Nicole Voyles An Unseasonable Day. 4/13/11

It was really beautiful outside today and so I thought it would be a good time to ponder the way philosophy works in my mind. I am still somewhat confused by the “chair is not really a chair” way of looking at it so I have come up with a new way to think of it. If you are looking at a mylar birthday balloon (that's the kind made of foil with writing on one or both sides that may not be the same), you are only seeing it from one angle at any given time. So who's to say there isn't something going on back there on the other side you have no comprehension of? Not a great example, so let's go for another. The moon has a side we can never see. Who's to say the moon isn't an alien party planet back there? We obviously don't know. But we can think of what makes sense. The forms as described in our class can be likened the same way; the things we make, be them chairs or art, are what we can create based on an ideal we will never reach. We can't see the form of a chair, so we butcher it as little as possible in reproduction and go with the results. I think the “form of the chair” is something we can all relate to. There is always that dream you that you want to be. Your personal ideal. And because humanity is wonderfully imperfect, so too are we as individuals. The better we can cope with our imperfections and place value on them as our own and really embrace them, the better off we are.