Fahad Tasleem – Beauty & the Recognition of God
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the physical meaning of beauty in evaluating "fit major" and "fit minor" concepts, as well as the cognitive biases that people are exposed to. They also touch on the natural world and its use in relation to emotions and the natural world. They stress the importance of understanding the physical meaning of beauty in relation to worship and love, and briefly touch on science and its limits. They briefly mention the use of science and its limits, but do not provide much context on these topics.
AI: Summary ©
Salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Bismillah R Rahman
Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam, ala
Rasulillah Karim and my bod. So welcome to today's session
that is being brought to you by Sapiens Institute. Today we're
going to be talking about a topic that is very near and dear to me.
And the topic is Beauty and the recognition of God. Now, as we get
started,
we want to talk a little bit about the world that we live in. And
before I get to our first slide here, one of the things that we
have to understand about, you know, when we talk about topics
like beauty, and what we call more like fit three topics, is that
they present a certain angle that many times we don't think about,
because we live in a world that is, perhaps some would say, overly
focused on rationality. And so this topic, I think, what will
happen if you haven't seen it in the past, that I think you may be
pleasantly surprised with the information that we're going to be
presenting today, inshallah. So with that said, let's go on to
start in earnest.
I want to start with us with this with this particular tweet that
was sent out by Rick Enfield. And he says that we're in a post truth
world with eroding trust and accountability, It can't end well.
And now we want to ask the question like, why would like why
would someone like Nick Enfield, post a tweet, were saying that,
look, we're living in a world that's post truth.
Because the reality is when we start reflecting upon the world
that we live in, we see that the the, the, the the things that are
happening around us, whether that's in the political sphere,
whether that's in the social sphere, economic sphere, there is
a lot of upheaval, when it comes to the idea of truth. Okay, so
when we're talking about, let's say, social media, you find that
across social media, there is a type of mistrust. And because of
that mistrust, there are real world consequences that come
about, okay, so that mistrust will do what has to do with things like
not trusting the government, not trusting scientists, not trusting
religious leaders, and so on and so forth. So what Rick Enfield
here is highlighting is that we live in a post truth world with
eroding trust and accountability, It can't end well, because if we
continue down this path, and he's thinking about this in terms of
like a, a global community, if we go down this path, and there's no
trust in anything, it's going to be very problematic. And we saw
some of the the ramifications of that mistrust, at least locally
here in the US, when the Capitol was stormed. And you found it
found that people were storming the Capitol because they
mistrusted the electoral system here in the US. Now, that's a real
world consequence, to some, to a form of mistrust now.
So when we think about this, what we find is that this mistrust has
proliferated in this day and age, substantially more than ever has
before. Okay, and then has a lot to do with the the internet
itself. There's a very good documentary that I, you know, that
I saw recently on Netflix, I think was called the, the, you know,
this the social order, the social paradox or something like that.
And what they highlighted, is that when a person gets online, and
many of us spend a lot of time online, when a person gets online,
there are a team of engineers that are behind the scenes that are,
you know, basically working with algorithms taking in all the data
they've collected on you as an individual. And by way of that
data, they are now you know, feeding information to you as a
specific individual. In other words, they make they make a,
what's kind of called an avatar, a personality type or trait for you
as an individual. And then they and then when you when you let's
say, search for something on Google, the search isn't the same
across the board, rather, it's curated for you individually. Now,
you may think, Okay, well, what's wrong with that? Well, the problem
is, is that that is casting the idea of something being
objectively true. It's casting that aside, in the sense that if
you were to search like we haven't in the slide here, climate change
is now based on all the algorithms and everything and all the data
that's collecting about you. Your Google search results come up as
climate change is a hoax. Climate change is disrupting the planet.
Or it could come up as climate change is the greatest threat.
Climate change is natural, all of that. Now, who cares? Like, okay,
so now you've got all of this information, they have all this
information on you. Is that for your benefit as an individual? And
the answer is no, because the end user is, in fact, not you. But
people that pay for the ads that are able to fund the companies
like Google and Facebook, where they can make money. So it's a
very materialistic goal at the end. Now, this goal, because it's
based in this type of materialism, you are not the end user. So your
idea of let me search for something that is true. And let's
say objectively true,
or that's neutral, let's say that you want to have a search term,
it's neutral just comes up, the search items come up in some sort
of a neutral way, it doesn't happen. Why is that? Well, because
an avatar of you is built and is constructed based on all the
information. And therefore you and perhaps your neighbor are getting
two different types of information. Now, again, what we
see is that in that sort of environment, you have a lot of
news that is false. And in fact, there was a study done recently
from MIT. And they concluded that false news travels six times
faster on Twitter than truthful news. And that is phenomenal when
you think about it. Right? One of the research quotes I have here
from the study is that accurate stories rarely reach more than
1000 people get the most prominent false news items routinely reach
between 1000 and 100,000. People. Okay, so the world we live in, and
our sources of information, if we're if we're spending a lot of
time online, there may be a mistrust from the source that
we're getting the information from, okay. And what we find, like
I've, like I've quoted in like, like I have on the slide here,
that you look at people who study societies, civilizations, and they
see this as a downward trajectory. Because as people start to get
misinformation, and mistrust starts to proliferate across
society, you find a breakdown of society. And so like this article
in The Atlantic, the author Yoni Applebaum, he mentioned, you know,
the title is captivating because of how America ends. And in a
sense, he's saying, How does Western civilization end because
of this proliferation of misinformation, that is causing
people to mistrust various facets of sources of information, right,
whether that be source of information like scientists, and
to mistrust the entire scientific enterprise, whether it has to do
with government, and mistrusting local state national governments,
or that has to do with mistrusting religion and religious leaders. So
across the board, if there is a culture of mistrust, then it
becomes very difficult for society to bind together. And you find
that this this is something that, you know, authors like
journalists, like Yoni Applebaum are mentioning that this is
something that can cause to a breakdown of society at its core.
Now, you might be asking, Why have I started with, you know, on a
topic on beauty? Why have I started with all of this? All of
these concepts of mistrust? Because the thing is, when people
when people think about the information that they're getting,
people assume that they are able to take in information in a
completely unbiased way, generally, right? And more or
less, that may be true. But the assumption and we've seen this
with the information that's available online, and how online
activity and our engagement online can actually have an influence on
how we think and the opinions we form, we see that that idea of us
forming rational conclusions to reach truth is impeded. Okay, and
so, based on you know, just what we've presented so far, we find
that when someone wants to find the truth about something, a
simple Google search won't lead to the truth directly, because there
are a number of factors that one needs to consider, you know, the
background of the engineers, what is the what is the what is the
motivation of the search engine you're using? What is the
motivation of Facebook, when you're just, you know, perusing
through and looking for friends that you haven't spoken to in a
while, like what are the motivations behind all of these,
you know, all of these
Social media, you know, things that we're engaged with. So, if
the idea is is that our information can be tainted, and us
in order for us to reach truth, it cannot be just a rational
endeavor, meaning we can't just trust our own, you know, cognitive
sense to reach truth 100% of the time, and I don't think anyone
even expects that. So with this,
you can say this depreciation of the ability to to gain information
and see truth as truth. One of the things that we understand, at
least from the Islamic framework, is that the paths to truth are not
just rational. Now, notice that it said not just rational, I'm not
saying that we're discounting rationality altogether. But I'm
saying that there are paths to truth, when we're thinking about
truth as being objective and being true. If that's the case, then
there are paths or truth, that, that there are paths of truth that
are that are not just limited to the rational mind, right, and not
just information coming in, and so on, so forth. So one of those
paths to truth. And this is what the central thesis of this
particular session is, is beauty and one's exposure to beauty. So
as you'll notice, the central thesis is, the greater your
exposure to beauty, the greater your ability to see truth as it
really is. In other words, when a person what I'm what this what the
thesis is, is trying to focus on, that when a person has exposure to
beauty, when they're able to witness beauty, there's a certain
phenomenon where a person is able to recognize something to be true.
