Beauty and Math / Science

What Distinguishing Religion, Science, Magic, and Technology, Might Teach Us About Beauty
A book of essays by Peter Kreeft

Peter Kreeft has written an illuminating essay on the use of indirect communication by CS Lewis and Walker Percy. In it, and in a humorous recording of its content, he explores how both Lewis and Percy present the predicament of the modern person. We live as upside-down persons. And we are not among the first people in history to suspect this. (See St. Augustine, d. 430 AD)

As a way into the heart of his theme, Kreeft invites us to consider a hypothetical challenge posed to a child: take four common objects and sort them into two boxes. The four items are a baseball, a basketball, a baseball bat, and a basketball net. The two most obvious solutions to this challenge, based on the categories of being and doing, nicely set up a thought experiment that Kreeft intends for his audience to engage. He invites us to sort the following four things into two (undefined) categories: Religion, Science, Magic, and Technology. Try it. 

In taking up this simple quiz question, we discover one way that our contemporary thinking habits depart from those of our ancient forebears. Our common assumption that science and technology are sister fields, reliably distinguished by their empirical methodology from both religion and magic, reflects a misunderstanding. For what we may overlook in this supposition of an affinity between science and technology, as well as between the second pair of terms, is how our categorization of these four terms demonstates our understanding of what we consider to be real. And the key variable governing our typical way of sorting these four conceptual categories centers less on what is ‘real,’ and more on the significance of how we conceptualize our encounter with ‘reality.’

A theme that has surfaced from time time in this space, and which plays a large role in structuring my understanding of Beauty, rests upon my appreciation for the distinction between the meaning of the words ‘objective’ and ‘subjective.’ I credit my graduate research in ethics and moral theology for raising my awareness of what these terms can and do mean. With regard to Beauty, and more broadly about what is real versus what is presently actual in our awareness of things, ‘objective’ best refers to the objects of perception, and ‘subjective’ in a corollary way best refers to the subject of perception (I.e., to me, the observer, the knower).

CS Lewis in his Oxford study

Kreeft makes the case that both CS Lewis and Walker Percy shared a conceptual understanding with many philosophers and writers from the pre-modern era. In making the point, Kreeft quotes what he says are the three most illuminating sentences he has ever read about our civilization:

“There is something which unites magic and applied science [i.e., technology] while separating both from the “wisdom” of earlier ages. For the wise men of old, the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike, the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique.”

And if we have not guessed where Kreeft is headed with all this, he puts the matter succinctly: “Technology is more like magic than like science.” It follows that he commends thinking of religion as being like science by also involving a search for what is real and true, even if differing in its methodology and content.  

Walker Percy at home in Covington, LA

A challenge related to Kreeft’s theme, regarding how we approach beauty, faces us as modern people. It stems from how – through the influence of our culture – we are inclined to think of art and architecture as being more akin to magic and technology, than to science and religion. For we tend to assume that artists and architects manipulate materials and space to stimulate certain responses from those who interact with their work. And, of course, they do. But is this all that these crafters of beautiful things accomplish? Are they not also among those who seek and make available to others instantiations of what is real, and more particularly of the beauty that is there for us also to perceive and come to know? I believe that they are. 

Artists and architects approach the world in a way that has an affinity with those who work in religion and science, while what they do may seem to be like the work of those who ‘practice’ technology or magic. For like all genuine seekers of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, scientists (especially theoretical physicists) as well as religionists include dedicated persons who want to know these real aspects of the world that may be apprehended by those who look for them.

I continue to learn by reflecting on these themes.

Note: Kreeft develops at greater length than I have scope here to address the significance of these and related distinctions. He does this in his essay, “Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos: The Abolition of Man in Late Night Comedy Format.” I commend an entertaining recording of Kreeft’s presentation of the essay’s content, which can be found on his website (by clicking this link).

Denver Airport ‘s Beautiful Tensile Architecture 
Some of the tensile structure canopies over the Denver International Airport terminal (DIA)

In order to appreciate the beauty of tensile architecture, we need to remind ourselves of how most traditional buildings, from the ancient pyramids and China’s Great Wall through to the tallest modern buildings, have been built. Familiar architectural structures rely upon compression, the stacking of weighty materials upon others in a stable way to achieve height. Whether those materials are heavy, like the massive stone blocks supporting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, or as in the first modern reinforced steel ‘skyscrapers’ such as the former Home Insurance Building in Chicago, traditional architecture has relied upon the compression of forces created by their materials to attain successively higher elevations over the course of time.

The tensile structure roofline of the Denver International Airport terminal building

Tensile architecture relies upon what its name suggests in order to attain stable and enduring structures – the dynamic of tension between the various materials and structural elements that are employed. The way that tensile structures achieve what appear to be daring results can be explained by reference to the poles and cables with which they are constructed.

