role of emotion in
mediating “identity”, Daniel Seigel offers the
term “MWE” to capture this dual identity
structure. (Martin Buber addressed this as I and
THOU.) It is the task of every
sentient individual to mediate an<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>optimal
balance</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>between
both autonomous and collective aspects of
identity, and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">subordinate
one over the other is a mistake. (The East tends
to subordinate autonomy while West subordinates
collectivity, as do the extreme Right and Left
of US politics.)</span></font></font></div>
<div dir="ltr"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font
size="3"><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br>
</font></font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font><font><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">But
as Francesco,</span><font
face="Times New Roman, serif"> </font><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"
size="3">Pedro - and all the major </font></font><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">religious</span><font
size="3"
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"> traditions
- suggest, our<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>True
North<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>toward
cultivating the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>complex
positive emotional</b><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>experiences
(<b>“LOVE”</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>as
God, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness,
humility, etc….the divine Fruits of Spirit), speak
to our innate desire for relational bonds in
ever-larger collectives. They are </font></font><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">about
our "self-<span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">developmental"
and collective, cooperative, and co-creative
capacities.</span></font></div>
<div dir="ltr"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr"><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">This misunderstanding of
the dual nature of identity, together with the
equally biophysically false </font><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">dichotomies</font><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3"> of
Good and Evil, and Us versus Them; are a major
culturally constructed source of our most
self-destructive behavior as a species. (Recall “The
Fall” in Genesis, was about eating the fruit from
the forbidden Tree of<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Knowledge
of Good and Evil,<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>which
I interpret biophsyically as our own creation of our
own misguided value system - separating us from
those of our innate emotional sentience.)</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3"><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br>
</span></font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span
style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank you all
for thinking about emotion, and I </span></font><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">encourage
you to likewise think about identity as “form”, and
your personal experiences of navigating
the ‘in-formative” relational boundary between self
and other, how both emotional resonance and
dissonance play out in attaining optimal balance.</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">With
all best wishes for optimal health and authentic
happiness,</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">Kate
Kauffman</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3"><br>
</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font
face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">PS<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span
style="font-size: medium; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important;">Krassimir,</span> I
took your on-line test - very cool! I got a low
score of 2/8. Did I blow it? Or is this a measure of
how language devoid of semantic emotional tone
fails?<span
style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: medium; text-decoration: none; display: inline !important;"></span></font></div>
<div dir="ltr"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr"
style="font-family: Aptos, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br>
</div>
<div id="">
<div
class="ms-outlook-mobile-reference-message skipProofing"><span>
<div>On 1/28/26, 12:48 PM, "Fis" <<a
href="mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es</a>>
wrote: Katherine Peil Kauffman</div>
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Today's Topics:<br>
<br>
1. Re: Fwd: What is Art? The Missing Link
(Paul Suni)<br>
<br>
<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
Message: 1<br>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2026 11:47:12 -0800<br>
From: Paul Suni <<a
href="mailto:paul.p.suni@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">paul.p.suni@gmail.com</a>><br>
To: Pedro C. Mariju?n <<a
href="mailto:pedroc.marijuan@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">pedroc.marijuan@gmail.com</a>><br>
Cc:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a
href="mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">fis@listas.unizar.es</a><br>
Subject: Re: [Fis] Fwd: What is Art? The
Missing Link<br>
Message-ID:<br>
<<a
href="mailto:CAKTT-2ibZhX0gyzjxAw+FWwTjQELfc2zHBmmFMHMWY4PuJ=ksA@mail.gmail.com"
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"<br>
<br>
Dear Pedro,<br>
<br>
You bring up crucially important points
about art as embodying shared<br>
aesthetic forms (Clynes); art as nourishment
(extra-trophic), and the<br>
taking in and metabolization of aesthetic
nutrients as a matter of<br>
biological capability - not all aesthetic
nutrients can be absorbed by all<br>
organisms. Among humans there is selectivity
based on capability and taste<br>
(or the lack of taste), which occurs on a
spectrum from high art (extreme<br>
art) to unexceptional mass productions of
demi/pseudo art. You end your<br>
commentary appropriately noting that such
nourishment may be essential for<br>
social wellbeing. I agree that wellbeing,
art and love belong intimately<br>
together, as you emphasize. I think what you
are trying to say is<br>
provocative and very valuable, but let me
nitpick on that a bit, if I may.<br>
<br>
As a student of wellbeing, I hold it as
self-evident that the individual is<br>
the primal unit of wellbeing, and I have yet
to make the cognitive leap<br>
from individual wellbeing to social
wellbeing, but I imagine that your<br>
reference to social wellbeing is actually to
the social context within<br>
which individual wellbeing is potentially
realized, rather than the<br>
experience of wellbeing itself. That would
keep us on the same page. You<br>
see, my prejudiced view of *social*
wellbeing is that it is a particular<br>
kind of discourse, a technology of
persuasion and oftentimes a coercive<br>
language game, whose primary function in
groups is putting people in their<br>
place and teaching them lessons -
socialization, in other words: For<br>
example, " if Paul does not agree with this
academic committee's notion of<br>
wellbeing, Paul should not be regarded as
one of us. Paul must produce and<br>
accept the kinds of aesthetic nutrients that
this committee approves. We<br>
are one."<br>
<br>
Above all, the collective cannot experience
any particular aesthetic form<br>
on an individual's behalf. Socialization
makes collectives happy, by fiat.<br>
You see, there is that which the
self-identified communist New York Mayor<br>
Zohran Mamdani calls, " The warmth of
collectivism." That warmth is<br>
probably an expansive, love-like feeling
inside Mamdani, which may be<br>
catalyzed by visions of happy masses singing
the praises of the collective,<br>
where everyone is of academically endorsed
race, gender and moral<br>
sentiments.<br>
<br>
Love ostensibly begins in neoteny, and
expands into the social domain,<br>
where it can be harnessed as a persuasive
technology for political,<br>
religious or simply sadistic purposes.
Mamdani's idea of the warmth of<br>
collectivism brings to my mind Hitler's
ovens at Auschwitz and the hell<br>
that Mao's cultural revolution put Chinese
intellectuals through. I am also<br>
reminded of the unspeakable plight of
artists and composers in the Soviet<br>
Union, not to speak of the countless
exploitative love cults throughout<br>
history.<br>
<br>
Nevertheless, love is the perfect correlate
of art, in a fundamental sense.<br>
Although art does occur in contractive and
hateful contexts such as the<br>
exuberant manufacture of brutal postmodern
ugliness in universities, I<br>
choose to regard that kind of academically
inspired art as inauthentic - as<br>
art in name only. There is no wellbeing in
it. The most productive<br>
conversations about art that I can imagine
involve the notion of art as<br>
expanding individual potentials and
accumulating surpluses of rich and<br>
fulfilling personal experiences - spiritual
wealth.<br>
<br>
Having said that, we must ask what is human
potential and what makes an<br>
experience rich and fulfilling? I have much
to say about that, but I've<br>
said enough. Science might quickly retort,
as a reflex, that what makes an<br>
experience rich and fulfilling is natural
selection. Academic literature is<br>
replete with rather infantile mannerisms on
how to deflect the conversation<br>
from the personal interior to impersonal
explanations. It is the<br>
quintessential mark of academia to silence
and cancel interiors -<br>
especially of " the right people."<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Paul<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
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</blockquote>
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</blockquote>
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