Okay. Now, why am I stating that this is like this is the central
thesis? Well, why do I say that that's what we're going to be
discussing. As we move forward, the greater your exposure to
beauty, the greater your ability to see truth as it really is.
Okay. Let's start with.
Let's start with some basics about yourself. Okay, so we talked about
social media, the mistrust of the government, mistrust of
scientists, and so on and so forth. And we may come back to
that in a second here. But let's start with our very own selves. I
mean, you can definitely trust yourself, right? I mean, you have
a first person experience, you study things, you get you, you
have information that you're you're taking in. And if that's
the case, you should be able to make
rational conclusions based on true information. That itself is true.
Well, let's dig down a little bit deeper into that. All right. So
can you trust yourself? There was a, there was a,
what you would call a anthropologist, I think by name of
friends, Muller liar. And back in the 1800s, and he came up with
this famous line, optical illusion. Okay. Now, most people
when they see this, this this diagram that you see on the slide,
they, they seem to look at the line on the right, the one with
the with the, with the two lines going out like a like a Y on the
top and the bottom, they see that central line to be longer than the
line to the left the line that has the the arrow type shape on both
ends. Now, that's what we see.
And the reality is that, in fact, they're of equal length. Now this
optical illusion was quite popular, starting from the time
when Frank Mulder, late Leia introduced it, and this would be
introduced to people they would see and they say, yes, most
people, and maybe you're looking at and saying, Okay, well, I don't
see it, but you would be in the minority. Right? Most people when
they see these lines, they it's to them, it seems like the line on
the right is longer than the line on the left. And in reality,
they're actually the same length. Now, this kind of this optical
illusion was taken to be something that was true across the board and
various factors when they were studied.
They were they were attributed to just a certain type of, let's say,
cognitive misstep in the brain. But what happened was in the
1960s, the researchers broaden their experimentation, because
what they realized is from the 1800s until the 1960s, all of the
people that were that these that were shown this diagram in terms
of official research, were what they call weird. Now you might be
wondering, what do you mean by What do you mean by by by weird?
Like, how does that
What do you mean they're weird? So what I mean by
weird is that cultural psychologists, this is a term that
they used when they're trying to categorize the group of people
that they are researching. Okay, so cultural psychologists, they
use this acronym weird to mean white,
educated, industrialized, rich and democratic societies. So all the
people that have been exposed to this, this particular optical
illusion, we're all weird based on the acronym. So in the 1960s,
researchers decided to show this very optical illusion to people
across the world. And they gathered about 2000 people, and
they, they basically had them look at, you know, had small samples
from each part of the world parts from North Africa, you know, South
Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, etc. And what they found was very
fascinating, because what they found in the 1960s study was that
many, many people did not see the optical illusion at all. And that
a lot of that was based on the geographical area that they were
coming from. So for instance,
when they looked at the small samples from the suku tribes,
people in northern Angola, this is a specific area that they had
gotten a sample a sample of people to look at the optical illusion,
and the BT tries people from the Ivory Coast, no one in that group
saw the lines as being different or of different length. Now, when
this was quite surprising to the researchers, because they started
to now wonder, why is it the case that you wouldn't when your sample
group is weird, right? That they're coming from the west,
they're educated, industrialized, etc, that that most by and large
people from that, you know, that section of society, that section
of that culture sees these lines as being a different lens, yet,
people from those specific tribes don't see the difference at all.
And so one of the the theories that was presented was that it has
to do with our depth perception based on the architecture that we
find ourselves in, right. So when you think about the Western world,
or those places that have been influenced by the Western world,
we find, especially in modernity, right, when we think about
architecture, and many people say that, you know that that that the
death of beauty happened with modernity, specifically in the
realm of architecture, because architecture started to map out
this worldview that had to do with with giving preference to utility
over beauty. And so hence, when you walk into a certain room
within the Western world, or those countries that have been
influenced by the Western world, you find Angular, straight
structures. And you'll look in the diagram there, you see that those
angles, you say, wall a and wall B, and they have certain angles,
lines are straight, walls are straight, and everything is very
straight. And because they're straight, you your mind then gives
you a certain type of depth perception. So even when you see
the lines as a vacuum, without, you know, seeing them as the
corners, two corners of a room, and you sense that perception, you
see the lines as being of a different length, because of that
sort of cognitive bias that you have being brought up in the
western world or being brought up in a part of the world that's
influenced by the West. Yet, when the when, when, when the small
samples from the from the suku tries people and the BT tries
people, when they were presented with this, when they're presented
with an optical illusion, they saw the lines as perfectly the same
length. And the theory was, was that because when they looked at
where they were living, the structures that they were living
in, so they were living in huts that were round, they hadn't been
exposed to modernity, they hadn't been exposed to these, you know,
Angular structures that, you know, form part of the modern world,
definitely a part of that part of the Western world. And because of
that, they were not exposed to the same optical illusion that someone
living in those type of structures would be exposed to. So the reason
I'm mentioning this study, is because we have to ask ourselves,
that if it's true, that we know that we can take in information,
is it that we can take in information in a completely
unbiased way, when the reality is, there are many cognitive biases
that were exposed to? And of course, one may reason that we
know about these lines because of information from other senses. So
yes, maybe optically, we have a cognitive bias here. But we're
able to do away with that cognitive bias by way of other
senses like measurements and rulers and things like that.
And no doubt that's true. But the reality is you still have an
initial cognitive bias. Whereas, you know, the Sioux tribes, people
in the BD tribes, people don't have the cognitive bias. So at
least we'd have to say, when it comes to the question of, can we
trust ourselves, we can say, it's not 100%, we're not, we cannot
trust ourselves 100% of the time, we are going to have cognitive
limitations, there are going to be cognitive biases, when we take in
information. And that is, you can say, That's exacerbated when the
sheer you know, the sheer quantity of information is so overbearing
like it is today, when, by the fact that we have access to the
internet, which gives us such a quantity of information that times
you know, pre modern people that lived in in pre modernity or a pre
modern times, were never exposed to that sheer quantity
information, it just means that our cognitive biases are going to
be greater, just by the by the fact that we have more
information. Okay. So we understand that from at least to
some extent, we can't trust ourselves. What about the idea
that, okay, if we have cognitive biases, then perhaps what we can
do is one of the ways to expand our cognitive limitations, is by
getting information from other people, other sources, right? So
we may have certain limitations in our knowledge, let's say in a
certain field, certain fields, let's say biology, or medicine,
now, we have a certain limitation, and yet we have the reality of
getting sick. And how do we extend our cognitive limitation? Well, we
go to a doctor, and we put our trust on that doctors knowledge.
