Wednesday, November 11, 2009

PoMo Rant

I've recently been reminded of an interview that was, sad to say, in one of my art history books. One of the crazy things said in it was that the London fog didn't exist until someone decided to paint it. Cue facepalm.

Now, I'm not sure he meant it literally, but he did seem to think that no one really experienced it until it was painted, as if no one took a moment to admire the landscape on a foggy day before then. I find it alarmingly common among PoMos to think that some form of human experience or expression is sacrosanct. I also find it enormously silly when some of these sorts lash out against a new medium, like digital art. Hell, there were some who complained about store bought paints because "real" artists made their own. New media may require different approaches, but there's nothing inherently wrong or shallower about them. It's perfectly possible for some artsy type to make a video game that's on par with the classics.

Of course, I have to drift this subject into how science is done. Science strives to remove the subjectivity of the human element. A thermometer makes a certain reading, and unless you buy into PoMo epistemology, that reading will be the same for anyone. Put simply, it doesn't matter who uses the thermometer, it only matters how they use it and how they handle the data. Done with enough double checking against experimenters accidentally or intentionally biasing the instrument, you will get a more accurate result with thermometers than you will without them.

Being able to quantify such things rubs many PoMos the wrong way. A lake measured at a certain temperature may feel very different depending on who's getting in when. On a hot day, the relatively cool water may feel refreshing. For someone experiencing hypothermia after being locked in a fridge, the water may feel warm. Either way, it's X degrees, and the human aspect changes the subjective experience. Knowing what the temperature is will tell us how different people may experience it, as well as things like what chemists can do with it. Sometimes I wonder if PoMos try to pad their schedule by making sure there's always more to gibber about.

7 comments:

Dark Jaguar said...

One thing I read often with post modernist types is the idea that "relativity" somehow means that everything is completely subjective. However, that's just a misunderstanding.

While it is true that things like speed depend entirely on one's position and momentum, it is not at all true that this therefor makes speed entirely subjective. Given someone's current location and momentum, there is a single absolute observation of the speed of their surroundings to take from that. A person standing by the side of the road may say the car is moving, and a person in a car may say the ground is moving, and both would be correct, but two people standing side by side can't disagree on the speed of the car relative to them. They may make the argument that both are travelling, but they would have to balance the equation so to speak so that the math works out, say instead of saying the car is travelling 50 MPH, they COULD say that the car is travelling 25 MPH, but they would also have to say they are moving 25 MPH for the math to work and for the observation to actually be correct.

I too find that some arty types make much adu about this or that form of artistic expression. Heck I myself love video games more than most types of art, but I understand that it doesn't mean that it's a more "spiritual" medium that "speaks" to us any more than any other type of medium. Music lovers in particular will make some passing mention of painting, but then quickly say something assinine like "but music is the only medium that truly speaks to the soul of the listener, that crosses generations and TRULY expresses something on a primal level". Some painters might argue the same thing for THEIR medium, but musicians seem to make this argument more than most others from my limited experience. Really they don't seem to base that off of much of anything, it's just their assertion based on personal favoritism. It's all well and good to personally love one art form above another, but don't claim your art is the only "true" or "high" art, just accept it as a personal preference.

Valhar2000 said...

Actually, Dark Jaguar, there is nothing subjective about relativity. It postulates certain things about how parts of the physical universe work, and how they ineract with each other, and offers a mathematicla framework to logically deduce the consequences of those postulates. All the talk about "observers" is just shorthand to make it easier to explain what is being done when they theory is applied.

Much like in QM, the identity, thoughts, feelings, humanity and even life of the "observer" are entirely irrelevant to the theory and its results.

So, most people who wax philosophical about what Relativyt and QM have to say about the human condition are basing parge parts of their worldview on misunderstanding a single word. Sad, really.

Dark Jaguar said...

That's pretty much what I was saying.

Valhar2000 said...

Really? Oh, well, never mind then...

Dark Jaguar said...

Yeah I thought I'd said that I don't consider relativity to say reality is "all just subjective" at all. I'll have to rephrase that in the future to get my point across clearer.

Bronze Dog said...

I feel the need to link to this comic.

Valhar2000 said...

Are you accusing me of PMSing?