Hi Eduardo and all
Thanks for following up my question and trying to keep on Rosans track.
I would like to discuss your mathematical "cry" in terms of how Lakoff and
Johnsons summarize the philosophical significance of the basic level.
Basic level:
1). is body based. It deals with gestalt perception, motor programs and
mental images.
2). is the level a which people interact optimally with their environment.
3). categories are the source of our most stable knowledge and the
technological capacity to extend them allow us to extend our stable
knowledge.
5). It is the level at which most of our knowledge is organized.
Since Johnson is a philosopher and Lakoff is the field of linguistics I
have to read between the lines to try to see if basic level categories
include what I am trying to define about aesthetics. That is why I place the
word aesthetics after their term basic level. To make sure we stay within
the area of action, substances, spatial relationship, emotions.
(It would be great if we could get a discussion going on embodiment and use
Johnsons and Lakoff as a source. Embodiment and design cognition are totally
interwoven in each other.)
So Eduardo the cry is some how the key to understanding "free jazz"
mathematics. Could you expand on how this cry navigates the bridges building
process and even say more about your concept "density".
Our school festival is in a few hour so I will be out today.
Take care
Cheryl
Lakoff George and Johnson Mark. Philosophy in the flesh. The embodied mind
and its challenge to western thought. Basic Books New York 1999
Den 04-06-02 01.45, skrev "Eduardo Corte-Real" <[log in to unmask]>:
> Dear Cheryl:
> You asked:
> "My question to you Eduardo is when we cann“t rely on mathematics (and I
> for
> one do not have a strong education in math) and we can not treat all
> products as structural bridges then how do we bring a wider expression of
> the human condition to design. And how do we explain this process that can
> then be expressed through basic-level aesthetics."
>
> I'll try to both answer your question and keep on the right track of
> Rosan's request (in the meanwhile you can go to:
> http://paginas.fe.up.pt/porto-ol/lfp/ and click on "Ponte S. Joao" to some
> images of the bridge)
>
> I think that S.Joao bridge is a designer bridge. Edgar Cardoso designed it
> on his eighties. Forty years before (1955) he designed Arrabida Bridge
> (also at Porto) that constituted the biggest concrete arch ever built in
> the world. In 1877, Eifell designed, also, the biggest iron arch on D.
> Maria bridge. S.Joćo bridge was also the biggest vault on that kind of
> bridges (no arches, no suspensions). This means a sort of engineering
> culture that every bridge in Porto must make a statement.
> I used to say to my architecture students that if they would design a
> staircase and call it architecture, they must be prepared to dialogue with
> Michelangelo's Laurenziana Library Staircase and many others instituted as
> architecture. Otherwise they must shut up and call it, simply, building.
> S.Joao bridge not only continues a dialogue of bridge designing but also
> dialogues with the instituted Porto's architect Alvaro Siza Vieira (you
> can go to: http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/bases/siza/obra12.htm and see
> the Architecture Faculty buildings right in front of Arrabida bridge.
> All those bridges and buildings in Porto are currently read by basic-level
> aesthetics. Every Porto inhabitant has its favourite for use and for
> contemplation. The contraction of those two dimensions brings what you
> called "the wider expression of the human condition to design". But the
> bridges have also an unexpected density. For the expert reader they are
> statements on Physics, on Mathematics, on Architecture, on possible
> Photography, on History, on Drawing, on Carrots! (Of course there is also
> a dull bridge, Ponte do Freixo). That density of reading is the
> real "wider expression".
> Like I said, we must have the courage to say that something is being
> Design or say that a process is being Design or else be silent. "When is
> Design" is placing something in dialogue with what is instituted as Design
> and this, from my point of view, demands density, layers of reading that
> goes from the aesthetical to the ethical (so institutionally dependent!)
>
> O, I notice that I didn't clearly answer to your question. Math is
> instituted also. Its beauty is similar to free-jazz beauty. You must
> understand the "cry". Math aesthetics is useful for math experts. Does not
> any sort of beauty only accessible to experts? We all are experts in what
> you called basic-level aesthetics; otherwise you wouldnt call it basic
>
> Best,
>
> Eduardo
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