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What is our humanity made of?
Project: Polytopia
Project: Polytopia
In prefacing this question, I thought of beginning with a kind of disclaimer, stating that everything that follows is described from a layperson perspective and terms. However, when I considered this same disclaimer, I came to the understanding that posing the question and grappling with it (or taking pleasure in it), is the domain of every person.
In this sense, there is no layperson, or perhaps better stated, the layperson perspective is in no way diminished in accessibility and responsibility in coming to play on the field most intimate to us. For ‘What is our humanity made of’ is an arena in which our very open nature performs the most fundamental act of reflection. In that we are true to ourselves and in that we measure and match our unique syntax of reflection.
Of course there are many learned and distinct takes on the question what it means to be human. I have recently watched a video from World Science Festival 2008 titled What it Means to be Human, where a panel of leading scientists and thinkers present a compelling discussion on just that question. And there are many angles through which this question is approached and some excellent arguments have been accumulated in years and years of debate, reflection and representation through art, research and philosophy, tackling the territory of being human.
My title question was formed while watching another video: “Golan Levin makes art that looks back at you” . There was a particular moment for me, while watching an image of one of the works by Golan Levin in which a giant tapeworm like flexible pipe, with an eye like form at its end is lodged on top of a building. As the name of Mr. Levin’s presentation suggests, the experience I had, while watching this constellation was indeed of being watched. Reflecting on that experience, I asked myself what in this image forms in me the impression of being watched? And further, how is it that a piece of pipe with a crude similitude of an eye, is impressing me in a manner that attributes the image something very near intelligence. Now, I realize there is a leap here, and I am aware (or assume in an aware fashion) that what I look at isn’t meeting any of the standard norms of possessing intelligence. Yet, what caught my interest is that it takes very little for something to be associated in my mind with (a) living form and (b) endowed with some form of intelligence.
In my education I was taught that as humans we tend to personify forms. We easily accept cartoon images as representations of human beings, we have the abstract capacity to see a human being in the most simple drawing of a stick person. But what is it, I asked myself that renders these forms so not NOT like us?
The thought I wish to pursue in this context is that our humanity is made of meaning.
Not only do we have in us the innate capacity to endow meaning, that is to make something meaningful, but we have it in us to grant a ‘something’ the status of having meaning in itself. In that, we have a fantastic ability to create an interest that exceeds in a way our immediate investment (of meaning).
Rather than attributing this tendency of granting this special status (having meaning in itself), so readily available to us, to some childish, naïve property, I view it as an advanced feature of our mindset and a great advantage.
If that is the case, even given the ultimate subjectivity of this, our capacity, what is the advantage we derive of it?
It seems at face value that the ability to grant something a status of having meaning in itself is populating our lives with lot’s more, in fact, infinitely more ‘interest objects’ then the world of both physical objects and abstract objects that we can conceive of, have. In other words, this trait breaks through any confines of finite nature. In yet other words, this ability of ours reflects on an open ended nature involved in the reflective nature of our mind.
In one of the memorable scenes of “Cast Away”, the character played by Tom Hanks develops an intricate relationship with Wilson, the volleyball accidentally stained by his bloodied palm print. Perhaps his most sane act in the circumstances.
Whether in times of great peril, or in our most daily circumstances, we engage, it seems, in an activity that allows us generation of meaning in an interactive manner, which brings into our limited resources existence a reality that is infinite.
Not only that, but, it is in this infinity that our humanness thrives.
In a most direct fashion, it thrives in the aspect of feeling the full expanse of emotions we are capable of, when we accompany Wall-E on his arduous journey, as we would any flash and blood representation of one of ‘our kind’. And so perhaps, Wall-E, and Wilson are one of our kind – the kind made of meaning;
It thrives in its very openness which is manifested in impressionability or susceptibility to meaning;
It thrives in coming to realize that we are never alone, and there is no limit to the extent we reach by our very reflective nature;
It thrives in the fact that we cannot be afraid of anything, on the basis of being different than ourselves, since ourselves are a dynamic interactive meaning generators.
The more we increase our capabilities via applications of technology and acceptance of our virtual life, the closer we come into unmediated touch with the reality of the vast expanse in which our humanness thrives while cracking historical boundaries.
Taking a farther leap with my initial thought, I find that in staring back at myself, as Golan Levin’s eye-snout does, I come into close vicinity of such concepts as love, infinity and being of kind, with no great effort.