Cable-supported columns, poles, and awnings, at Denver International Airport (DIA)

Though the name for this type of structure may be new to many of us, those who enjoy viewing sporting events set in large public spaces have seen and become visually familiar with tensile structures at least since the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. Designed by Frei Otto and Gunther Behnisch, the imaginative canopy protecting much of the crowd seating was seen by millions on television and in news reports.

1972 Olympic Stadium designed by Frei Otto and Gunther Behnisch

Tensile architectural design continues to be used widely throughout the world to erect buildings for public purposes. Denver’s 1995 International Airport Terminal building, designed by Curtis Fentress and Fentress Architects, provides a compelling example. The architects’ achievement represents a stunning contrast to Denver’s former and very conventional Stapleton AirPort buildings.

Those who travel through DIA have an opportunity to experience firsthand what such structures can inspire. They provide occasions on which we can pass through public spaces filled with light, that feel open and uplifting, and which have the capacity to capture our attention. Buildings of this kind expand our sense of the moment in community with others, and lift us above our personal concerns by reminding us – literally- of more expansive imaginative horizons. As the venerable great dome of the US Capitol building gives convincing evidence, these are qualities to which all public architecture should aspire.

Three thematic sources of inspiration for Curtis Fentress’s design for the DIA terminal include Denver’s well-known reputation for being the ‘mile high city,’ the profile of the Rocky Mountains visible from the terminal and the city, as well as the heights to which modern aviation take us. As the images included here demonstrate, the airport’s tent-like awnings create a dramatic roofline, as well as soaring translucent interior ceilings, delighting both visitors and passengers, as well students of architecture who have never traveled to encounter these structures.

A still from a video showing the architect sketching the Rocky Mountain skyline from the vantage point of the air terminal, in a possible allusion to the terminal’s canopy structure

Since my first visit, the Denver Airport has been one of my favorite examples of modern public architecture, both because of the vision and notable aims of its principal architect, as well as because of the experientially transformative results he and his team of designers and builders were able to achieve. Like the pleasing effect of arriving at London’s St Pancras or one of the other luminous Victorian train sheds, the DIA terminal is the kind of humane environment that can ameliorate the stress of modern-day air travel.

Departure and Arrival areas at DIA

Note: I hope to feature Denver’s new (2014) canopied train platforms, perhaps inspired by the DIA terminal, in a future post.

A Tao of Seeing: Reflections Inspired by Feng Shui
Michael Pollan’s writer’s hut, intentionally situated by a boulder on the brow of a hill

Recently, I observed my middle son moving a black plastic pond module around in a small space in his New Orleans courtyard. As he moved the container that would soon have fish in it, he tried situating the vessel in various ways, in relation to a tree, a fence, some potted plants, and an existing low stone wall. He is not a student or practitioner of feng shui, but I believe I was seeing some of those principles at work in his decision-making.

Western readers may have heard of feng shui, the Asian philosophical approach to discerning the unseen forces that affect objects and their balance in nature. It gives attention to the metaphysical or non-material energies thought to be at work upon or within the world around us. We might say that this approach provides a Tao of seeing, or a natural way of perceiving within and around surface phenomena to the underlying dynamisms that are believed to affect what happens in nature.

This notion that there are unseen forces at work in the world is an idea that is receiving something of a revival in Western Christian spirituality. This is noticeable when people refer to a concept attributable to the Celtic tradition, in which it has become common to refer to “thin places. “ These are places where the veil between the material and the ethereal or the heavenly seems temporarily dissolved. Another parallel here between East and West may lie in the quest within Christian spirituality for the goal of harmony and balance between people and the created world.

However, my reflections here constitute an aesthetic rather than a philosophical or historical inquiry. I am interested in the dynamics of movement we perceive in the circumstances that we encounter, and less in the metaphysical forces or energies that may be present within them. At the outset, however, I want acknowledge how a nuanced Asian approach can be an authentic route toward a culturally-informed appreciation of the phenomena we encounter, especially from a historically Asian perspective.

As we look at paintings in the context of Western culture, one factor we discern assesses composition and attends to the way our seeing is drawn from one part of a larger image to another. This dynamic is often an artist-intended aspect of an overall composition. Sight lines in garden design and arrangement provide another example, as does the architectural arrangement of space in buildings.

Attention given by Western designers to feng shui is sometimes criticized as being a superficial application of historically and philosophically nuanced ideas. But I want to give credit to ways in which our sensitivity toward perceiving movement and direction is a genuine factor that is available for analysis and articulation. We notice this when we encounter both two dimensional compositions as well as three dimensional spaces and the objects we find in them. We can always come to know more about what we see.  Because what we see is something that is there, not simply what we believe, or are disposed or inclined to see.