And so therefore, we're in a sense, extending our cognitive
limitation, by basically going to the doctor asking the doctor
What's wrong, and we trust their knowledge. And so our cognitive
biases or limitations, you can say, we have we're trying to,
we're trying to do away with those by trusting information from other
sources. Okay. And whether you know, and a lot of and this is
true, no matter what, what what sort of field that you're in,
because we, as even when we think about ourselves as individuals, we
rely on testimonial knowledge, we rely on the say so of others in
order to get information. Otherwise, you would not find
progress. And I say that in with inverted commas. You wouldn't find
technological and scientific progress. If we just said, we're
only going to trust ourselves, a we'd be we'd be headed, we would
have to deal with our own cognitive biases. But be we would
have a cognitive limitation with being I only trust information for
myself. And nobody functions like that. All of us take in
information from other sources, in order to expand our cognitive
limitations. But now here's the thing. If we understand that we
have cognitive biases, the people and the sources that we're taking
information from, they too probably have cognitive biases. So
we find that the issue does not necessarily get resolved, and
perhaps in certain cases may be exacerbated. All right, so let me
give an example of what I mean Can Can we trust others, and the fact
that they would have their own cognitive biases. So what you see
on the screen now is a map of the world. And typically, you know, if
you open any sort of book on geography, this is the map that we
would be presented to you. So you find you have North America being
on the top part of the map, you have South America being on the
bottom part of the map, again, you have Europe on the top part of the
map and Russia, Asia, China, India, being north of the equator,
or parts of the north, the Equator, and of course, Africa,
Australia, so on and so forth, being south of the equator, or
being on the bottom part of the map. Now, what I'd like us to do,
just for a few moments here, is to focus on not the concept of north
and south in terms of global positioning, but rather a
direction in other words, up and down. Okay.
Now, here's the thing, that when we look at the modern map, that
we'll look at the map today, this map is actually traced back to the
to the Greek astronomer Ptolemy. And what we find is that Ptolemy,
being an astronomer, drew the map with Europe being on top. He's
Greek and so so one of the, you know, when people who specialize
in Cartography or mapmaking, when they analyzed kind of the history
of where we get the map of today, they found that they traced it
back to Ptolemy more or less, and they reason that why is it that
taller?
He placed Europe
on the top part of the map, and placed kind of everything else, at
least at that time, you just had Europe, Africa and parts of Asia,
and perhaps the Middle East. That was kind of the known world at the
time that he placed those on the bottom. Well, one of the one of
the, you know, one of the people that that explored this area, one
of the cartographers, you know, there's people who make maps and
study, you know, the construction of maps, they linked this to the
idea to actually a theological idea, right, that over time, well,
not necessarily just a theological but a, a, an idea of based on
power dynamics, right. So if you consider something to be higher,
to be better, right, so that on top, that thing that's on top is
going to be better. Okay. So, from that perspective, if you're going
to draw a map, and you're going to draw your place of residence,
you're going to draw on top, again, we're talking directional,
not geo positioning here, you're going to draw on your map, draw
that particular place, your place of residence to be on top, because
the idea is that you are in a position of superiority. Now, in
fact, it also has a theological link, because for quite some time,
the Catholic Church had this concept ingrained within their
theology that things that are good, and they give kind of a
moral qualification to certain things, things that are good, in
terms of a sense of morality, would be lighter and higher, and
ethereal, in other words that they raise up. And so when they think
about things that are evil and bad, they focus on those things
that are in the core of the earth. So from one perspective, the
Hellfire would be at the core and the center of the earth. In fact,
in, in one in one writing, which actually escapes me right now, but
it was part of a study that was done out of the University of
Berkeley.
It was the historians analyzed
how the, how Christians, how Catholics, how actually, I should
say, not modern day Catholics, but those that come before modernity,
part of the Catholic Church, they had categorized certain vegetables
and certain fruits on this moral scale. So fruits or vegetables
that you dig out of the ground, you take out of the ground, had
more of a negative kind of evil sense to them. So things like
potatoes and carrots, were things that were found on trees were
considered of a moral have a better had a had ahead had a
higher moral weight. In other words, they were morally better,
right? They were good. Okay. Now, so when it comes to maps, perhaps
after Ptolemy, why this map was adopted in this particular way,
and stayed like this, or continued like this in Europe, and so on and
so forth, until it reaches us today, perhaps could be tied to
Ptolemies actual residence, and further from there could be tied
to certain elements of Christian theology, that being the case, the
position isn't something that's necessarily,
let's say, objectively true. Okay. Why do I say that? Because when
you look at cartographers out of the Muslim world, for example,
Muhammad Al idrisi, 12th century geographer, cartographer, you'll
notice on the map that's there, he actually drew it from our modern
day perspective, upside down. So what does he do? He places
obviously places Mecca in the middle, and then he places let's
say, Yemen, and parts of Africa and so on, so forth on top, and he
places Europe, right, Spain, and so on, so forth on the bottom. Why
does he do this? It has to do with his worldview, from his worldview,
those things that are better, that have more you can say that, that
that that are superior, obviously, Mecca, being one of them, and you
know, Yemen, and so on and so forth, that he puts them on top.
Now the thing is, which map is correct? Like if we were to say,
Okay, well, I want to know, what's the truth of the matter? Which map
do I now say that is truth? I mean, obviously, we're not saying
that there's a, you know, there's some sort of legal or theological
weight to, you know, picking one or the other. But one does ask the
question, which one is based in truth, which one's based in
reality? And the thing is, is that we asked the question, is North
always up? Imagine if you were to travel to outer space?
Would you?
You know, see, would you see North as being up or would you see North
as being down and the reality is because there's no anchor in outer
space?