The stuff our humanity is made of, whether it is dubbed meaning, interest, intelligence or love, is an interactive substance. Perhaps that is beyond all learned explanations, what it means to be human.
In this sense, there is no layperson, or perhaps better stated, the layperson perspective is in no way diminished in accessibility and responsibility in coming to play on the field most intimate to us. For ‘What is our humanity made of’ is an arena in which our very open nature performs the most fundamental act of reflection. In that we are true to ourselves and in that we measure and match our unique syntax of reflection.
Of course there are many learned and distinct takes on the question what it means to be human. I have recently watched a video from World Science Festival 2008 titled What it Means to be Human, where a panel of leading scientists and thinkers present a compelling discussion on just that question. And there are many angles through which this question is approached and some excellent arguments have been accumulated in years and years of debate, reflection and representation through art, research and philosophy, tackling the territory of being human.
My title question was formed while watching another video: “Golan Levin makes art that looks back at you” . There was a particular moment for me, while watching an image of one of the works by Golan Levin in which a giant tapeworm like flexible pipe, with an eye like form at its end is lodged on top of a building. As the name of Mr. Levin’s presentation suggests, the experience I had, while watching this constellation was indeed of being watched. Reflecting on that experience, I asked myself what in this image forms in me the impression of being watched? And further, how is it that a piece of pipe with a crude similitude of an eye, is impressing me in a manner that attributes the image something very near intelligence. Now, I realize there is a leap here, and I am aware (or assume in an aware fashion) that what I look at isn’t meeting any of the standard norms of possessing intelligence. Yet, what caught my interest is that it takes very little for something to be associated in my mind with (a) living form and (b) endowed with some form of intelligence.
In my education I was taught that as humans we tend to personify forms. We easily accept cartoon images as representations of human beings, we have the abstract capacity to see a human being in the most simple drawing of a stick person. But what is it, I asked myself that renders these forms so not NOT like us?
The thought I wish to pursue in this context is that our humanity is made of meaning.
Not only do we have in us the innate capacity to endow meaning, that is to make something meaningful, but we have it in us to grant a ‘something’ the status of having meaning in itself. In that, we have a fantastic ability to create an interest that exceeds in a way our immediate investment (of meaning).
Rather than attributing this tendency of granting this special status (having meaning in itself), so readily available to us, to some childish, naïve property, I view it as an advanced feature of our mindset and a great advantage.
If that is the case, even given the ultimate subjectivity of this, our capacity, what is the advantage we derive of it?
It seems at face value that the ability to grant something a status of having meaning in itself is populating our lives with lot’s more, in fact, infinitely more ‘interest objects’ then the world of both physical objects and abstract objects that we can conceive of, have. In other words, this trait breaks through any confines of finite nature. In yet other words, this ability of ours reflects on an open ended nature involved in the reflective nature of our mind.
In one of the memorable scenes of “Cast Away”, the character played by Tom Hanks develops an intricate relationship with Wilson, the volleyball accidentally stained by his bloodied palm print. Perhaps his most sane act in the circumstances.
Whether in times of great peril, or in our most daily circumstances, we engage, it seems, in an activity that allows us generation of meaning in an interactive manner, which brings into our limited resources existence a reality that is infinite.
Not only that, but, it is in this infinity that our humanness thrives.
In a most direct fashion, it thrives in the aspect of feeling the full expanse of emotions we are capable of, when we accompany Wall-E on his arduous journey, as we would any flash and blood representation of one of ‘our kind’. And so perhaps, Wall-E, and Wilson are one of our kind – the kind made of meaning;
It thrives in its very openness which is manifested in impressionability or susceptibility to meaning;
It thrives in coming to realize that we are never alone, and there is no limit to the extent we reach by our very reflective nature;
It thrives in the fact that we cannot be afraid of anything, on the basis of being different than ourselves, since ourselves are a dynamic interactive meaning generators.
The more we increase our capabilities via applications of technology and acceptance of our virtual life, the closer we come into unmediated touch with the reality of the vast expanse in which our humanness thrives while cracking historical boundaries.
Taking a farther leap with my initial thought, I find that in staring back at myself, as Golan Levin’s eye-snout does, I come into close vicinity of such concepts as love, infinity and being of kind, with no great effort.
The stuff our humanity is made of, whether it is dubbed meaning, interest, intelligence or love, is an interactive substance. Perhaps that is beyond all learned explanations, what it means to be human.
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