Re:Is there such a thing as good taste?
by elcamino44 on Monday November 15, 2021 @04:29PM
(#29233026)
I agree that it’s an important and persuasive point (and well made!) but I’d also argue that it’s not true that the simulation entirely disappears in those moments. There’s definitely _something_ like that going on, but sometimes once the flash of adrenaline is over the simulation returns and your aesthetic experience physical and real quickly resumes its relationship to the convoluted web or narratives and signs that are proposed to construct the world of meaning. And perhaps more and more experiences that we think should be “real” (eg: parents watching their children at play) are instead becoming further entangled in this web.
You've managed to scratch a mighty itch that's been bothering me for a long time. I finally have somewhat of a framework to think about it a little more, and I have you to thank for that.
In particular, this bit is pure gold:
> I think po-mo thinkers exist in a simulation founded on that base deception, and they try to convince others that their story (made of language!) is the substrate of our reality, but every time someone gets on a motorcycle, skis down a mountain, prevails over an MMA opponent, hunts food, rides a horse, jumps out of a plane, has sex for pleasure, or has some other peak human experience, the simulation disappears. All the neuroticism that forms the hall of mirrors of false equivalencies, evaporates, and what remains is gravity and time, the physical and the real, and our aesthetic experience of it.