There is no right or wrong answer to this question. And so, like the
like I have on the diagram here, depending on where you are, you
know, you could be, you know, upside down, you could be right
side up, but then upside down right side up are all based on
some sort of an anchor, a positional anchor, by which you
can say that this is true. And this, you know, this is right, and
this is wrong, this is north, and this is South, or this is up and
this is down, but up and down are based on a certain position having
a certain anchor, if you're in outer space. Well, there is no,
like, there's no specific anchor, you know, you don't have gravity
will rely upon out there. Yes, maybe from the moon in a specific
area, but even depending on where you're on the moon. So the picture
that you see up there, actually, it's a bit difficult to see. But
in fact, it is almost from our from from from the maps that we're
used to, it's actually upside down. Right. Okay. So now, the
idea of, can you trust others, we see that it's not just a matter
of, can you trust others, because they have some sort of, you know,
they're giving information based on some sort of malice, but they
have cognitive limitations themselves, and they have
cognitive biases yourselves, like those biases that become manifest,
whether you're talking to me, or you're having the literacy,
depending on your background, your worldview, those biases become
manifest. Now, is one or the other true, again, that there's no right
or wrong answer there. The point is, is that when we say can we
trust others, again, when we are extending our cognitive
limitations, by trusting others, we also are subject to their own
cognitive biases. So if you can't trust yourself 100% Your own
cognition, your own ability to take in information, and you can't
trust others? What is the person supposed to do, especially in this
day and age, with the overwhelming, you know, sheer
quantity of information. And this is where I'll remind us of our
central thesis. And that is, the greater your exposure to beauty,
the greater your ability to see truth as it really is. Because
what we need to understand is that while rationality is an amazing
tool, but it is not the end all and be all right, there has to be
something else that gets us to see truth as it really is. And what
I'm proposing is that one of those tools is a person's exposure to
beauty. Okay. Now,
one of the questions we want to ask, is that is beauty part of our
meta language? Now, what do I mean by this? You see, when we look at,
you know, the structure of our language, when we think about
terms that we use, within our own conversation, our communicative
ability, we find that there are certain
terms and specifically here, we're talking about ethical terms that
are evaluative in nature, and certain terms that are descriptive
in nature. So in, in, in, in zoos, book, ethical, religious concepts
in the Quran, he actually says that ethical terms and specially
we're talking about ethical terms, terms, like, you know, generosity,
humility, that they can be either on a primary level, or a secondary
level, if those terms are on a primary level, they are primarily
descriptive, they're describing something. And if they're on a
secondary level, they're evaluative. In other words,
primary words that are describing a certain ethic, are rely are
reliant upon secondary word, they use that as the basis. So if you
think about the concept of generosity, all right, so when you
say, Okay, well, generosity, generosity is good. So generosity
is your primary descriptive term, if you talk about a person, that
person is generous, and good is your secondary evaluative term,
evaluative term, right? The term that's going to give you an
evaluation, what about generosity? While it's good, okay, humility,
again, it's a primary term the secondary term here is good,
humility is good. Now, the question that we want to ask when
it comes to you know, when it comes to
our language is is the concept of beauty is that also part of our
meta language? Now, when I say meta language typically when you
hear the term meta, it has to do with kind of the the basis or the
anchor for something right. So when you think of like meta
ethics, so what is the ethics built upon? What is that thing
that stable that is built upon what is the anchor? So what is the
anchor for language itself? What is the meta language? So if we
talk about something like
Good. And we have these these three things here that are they're
presented. Why do you believe in X? I believe in x because it's
true. True then becomes part of our meta language. It's secondary
in its nature. Its evaluative. evaluative. Why do you want? Why
will because it's good. Okay? Again, we find that the term good
is part of our meta language. And there's not too much, you know,
you wouldn't find too many people arguing about this. But then when
you ask the question, why do you look at z?
And you say, because it's beautiful, is beautiful part of
our meta language? does it fall in the category of secondary
evaluative terms? Or is it descriptive? Well, many people
from you know, from from time immemorial, you can say,
actually considered beautiful to be part of our meta language, part
of that evaluation that you would have.
Now, where the where the where the difference comes in and where the
problems may arise? Is because someone may say, Well hold on a
second. But isn't beauty subjective? Like I could look at a
painting and someone else could look at a painting and I could
think it's beautiful. And someone who could else else could think
that it's just It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen. So if beauty
is subjective, can we really say that it would form part of our
meta language? Now I'm going to hang that question in abeyance
this idea of subjective and objective, right? Like, is it? Is
beauty in the eyes of the beholder? Or are the things that
are actually beautiful in a straight, objective way? We're
going to hang that question, we'll return back to it. But it's
something that I like to think about that many, you know, for
instance, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas Aquinas, he attributed the
idea of beauty to be part of our meta language. And that had to do
with his idea that these are attributes of God. And therefore,
they are part of our meta language, because they form that
the anchor because God is our anchor, right? So God is true,
right? He's you know, and even from an Islamic worldview, we say
God is a hawk, he is the truth. So that can form part of our meta
language. Similarly, God is above, from again, Islamic position,
therefore we can use good as a part of our meta language. From
the Islamic standpoint, God is, is Jamil He's beautiful, and he loves
beauty and therefore we can use beauty as part of our meta
language. Now, that being said, we said that that was we attribute
that to St. Thomas Aquinas. And
and hopefully I'm pronouncing that right, I'm not sure but anyway,
his name, but there is a similar concept that the scholar in
Louisville Josie expounds, upon and he talks about this idea of
matching some of the, the attributes and the qualities of
Allah of God, right. And it's not that we're trying to be like God,
in some sort of absolute or in terms of the essence of God, but
rather we find that God has certain attributes and the
emulation of those attributes, understanding that we will fall
far short, then their perfection or their or their maximal
perfection, is a clear understanding, but we still strive
for them. So if you look at you mentions that
one of the the names of God is his Aleem, he is the one that the one
that's all knowing, and he loves for His creation, his slaves, the
human beings, to possess knowledge. Similarly, God is Al
Hakim, he is the wise and he he loves for His servants and slaves
to have wisdom. He is the one who is unwrap man. And so he is
someone who who loves for his slaves for loves, for His
creation, to human beings to have mercy. Rama means the most
merciful, and so on and so forth. And similarly, we find that he is
a Jimmy. And so he loves to see beauty that's manifest upon the
human being. So from that perspective, we could say, we
could,
you know, we could put forth the idea that beauty could be part of
our metal language. But again, we've got that issue, especially
when we consider it attached to something that transcends the
human being that being God. But we still have the issue of beauty
being subjective versus beauty being objective, which I said I'll
touch upon in a little bit. Now.
When we talk about the question of beauty being part of our meta
language, there's another
you can say secondary question are another secondary issue from a
from an Islamic theological point of view. And that is, is beauty
part of our fitrah. Now I'm going to digress here just for a minute,
just
You know, in case that you haven't heard some of the other Sapiens
sessions on the fifth or or you haven't read Jamie Turner's
article related regarding the fifth era, it's a great article, I
highly encourage you to go to the Sapiens Institute website and have
a read,
you will thoroughly enjoy it in Sharla, at least I did. So I want
to digress here just for a second, because I think it's important for
us to understand and for us to kind of take the point home about
beauty being part of
AR, you know, the meta language, but even deeper than that. So as a
quick for us to quickly understand, and this will have
this will have, you know, will understand our cognitive
limitations as well when we understand the idea of the fitrah.
So, let's start off with rationality as a concept. And
again, I'm going to try to cover this quickly. If I, if I miss
something, or something like that, there is plenty of content that we
have, and more content that's coming out, where we dig very deep
into the concept of the fifth rule. So let's talk about
rationality for a second.
When people think about rationality, they generally divide
rationality into two categories, they say you have certain things
that are rational, and certain things that are irrational. Okay,
so an irrational statement is something like, I am five,
straightforward, rational statement, an irrational statement
is something like I have seen a square circle. Now, the first
statement is very clear. It's rational, makes sense? The second
statement, you make come to me and say, Hold on a second. What do you
mean, you see, the square circle? square circle doesn't make any
sense. Because by definition, a square is something that has four
sides. And by definition, a circle that has is something that is
round and lacks, having sides. So you're saying you have something
that has sides? It doesn't have sides at the same time? Well,
that's not rational at all. That's irrational. What if I was
obstinate? I said, No, I believe in square circles, you may then
present to me the I the the specific logical principle, to
say, no, those things that you're speaking about are mutually
exclusive. It goes against the principle of mutual exclusivity.
