Visual Philosophy

Note- This essay was first posted on August 31, 2008 and has had by far the most readers, so I wanted to introduce it again to those who have come to my blog more recently. I hope some of you may have examples of ways that images present ideas that you could share in the comment section.

“A consciousness that proceeds by sight…is a greater power for knowledge than the consciousness of the thinker.” Sri Aurobindo, A Greater Psychology

When I first used the term “visual philosophy” a student in the class said, “Wait a minute, are you talking about aesthetics?” It was natural to think I was referring to philosophy about art and beauty because we don’t generally think of art and images in their capacity to express ideas, to evoke a philosophical stance through a visual depiction. Beyond simply communicating information, an image shows how to see the information. We equate seeing with understanding.
We are drowning in information and need the wisdom to know how to filter it. Insight sees the significance within the whole. Wisdom depends on perception. The metaphors of seeing attest to our underlying trust in what we ”see with our own eyes.” We “believe what we see”. As we enlarge our picture of reality, our understanding grows.
Observation lies beneath the methods of art and science. As science separates the world into smaller and smaller parts, art should be equally important in pulling the whole back together, to see the forest as well as the trees. Ideas expressed visually can include the multiple variables that we live with in actual experience, the influences from every direction that controlled experiments leave out. Artists enlarge the range of what we are able to see. By sensitizing people to significant pattern, capacity for insight is developed. Understanding how feeling represents the meaning of what we see tunes our intuition and our trust in its guidance. Educating the synthesizing power of imaginal (thinking in images) thinking may allow us to evolve a new level of intelligence. Arguing for the superiority of visual communication, Barbara Stafford writes “Perceptually combined information… avoids the intellectual limitations of linearity.” She believes that in the graphic world of the internet, artists will be more important in explaining reality, understanding the display of knowledge, allowing an immediate apprehension of connections.
Art reveals consciousness. It offers multiple windows on the deepest and broadest aspects of being human. This is a physical improvement in the most evolved parts of our brain. Like any other activity, the parts of the brain that are used are strengthened. More benefit comes from the self-understanding arising from what you choose to see. Perception is not passive. It’s always scanning for what will be useful to us. Joseph Campbell said, ”The eyes are the scouts of the heart.” We are drawn to what resonates with our own inner state, often mirroring it, sometimes compensating for it. Given that neuroscience has shown that feelings precede and direct thought, letting the eye make choices from the world of art could likely take us deeper into understanding our feelings than talking about them.
The mission of visual philosophy is to see more, to become aware of the complex web of relationships that visual intelligence deals with best, and to express meaning visually.
Knowledge of all kinds can be communicated with images. Even in regard to invisible realms and deep level patterns, artists can help us understand consciousness more fully by what they reveal of it.

Transition

Present Time

Living in the present there is often a sense of all time compressed in the instant of reflection. Sometimes the supporting background erupts into the moment with the relevant associations to whatever is attended to in the present. The richness of the background experience presses into the moment. The many fascinating discussions about art I’ve had with classes over time are not “back there” but unfolding within the current moment, fueling it, prompting connections and ideas that weave the new classes into the fabric of the whole. The accumulation of points-of-view enriches current discussions and the growing duration of the moment includes more with every passing year. Standing on top of so much past experience, I can see farther and have more choices about what to offer the current groups. Their ideas open areas I haven’t thought of before and stimulate more thinking while expanding my territory.

 How big the present moment is can only be experienced with full attention. When distracted it runs like water through fingers. If you watch a digital clock with full attention for an entire minute it seems to last forever, almost feels like time stops before the numbers finally turn. Unless your mind wanders. Then it may slip by barely noticed along with two or three more. A happiness expert on Ted radio named Dan Gilbert said the most consistent cause of unhappiness is mind-wandering. In a systematic study monitoring moods throughout the day, it was the one consistent yes answer when a person reported being unhappy. Whatever they reported they were doing at the time, if they weren’t paying attention they weren’t enjoying it. The Zen saying that the secret to happiness is to live your life as though you are interested in it underscores the aspect of choice. To notice where attention is opens a choice, a control that isn’t there when the mind is wandering without direction. So, having a goal is one good way to keep focus. The goal organizes mental energy and the accompanying sense of control improves the mood with better brain chemistry. Since the stress hormone cortisol goes up when we are lower on the pecking order and have less control, we reduce it and raise testosterone when we’re acting on our own choices.

When Blake said see the universe in a grain of sand he invited reflection that isn’t going anywhere else but where you are, that’s tunneling into the vast space within the moment unclouded by all the ideas we project on experience. There may be no better object of contemplation for going nowhere but inward than an image. Mandalas and sacred art were traditional tools, visual structures that focused attention on order and unity in the universe. Looking a painting can be even better. If an image draws you to it, then there’s a psychological connection already, you’re already seeing something within ready to unfurl in relation to circumstances in the present moment.