An Asian garden said to be designed according to feng shui principles

Motion, balance between forces, spatial arrangement of objects, and the dynamic relationships that are visible because they exist between and among these variables, continue to grab my interest. Contrasts between colors and textures, as well as between sizes and shapes, play a significant role.  Additionally, the perceived difference between what is natural and things that are humanly fashioned is equally significant, as is our perception of the criteria for what constitutes that which we consider to be natural. These are among the factors that help account for our sensitivity towards and interest in these many observable variables, and our common quest for purpose and meaning in the contexts where we find ourselves.

Motions and balance as we find these factors in Wassily Kandinsky’s painting, Several Circles

Painters, sculptors, and architects, seriously consider these factors within visual and spatial compositions. The painter, Wassily Kandinsky, and the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, provide two examples of those who also perceived a spiritual dimension within their creative work.

If so, we –  as caring lay observers of the world and of the things and places among which we find ourselves – should give deference to this evident fact. For we can all be thoughtful, as people often are inclined to be, about what we see, touch, and experience when we interact with visual phenomena.

I find myself increasingly sensitive to these aspects of our appreciation for Beauty, and endeavor to be more mindful about them. I am intrigued by possible parallels that may exist between Eastern metaphysical interpretations of visual phenomena and more familiar approaches to what we see that are shaped by Western aesthetics. Especially as these familiar approaches are described and developed within our artistic and architectural best practices.

The Beauty of Objectivity

If reading this by email, please tap the title at the top to open your browser for the best experience. Then, clicking individual pictures will reveal higher resolution images.

William Blake, The Ancient of Days (one of numerous hand-colored prints)

 

I like to use a couple of throw-away lines: First, the world was here before we were here to notice it (or try to describe and evaluate its various facets). And, second, God was here before we were ever able to think the thought, much less give value to or try to describe this fundamental insight. And so, the world had God-given beauty and value before we were here to notice such things. To put this matter in the formal terms I propose that we recover, we were objects of God’s subjectivity before God ever became an object of ours. These insights ought to be primary in our outlook upon the world, and upon our lives within it.

The stark alternative to what these throw-away lines represent is the view that the world, its meaning and any purposes within it, and or God, came to have significance if not also actuality, when we chose to notice or imagine such things.

I have written before urging recognition of how beauty exists apart from the ‘eyes of the beholder.’ This is to say that the reality of beauty transcends the perception and apprehension processes of the one who beholds it. Another way to say this is to contend that beauty has objective reality. But what do we mean when we say something is objective?

Here, I would like to commend an insight regarding this word, ‘objective,’ and its pair, ‘subjective,’ terms we may use too casually. For we tend to employ these words most often to characterize two different aspects of how we perceive matters that come before us. One we regard as being oriented toward what is factual; we use the second to refer to that which is subject to the variability of emotions and sentiments that are particular to ourselves.

We need to recover a prior sense of what these two words, objective and subjective, can mean. We can return to using the word objective, not first to refer to the fact-oriented aspect of our consciousness of the world, but as referring primarily to the world itself and to the things within it. In this recovered use of these terms, the objective can best designate the objects of perception. And the second term, the subjective, can best represent the subject of our perceptions (us).

We can, of course, have ‘subjective’ notions about the objects of our perception, while we can also seek to be more accurate in our sense of those things that we perceive. Accurate description and evaluation of the objects of our perception are aided by comparative reference to the perceptions of those same things by others, and thus are aided by an effort to step beyond notions that are particular to ourselves and to our private experience of them.

In this respect, the practice of good science shares a basic property with the practice of good religion. Both seek to describe what is true, and what is in accord with reality.

God the Geometer (from a medieval manuscript)

In perhaps an overly simplistic summary, the choice between these two outlooks upon ‘what is,’ emerged with what we now call the Enlightenment, and the development of what we now call ‘natural science.’ And yet, the emergence of modern science, and the world view which it has come to nurture, lies in pre-modern theism, in the ancient and primal belief that before all things, was and is God. And that God was and is the author of what the medievals called the Book of Nature, who was also the author of the Book of Scripture. Two books with overlapping significance, by one Author, about all that was, and is, and ever shall be.

Among the works of this author, and behind or within them, are ideas, ideas latent in the mind of the Author. And preeminent among these ideas are Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. These ideas represent the highest things we cannot not know, especially if we seek to have our minds shaped by the mind of the Author of all things. Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, are therefore – as we like to say and think – objective. That is, they are among the highest, most valuable and excellent, objects of our perception. And whether we grasp their significance, and how we grasp their significance, as fellow-subjects of their perception, can of course be – as we like to say and think – subjective.

William Blake, Newton as A Divine Geometer

Nevertheless, the objects of our perception ought to govern and discipline our shared and comparative perception – as fellow-subjects – of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. This is the beauty of human objectivity and of subjectivity.