In other words, mutual exclusivity means you have two terms that
cannot exist at the same time, it cannot be farther, not farther at
the same time.
What if I come now and say, Well, I don't believe in that principle.
Unless you prove to me that principle is true. Now, the
problem is, you can't prove the principle. You start with the
principle. And so when we think about rationality, we understand
that rationality, as an endeavor, cannot exist, unless there are
things that are outside of rationality, that we cannot prove,
but we must assume, right, and they're not irrational, but they
lie outside of rationality. In fact, we call them super rational.
And so logical principles are part of the super rational. So and when
in Islamic parlance, when we're when we're understanding
rationality, as this sort of these three categories of rationality,
the super rational, rational, irrational, we can say that the
super rational is what we call the fitrah. In Islamic parlance, so
one we understand that logical principles form part of the super
rational.
We understand also, though, that concepts of beauty, also form part
of the fitrah. Now, what does the term itself mean very quickly, the
term from an from from, from, from, from an Arabic point of
view, or from, let's say, the Islamic world view, the term
fitrah is that state in which God has created the human being, it's
that primordial base state, that primordial base state that is
good,
and that is natural. And so therefore, the fitrah is that
which God has created the human being upon so the Quran mentioned
this very clearly about the legality fatness Alia, it is the
fitrah that God has created the human being upon. Now, without
getting into too many details about that there's a there's a lot
we can get into. But understanding that our perception of beauty
would be part of that, like from if we're gonna look at the
terminology we're using right now the super rational or the fitrah.
Why? Because the you know, questions about beauty are not
questions that aren't necessarily rational. In fact, they're not
rational. If you were to go out and you know, to, to see a sunset
with your significant other, and you turned your significant other
and said
A wow that sunsets beautiful. And your significant other turns you
and says, that is the ugliest thing that I've ever seen. Prove
to me rationally that that is beautiful. Well, there's no way
you can go much like there's nowhere you can go. If someone
says prove to me the logical principle. So you've got to have,
by necessity, certain items that are outside of rationality that
you cannot prove, but you know, are true, right? And, you know, we
can extend this out to things like your own existence, you can't
prove that you can't prove for instance, the existence of other
minds, you may be able to convince yourself of your, the existence of
your mind by way of your first person experience. But the
existence of other minds, how can you prove that, right, and so on,
and so forth now.
Because if you were to ask for proof for, let's say, even the
principle or proving everything, the problem is the only place that
you would be left to go to is skepticism. And you'd have because
there's no theorem that is infinitely defendable. You can't
say because this because forever.
Because if you say that, it means you're saying, I doubt everything.
And if you're saying you doubt everything, you have to doubt,
your doubt, which leaves you intellectually paralyzed. You
know, I remember someone had given the example to say rationality is
an amazing tool, but it still needs something outside of itself
to actually work. It's much like someone who comes to you and says,
I have the perfect solvent. So someone that says, I can
rationally I can I can use my rationality to prove anything, by
way of proof. In other words, I can prove it is like someone who
says, I have this solvent, this thing that can doesn't dissolve
things, and it is the perfect solvent, it will dissolve
anything, right? I can prove anything it can the solvent
dissolve anything? Well, you want to ask that person? What bottle
will you keep it in.
Because even though if you had the absolute solvent, and it may be a
great tool, you still need a bottle to keep it in that bottle
is going to be absolute AB solute that which is not soluble, that
which is not solvable, right? You cannot solve it, when we're
talking about rationality, that which is not soluble, anyhow. So
you always need an absolute, as part of your structure, something
that you cannot prove, but you must assume moving forward. Now is
beauty part of the fitrah. And we would say that beauty is indeed
part of the fitrah, because it is not a particular concept that
you're trying to prove. And in fact, we're going to get into some
more details relate to that as well. All right, before we get
into analyzing beauty, you know, whether it's part of the fitrah,
and then going back to our thesis, about beauty and exposure to
beauty, giving us you know, access to the truth or being able to
allowing us to see truth as it really is. I found in a book by
Roger Scruton called Beauty, a very short introduction, he
presents certain platitudes. Now notice, he doesn't present these
as axioms, he doesn't present these as first principles, but
there's their platitudes. And so there may be some opinion to
relate to this. But I think it's a good starting point. So when we
are conceptualizing beauty, we're trying to understand beauty. We
see that number one, one of his platitudes is that beauty pleases
us, when you are looking at something, one of the reasons why
you're looking at it is because it there's a certain type of
pleasure. And we're not talking about a physical, visceral
pleasure. But this pleasure is of a different nature. So it's
pleasing, but it has a different sort of content than something
that would be which would attribute to like a physical
pleasure, okay.
Number two, one thing can be more beautiful than another. So you may
be able to see one painting, and compare it to another painting and
say, Okay, well, this one is more beautiful in this one. So there is
this ability to be able to compare things and give things a value on
the scale of beauty. Number three, beauty is always a reason for
attending to the thing that possesses it. Okay, when you see
something that's beautiful, your attention is drawn there because
of the beauty because of the content of the beauty. That's
there. Beauty number four beauty is the subject matter of a
judgment, the judgment of taste. Okay, so the idea that that's been
that's been put forth here is that when you are exposed to something
that is beautiful, there's going to be a judgment involved, is it
beautiful, how beautiful is it etc. And that has to do with the
concept of taste. You have a certain aesthetic taste, you say I
like this or I don't like that. And this goes back to our concept
of subjective versus objective, right? Like is beauty is all
beauty subjective, or is there some of this object
due for that beauty that's subjective, we could say it's a
matter of aesthetic taste, or some sort of tastes that a person has,
much like the judgment of food, when you would have certain types
of food that you eat, you may like them, and person number two may
not. And you may be able to categorize food in certain foods
that you like, versus certain things that you don't like, in
terms of that physical phenomena of taste, that experience of
taste,
by way of the, by, by way of your sense perception of the tongue.
Okay? Number five, the judgment of taste is about the beautiful
object, not about the subject, state of mind. So when you make a
judgment about taste, and here, we're talking about taste being
related to beauty,
you're making a judgment about the object you're not making about,
you're not making a judgment based on the subject state of mind,
meaning you're not looking at, let's say, the painter's state of
mind, right, you're looking at what the output is. And number
six, nevertheless, there are no second hand judgments of beauty.
And this, I think, is really interesting. Because if you've
ever had a conversation with someone about a particular thing
being beautiful, and they disagreed with you, there's no way
to win that argument. Right? And so there's no second judgments
about beauty because that is for you to make that almost direct
interpretation.
Okay. Now, one of the things that we need to understand is that when
we experience beauty, it has a connection to meaning. Now,
remember, when we started off, I said that, you know, that we
talked about cognitive biases and cognitive limitations. And while
rationality is a great tool,
to judge whether something is true or not,
it, we need other things to be able to understand the the truth
of kind of in its entirety, okay. And so when we think about truth,
as, as an endeavor, we have to understand that the idea of
meaning is very important to that to this journey that we're gonna
be taking to find truth. Okay. And so one of this section, when we're
talking about conceptualizing beauty, what I'm trying to do is
connect beauty to meaning, meaning that there is when we think about
beauty, we think about the phenomenology of beauty, we see
that it has a connection to meaning it points to something
that's deeper than just a sort of just a sort of a cold cerebral
sensation, right, there has to be something more. Okay. And I'm
going to do that by citing a few examples. So if you see the
picture on the screen, right, now, we see that you have a dining
table that set. Now, there is a difference when you set up a
dining table for you know, for a certain purpose, or you set up a
dining table
with the purpose of beautifying it,
you know, these are two different phenomena. Okay, so what I've got
up here is aesthetic versus utilitarian interest, if you're
just focused on the utility, in other words, you're just setting
up the table so that people can conveniently eat, you might take
out some paper plates, put it in a stack, put on a couple of dishes,
and so on and so forth. And people could just directly take the food
and the paper plates and you call it a day.
