.. title: Levels of Existence
.. slug: levels-of-existence
.. date: 2012/05/21 12:47
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.. updated: 2012/05/21 12:47
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This sign (the one on the left) is on the Education Council of the place where I live.

.. figure:: https://p.twimg.com/AtHgnGhCMAAmsuf.jpg:small
   :target: https://p.twimg.com/AtHgnGhCMAAmsuf.jpg:large

   Click to enlarge.

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   There is, really, no such thing as art. There are only artists.

   -- Gombrich

When I first read it I was shocked by the sheer stupidity of the thing, but hey, let's 
think it over a bit. I suppose that saying someone is an artist, meaning a person that
creates art, and at the same time claim that art, as such, does not exist, sounded like
a good idea at the time. It's the kind of counter-intuitive slogan that makes people say
"oh, deep, dude" between bong hits.

It's deeply stupid literally, in that it would, of course, make artists people who create
something that doesn't exist, which puts them at the level of aspiring unicorn wranglers and
theologists in the futility of their chosen profession. But in a way, it *is* true. Because
"art" is not a thing, it has no material existence, although it has many examples.

So, pieces of art exist, but art as a whole doesn't. Art would be the platonic idea from
which sculptures, paintings and novels are but a reflection. Which is a metric ton of bullshit
but is at least somewhat defensible. And of course whether something is art or not is
completely subjective, so art is like a club where objects enter or not based on opinion,
and that club exists only in each person's head.

But in any case, that doesn't make it not existing, just because something only exists in
your head that doesn't mean it doesn't *exist*. It means it exists in your head, no matter
how silly that sounds. So, art does exist, in the same way that imagination exists, or
memories exist, or thought exists. Which again goes to show Gombrich was just crafting
a silly slogan.

So, we have established that existence is not exactly a black and white thing, because there
is at least material existence, and things that don't exist materially? Wrong, because your
brain processes are material too. Thought, imagination, and art, all exist materially, in
your brain. We just don't have the instruments to measure them, or report on them, except
via that unreliable thing called people who just will not shut up about all those things
they perceive in their brains. So, art exists, materially.

I know that may sound slightly strange, but what *doesn't* exist? Do the dragons of Pern
exist? Yes, they exist, you can buy "The Dragons of Pern" in Amazon. And yes, specific
dragons exist as well, because if they did not, how could we know they are carnivorous,
oviparous and warm-blooded? Sure, they don't exist materially in the form of dragons,
but I know that because I *remember* them. How could I remember something that doesn't
exist? I remember them because I read about them. I have a memory of their description.
There is a description o Pernese dragons as written by Anne McCaffrey, and that's not
as good as actual, touchable, warm dragons, but it's the next best thing.

If I mention pink elephants, I am bringing them into existence, not as elephants, but
as a description of an elephant, pink. It's an attenuated existence, but is the same
one Japan has for me, who have never been there and must make do with notoriously
unreliable testimony about their exotic temples, bizarre habits and enormous fire-breathing
atomic lizards.

Obviously this is not what people mean, in daily usage, when they say existence, since
it would include things people are happy to say *do not* exist, like Pernese dragons,
pink elephants and Gojira. So, in a twisted way, maybe Gombrich is right. Except of 
course that existence is not a democratic decision. So maybe just people are wrong
to say Gojira doesn't exist.

Or maybe existence is not a useful property for things. Maybe what we should use is
reality. Because while Gojira exists, he is not real, in the sense that his material
form is not that of a huge Tokio-stomping man in a rubber suit. Even though there used
to be a guy, dressed on a rubber suit, stomping on a "Tokio", but I digress.

So, art is not real, maybe? Well, no, because noone is claiming art has a physical nature
distinct from that representation it has in our heads. Noone claims art is yellow, smaller
than a teapot, and covered in purple hair. Art is an abstract concept. And abstract concepts
exist.

So Gombrich was full of shit.