Two Worlds Revisited

I went back into this bowl and pushed the illusion more.
I left the earlier one up so both stages are posted.

Meditation Transformation

Even though sometimes it feels like nothing useful at all is going on, the last thirty years of near daily meditation has had a profound effect on not just my capacity for attention, but also my capacity for love. I was thinking about this the last time I pulled off a beautifully puffed up Yorkshire pudding. For years I couldn’t get it to rise into anything more than a soggy mound. So I kept beating it longer and harder, making more bubbles thinking that getting it all full of air would solve the problem. Then someone on a cooking show said how important it was to give the bubbles time to settle out before putting it in the oven so that the heat would create bubbles. I’d been making it worse. There are some things that can’t be done until things are allowed to settle. Like if the surface of the water is agitated there’s no adjustment you can make to settle it that won’t make it worse. And once everything is settled, clear reflection is possible, unclouded by the previous time. Response is not distorted by disturbances in the past. And once the thoughts have settled during meditation there’s just awareness. Those that study the brainwaves of meditators have observed a synchronization of brainwaves in both hemispheres. There are pages and pages of sites with tapes and videos geared to this aspect of meditation. As one of them said, having the sounds, like chanting or drumming, helps you stay with the meditation until the end. Wikipedia uses the term “hemispheric entrainment” and writes,

“A person with similar activity in both hemispheres is alleged to be happier, more optimistic, more emotionally stable and less prone to mental illness. Increased levels of synchronization are found naturally in people who meditate regularly and people who are very content with their lives in general.”

The meditation may actually stimulate that contentment. I’ve watched my own transformation from largely anxious and worried to someone who welcomes experience as it flows around me. Day-to-day conscious awareness is less plagued by my own thoughts, ideas about what isn’t or what should be, what I didn’t do or might have done. As Krishnamurti emphasized in his talks, suffering comes from our own thoughts. Even when physical pain is involved, it’s the thoughts that turn pain into suffering.

Even when it seems like the mind is all over the place, just watching and not getting caught in the threads gives them time to settle down. By building the skill of letting thoughts settle, it’s far easier to let go of troubling mental patterns. Not getting attention, they become more infrequent. When they do come they’re more transparent, obvious transitory phenomenon that don’t change the real issues at hand. When the barriers crumble, the love can flow because attention is an expression of love and when you meditate you have more attention to give. There is nothing more pleasurable in life than beaming your love out to it. How could you not be content?

Node

Deep Attention

Recently I came across a blog called “Brainwaves for Leaders” devoted to making neuroscience useful to people in business, developing their “Neurocapability”. It’s wonderful to see so many sites that apply brain science in practical ways. The site emphasizes the need for focused attention as a way to balance the increasing distractions of attention characteristic of modern life. The goal is to build “Attentional Intelligence.”

"Attentional Intelligence is an intelligence which when highly developed allows you to effortlessly but 'mindfully' notice where your attention is at any moment and to intentionally choose where you want it to be." Linda Ray (2012)

The idea of paying attention to what your paying attention to is classic meditation and has been shown to improve overall intelligence. Sustained attention goes into more aspects of a problem or idea and the site has interesting business oriented ways to cultivate it.

 It’s helpful to devise new words in order to better talk about kinds of attention. I’ve borrowed two from brain wave terminology and distinguish between alpha and beta attention. Like the brain waves alpha attention is slower, calmer, gets inside the immediate, giving the present duration. It’s focused attention, fully on the subject at hand. What we bring into focus is where we are engaged. Attention is a sign of our involvement. Brain chemistry then encourages continued involvement because this is where we extend our capacities.

Beta attention is the everyday monkey-mind attention. Its scope is wider, keeping track of more things but in a more surface way, skimming, scanning, switching around. In a study of college students at Ohio State they found that multitasking was emotionally satisfying but not as productive as focused attention, but it was the emotional satisfaction that made checking devices so addictive. Deeper alpha attention takes more in, digests it more fully and is required for any challenge. Which is why challenge is such a good way to train it. Learning any skill provides challenge and extends capability. This is why studying illusionism can be so satisfying. It makes you pay attention to far more about the details and variation within kinds of objects. It demands full attention so is an outstanding arena for building and strengthening those parts of the brain.

Beauty commands attention. This makes it powerful. People who try to define beauty don’t understand how ephemeral the quality can be, the momentary effect of the light on a flower that transcends definition. The picture you take is only a reminder, can’t hold the moment itself. Beauty encourages alpha attention, to notice and hold in awareness, take it in more deeply. Alpha attention is the deep attention to particulars, where Blake’s “grain of sand” opens worlds. Reflections, qualities and the movement of light and shadows are as important to the feel of the moment as objects. Reflecting on beauty we become aligned with the guidance provided by our attunement to harmonic relations.