But yet, when someone sets a table, we understand that they are
transcending just the idea of utility. Like if you look at the
picture here, you see there are a lot of things that you may
consider from a utilitarian viewpoint suppler. First, you've
got the candles, you've got the greenery, you've got the glass,
the napkin and how it's laid. And so what you experience is
something that's beyond just the the practicality of serving food.
All right, so what does and so why would you set a table like that,
because as a person who's hosting a dinner, you may consider that to
that it's a reflection of you. It's a reflection of your taste,
it's a reflection of, you know, how much you care for the other
person. So when you transcend mere utility, you are saying something
about yourself and you're saying something about your guest. And so
there's a deeper meaning to the aesthetic setting of a table
versus just the utility. And so, we see that beauty is connected to
meaning when we compare the aesthetic to you know, when we
think of aesthetic interest versus utilitarian interest. So we see
the first connection of beauty to meaning is that which says
something about it
The person that's let's say, in this example setting the table,
and about how much that person cares about the person they're
inviting over.
Okay?
Let's take a look at art versus entertainment. Now, I've been told
many times to keep my comic book references to a minimum. And so
this will be the only slide related to any sort of reference
to comic books, or comic book characters, superheroes or
anything like that. Beauty is connected, meaning we said that
that's point something deeper, and we can see this when we find the
difference between art and entertainment. Okay, when we are
discussing art,
we're discussing something that goes beyond just a fleeting
sensation of being entertained, okay, and the example that I have
up there is that I get into a conversation with a certain
person, which will go unnamed, and we discuss Marvel vs. DC. Okay, so
if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's okay. DC is a type of
comic book, they have their own characters. And Marvel is a type
of compact, they have their own characters. Now, one of the things
about Marvel characters and Marvel movies is that they are very
entertaining. So if I'm going to go and watch a Marvel movie, I'm
going, you know, you know, solely for the entertainment factor, that
I get the pleasure of watching, you know, the action scenes and
things like that. And then I'm done. When it comes to DC
characters, like Batman, and let's say, there's a whole depth behind
the character, there's a backstory, his, you know, parents
were killed. And that's what prompted him to become a
superhero, and blah, blah, blah, and all these other things. And
all of that is trying is being captured in the form of how the
how the story is being told. And within the cinematography, the
darkness of the shot, and so on, and so forth. And all of that is
an artistic expression. That has to do with meaning. Because when
someone is trying to put forth a type of artistic expression,
again, it's saying something about the artists themselves and saying
something about the output, that when you're engaged with this
particular type of film, or you're engaged with this particular type
of painting, or you're engaged with this particular type of, you
know, whatever it might be, that you're going to now think about
things on a level that's deeper, that's beyond just the action
sequence, right? So we find that when it comes to the company, when
we compare art versus entertainment, art, entertainment
is merely kind of, kind of,
kind of touching our, our, our essential buttons, for lack of a
better phrase, whereas art is pushing us to think about things
deeper. So certain movies that you watch their, their, you know, the
story is very deep, the, you know, the way that the story is
portrayed on screen, every single shot has a certain meaning. And
every single shot, the reason why they take the shot from that
particular angle means something. So because of the director, or the
film photographer, is in the position to say, Okay, well, we
want this angle with this lighting, and so on and so forth,
to give people a feeling of x, that has to do more with an
artistic expression, as opposed to just merely entertaining people.
So when we compare art versus entertainment, we see again, that
the focus on beauty is pointing towards something deeper, and
pointing towards something of meaning of significance. By the
way, that's not to say that Marvel movies are insignificant. All
right.
All right. Let's give one more example. And hopefully to take the
point home about beauty being connected to meaning because it
points to something deeper. And we're talking in this slide, we're
talking about pros versus poetry. Now prose is something that you're
going to read for the sake of information. All right, and I have
up there an organic chemistry textbook. Now, for those of you
who have studied organic chemistry, or are, you know,
thinking that they might go to medical school, or whatever it
might be whatever purpose, you're studying organic chemistry, I
think we can pretty much agree that when you get a organic
chemistry textbook, and you read through it, it's not something
you're going to come back to for any other purpose except to get
the information, extract information, and perhaps to just
pass the exam that you have to take to move forward. So you're
really it's just again, it's very cold and cerebral. It's just
extract information and move on. You don't return back to it. In
fact, you know, for those you who have gone, you know, past your
undergraduate level, you may be your doctors, whatever it might be
you
Probably haven't, you'd probably have sold your organic chemistry
textbook. I guess maybe I'm talking back in the days where
they had textbooks nowadays everything is on, you know, some
sort of a tablet or something like that. But in those days, you
probably have sold your organic chemist textbook. Why? Because
it's not something you're going to return back to. There's nothing
prompting you to do that, with the exception of extracting
information. Once you've done that, you're done. Poetry is not
like that. Poetry is something that when you read it, you want to
go back to it, because it signifies something very deep. And
there's a there's something about the poem, that you're you go back
to it again, and again, because it gives you a type of pleasure.
That again, we were talking about beauty, giving the person a type
of pleasure, that isn't this visceral, sensual pleasure, yet it
is a type of pleasure. So I have a poem up here from Emily Dickinson.
And I'd like us to really just read it and reflect upon it
because I thought it was very powerful. So, Emily Dickinson
writes, she says, hope is the Thing With Feathers, to really
just ponder upon this. Hope is the Thing With Feathers, that perches
in the soul that sings the tune without words and never stops at
all. You know, you think about something like hope, and the
concept of hope that she's now given it this this this, this,
this physical effort this, that she's she's anthropomorphized,
Oprah she's making she's made it into something physical, right,
which is this bird. And there's a certain beauty about that. So hope
is the Thing With Feathers that perches in the soul.
That sing the tune without words and never stops at all. The
sweetest in the Gale is heard. And soar must be the storm of you
know, when you think about the vicissitudes of life, and the
thing that's getting you through, it's that hope, right? And so and
soar must be the storm that could abash The little bird that kept so
many warm. I've heard it in the chilliest in the chilliest land,
and on the strangest sea, yet never in extremity, it asked a
chrome of me.
So I don't know if you experienced that. But I personally found this
very profound, something that you would go back and perhaps read
again, just because there was there was information in a sense
that was conveyed. But there was something that transcended the
information. There's something that was more, that was something
that was beautiful about it. And it had a deep meaning related to
this concept of hope. Right? I mean, everyone goes through the
vicissitudes of life, the ups and downs, and experiences either hope
or a lack of hope. And when you read this, it's very powerful. So
when we talk about beauty being connected to meaning, we're seeing
that it points to something deeper, and one of the one of the
sample, one of the examples here is when we compare pros, simple
kind of information transfer, or just gaining information versus
poetry. Alright, there's one other element related to poetry that I
wanted to touch upon that has to do with content and form. Right.
So when we think about poetry, you have the poem itself, and the
structure of the poem. In other words, there were certain words
that the author put together in a very specific structure, that
allow the person to taste or sense or experience the beauty, when
that form is broken, or that form is done away with that element of
beauty can be lost, okay. And a lot of times that happens when we
talk about translation, you translate a poem from one language
to the other, there's going to be a certain loss, that that is felt.
And so now we come to the concept of content versus form. There's
the actual content of the poem. And then there's the form, and
where beauty comes in is related to the form and the content and
when these two are separated, this becomes problematic because it
then loses the aspect of you it could lose the aspect of beauty.
So you have a poem here from the from the man who was known as the
poet of the East, right? Muhammad Akbar Rahim Allah in his poem
Balaji read, write or you know, Gabriel's when he says and this
poem is in is an order so for those of you who who speak what to
do, or know or to do, you may be able to, to say I'm not going to
read the whole thing, but the poem starts off. Garfield, Garfield,
Hermosa Lamar, Dona Shahi Norfolk Ed, right. So if if a if a Muslim
is a Kaffir, right, if a Muslim is a non Muslim, then there is
neither kingship nor poverty. Now the thing that I want us to note
is that you find that there's a few words in the phrase
As phrase in order to do, which then you need a lot more words in
English to explain in a sense, the particular verse that I just read,
okay? But the verse in order actually has a certain type of
beauty, a certain cadence, a certain rhythm by the, by the
words that the poet put together in a way that the English doesn't,
because the English almost sounds, you know, empty, right? If a
Muslim is a golfer that there is neither functional property, but
if he is a movement, then he rules even in poverty. And if he's a
Kaffir, then he relies on the sword and so on and so forth. And
then when you compare that to movement, head or moment had to
cut her hair, for Katie may be
shy, that that, but if he's a movement, then he rules even in
poverty. He's equating this person who's a true believer that it
doesn't you know, that even when he's in the state of poverty, in
fact, he has this type of kingship, he has this type of
royalty, and so on and so forth. The point I'm trying to make here
is the idea of separating content and form and this happens a lot
when we go into translations. Okay. Now, can a poem be contained
in a paraphrase? Can you put a poem in a separate set of words or
translate a poem, Clintons Brooks, he talks about this idea of the
heresy of paraphrase, which ties in with the with the last point I
was making, and he has a few points where he says that there's
a certain heresy, there's a certain No No, when it comes to
trying to paraphrase a poem. And here's why. Number one, poetry can
express several thoughts at the same time.
Whereas when you try to translate it, or you try to paraphrase it,
you're not going to have the same effect. Poems can be
polysemous, right? Meaning is conveyed on several levels. So
when we looked at the poem related to hope, there are a number of
levels that were conveyed as part of the poem, which when you try to
paraphrase it get lost, meaning is lost in any paraphrase, right to
be or not to be, so on, so forth. That's the example he gave. So
when you try to paraphrase it, or let's say the extreme form of
paraphrasing would be translating, you're going to have certain
meanings that are lost. Alright? In meanings meaning, specifically
here, we're talking about the idea of beauty, pointing towards
meaning. Number four, sound is important. How many times have you
heard a poem that when it's recited in, in a certain
gathering, or it's got a certain rhyme or certain structure, or a
certain, a certain cadence, that when it's explained, it doesn't
have the same cadence, it doesn't have the same beauty. And so sound
is important. And so, we find that there are the idea of trying to
paraphrase, a poem becomes problematic, because then in
essence, you're, you're kind of stripping away the concept of
beauty itself. All right.
Now, remember, I said we were going to return back, and I know
I'm running out of time here. But remember, I said, we're gonna run
turn back to the idea of subjective versus objective, okay?
Is beauty part of the super rational? Is it something that's
part of our meta language, that when you think about human work,
beauty that's created by human beings, whether that be poetry,
whether that be a painting, whether that be some sort of
photography, photography, whatever it might be, that there's going to
be a certain bias. So just like there are cognitive biases, when
it comes to the human being, there's going to be certain
artistic biases, for lack of a better term, when it comes to the
human being as well. And that's why you can have a degree of
subjectivity when it comes to art that's produced by human being,
right? Human beings. And we're going to enter in some area of
theology now, from an Islamic worldview framework, human beings
are not perfect beings, they're created beings, and hence they
have limitations. And because of those limitations, those things
that are produced by the human beings are also going to be
subject to limitations, whereas perfection is for God alone. And
so when it comes to the natural world, this is where now we can
say that we can experience objective beauty. All right, why?
Because nature is unbiased. Now both of them in this diagram are
pointing towards meaning. When you look at a poem, you're asking,
what is the meaning of the person that compose the poem? What is the
meaning in terms of what they think about me remember the dining
table and things like that. But at the same time, we could apply the
same idea when it comes to the the natural world. All right, and this
is something that while you know that when we say that nature is
unbiased, this is I would say true, no matter what your
worldview is, no matter what your paradigm is, whether you're coming
from an Islamic paradigm, or any paradigm and we see
do this even in our in our in our, in our day to day, right? Because
when you, let's say, buy us a type of cereal, one of the things that
marketers understand very well is that they slap a nice, not all
natural label on it. Well, why did they do that? Well, the reason is
because something with inside ourselves
points to the idea that if it's natural, if it's part of nature,
nature is unbiased. Nature doesn't have cognitive biases. And so if
it's natural, it's something that we should inclined towards we
naturally inclined towards it, right. And so and so that
inclination, marketers understand very well. So if you have a type
of cereal that's all natural, that's going to be better than a
sugar a, a processed sugar filled cereal, even though both of them
are probably processed. But that's besides the point, right? But you
understand that, and we understand that even when we look at the
world around us. Now,
let's take a look at the experience of natural beauty. So
what you see there is a painting of the Niagara Falls. Alright, so
if you've ever visited Niagara Falls, it is breathtaking. And it
is just amazing. The cannabis side, maybe not so much the
American side. But anyway, it's breathtaking. And here's a
painting of Niagara Falls. And so one of the things that we can see
right away, is that when we look at the painting, there is a
framing that's going on.
When you think about the Niagara Falls, if you've ever visited it,
you find that there's no concept of framing your direct experience,
it's like there's no end from one end to another, you're just taking
it all in, someone that's painting the Niagara Falls or taking a
picture of Niagara Falls is going to be limited by the frame. And
therefore there's going to be a limitation. And so depending on
the person and the frame that they've chosen, again, the human
side coming in, you could either experience that video or not. But
being at the Niagara Falls, and just seeing the vastness of the
Niagara Falls itself, this is a different phenomenon altogether.
This is something that touches much deeper within the human
being, these are two very different experiences. So you find
the painting, you find,
you know, the fact that it is framed, and the fact that there is
a certain bias depending on the choice of the person who's doing
the painting. Okay, so when we experience natural beauty, you
find the painting picture, there's framing, there's a human angle and
a bias.
The natural world itself, it's vast, open and endless. There's no
human angle or bias, it's direct, right? You're directly
experiencing that the the the, the the experience of beauty, right?
It's not contained. Right, it's not contained in a certain frame
or a certain, a certain area, rather, it's fast. And here's the
other thing, which is really phenomenal, is that if you go to
somewhere like the Niagara Falls, or let's say Mount Cook, if you've
ever been to New Zealand, and it's a beautiful mountain pass, and
it's just gorgeous.
It makes you feel small,
like looking up at the night sky. And that's a very interesting
phenomenon. Because on one hand, you're experiencing the beauty,
let's say of the mountain or of the falls, but at the same time
you have this type of this type of fear.
Now I'm kind of using the word fear, hear a bit loosely, we in
English, we call it all right, the experience that you have, it's,
it's also in the sense it's combining beauty and combining
fear kind of at the same time. And it's a difficult experience to, to
verbalize to put into words. Right. So someone says, Have you
seen the Niagara Falls, you just gotta go there and check it out
yourself. Right. Okay.
So,
let's talk a little bit about all and then I'll conclude, Inshallah,
because I know we are running short on time. So
Michelle is Shioda and Dr. Keltner, Decker, Keltner excuse
me, at the University California, Berkeley, they've done a lot of
work and research in the idea and the concept of art. So when they
wanted to define all they said, All has been defined as an
emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that overwhelm
current mental structures yet facilitate attempts at
accommodation. I think that's a pretty, pretty good, pretty good
definition, right? If we're going to try to
put the concept of onto words. Now.
One of the, through their studies, you know, Michelle Shioda and Dr.
Decker Keltner. Some of the work that they've done, they came to
certain conclusions, so
One of the one of the conclusions when it comes to experiencing art,
the conclusion they came to was that it leads to decreased ego and
heightened cognition. All right. Now let's stop for a second, we
started this conversation, we started this, we started this
session with how can we know truth as truth? And one of the things
is, is that and one of the one of the thesis that I had put forth,
was that, that the more a person experiences beauty, the more they
see truth as truth. In the studies that they did, they found that
when a person was exposed to to the natural world, it led to a
state of awe and what were the what were the what were the what
were the, what were the results of being exposed, or experiencing the
state of all, it was heightened cognition, and a decreased ego. So
they were less self centered, and more charitable. And we'll get
into, I don't know if we have the time, but we'll try to touch upon
some of the studies. And one of the things experiences that when
they were put to test when they're given cognitive test, they found
that being experiencing all led to a heightened cognition.
Now one of the things is, is that when it comes to when a person is
going to accept the truth, these are two things that can block a
person from the truth a, not being able to understand it properly
lowered cognition, and that's pretty clear. But the other thing
that blocks a person from the truth can be their own ego and
arrogance, right, from an Islamic worldview. We see that you know
that these are two key areas in which a person can be blocked from
the truth. So the Hadith here from Abdullah and Massoud radula, on
who said the proxy Salam said, no one will enter paradise who has an
Adam's weight of arrogance in his heart. And the man said, what if a
man likes his clothes to look good? And his shoes to look good?
So the Prophet SAW Selim then says, Allah is beautiful, and he
loves beauty. Hola, hola. Jamil. Where your humble Japan right? In
Allah. Hi, Jimmy where you humble Japan? So he says Allah is
beautiful and he loves beauty. I'll Killebrew butter will have
wantonness that Kibber arrogance is rejecting the truth and looking
down upon people, right? And why do you look down upon people?
Well, it's because of arrogance, right? Because of, you know,
that's why you look down or you think that you're better than
them.
So what's interesting about this particular narration, is that
there's a juxtaposition between beauty and arrogance, which I
think is really fascinating, right? That you have this concept
of beauty, and so on, and so forth. And it being juxtaposed
with the concept of arrogance. Now, let's get into some of the
studies. One of the studies that was done, and I'll try to cover
these as quick as possible in sha Allah
was the study of the effect on on cognition. So what they did is
they expose people to various natural phenomena, right, whether
that was mountains or nature in some way. And then they would have
the have the participants listen to a story for about five minutes,
the story was about a romantic dinner. And these people went out
and it gets into some details, you know, the guy was wearing a black
tuxedo, the woman was wearing a dress, you know that the waiter
came, and yada, yada, yada, okay, that goes into this whole story
five minutes. And then at the end, the participant was asked, was
there a candle on the table? Now, one of the things is that as human
beings, we take certain cognitive shortcuts we use,
we use these cognitive shortcuts to kind of fill in the gaps. All
right, so when you think about a romantic dinner, you may by way of
like certain by waves or cognition, you may assume there's
a candle on the table because of what you already know about
romantic dinners. In this story, there wasn't one.
So those, you know those.
Well, I'm forgetting the term now. They're called
Well, it'll come back to me in Sharla stuff a lot. All right. So
those cognitive shortcuts that that that are taken, kind of place
a candle on the table. Now the people that were subjected to to
the natural world In other words, you experiencing ah, they answered
the correct they exited correctly, that there was no candle more
often that people were not subject to All right, so you have the the
first study script Selvin script relevant false items. Wasn't a
candlelit table, correct answers No. Those people that experienced
all you see on the graph there, that they answered it correctly,
more often than those who were
or we're neutral, not exposed to all.
All right, all awakens the mind. Alright, so now we're looking at
various emotions. So when someone is in a state of awe, they did
that by exposing people to nature, when they were instead of
enthusiasm, contentment, pride, all went out 100% of the time when
it came to to cognition, and sharpening and heightening one's
cognition. All right, what about ego? So in the studies that they
were done, what they came to the conclusion was, was that when
people experience are, they go from self interest to collective
interest. So they stop thinking they think less of themselves and
more about the general populace from isolate itself to integrate
itself, they started thinking, as opposed to them thinking of
themselves as individuals, they started to think of themselves as
a community. And it broke, and there was a breakdown of the us
versus them thinking against from the same study. So odd diminishes
the ego. And this study that they did is they had people draw
themselves in relation to,
you know, in relation to the environment that they're in. So
one place where they had people do this, excuse me, was a Fisherman's
Wharf in San Francisco. Now, this is a place where there's, it's a
lot of people, it's the city center, it's when people are
drawing themselves, they drew themselves much bigger in relation
to the in relation to the to the city and the landscape of this,
the cityscape that they're drawing around them. Yet, when they were
taken up to the mountains, and they were asked to draw
themselves, they drew themselves much smaller as compared to the
landscape that they were drawing, right. So they saw themselves as
smaller in the natural landscape, as opposed to seeing themselves as
being much bigger in the city, the cityscape right? Now, obviously,
they did other tests and other questions related to you know,
what do you think about charity, and other people, and so on, so
forth as part of this study. And what they found is that it
decreases one's ego. What's really interesting is in the Islamic
paradigm, the word for ego is Kibera, which comes from Cubby, it
should be big. So when you think of yourself as big, it's actually
it's the word in, in in Arabic for ego or arrogance, rather. And one
of the interesting things is, is that the Prophet Muhammad peace be
upon him, he said, the people with the most ego on the Day of
Judgment will be like ants, and people will be stepping on them,
meaning they falsely thought of themselves as big. And on the Day
of Judgment, there's a physical manifestation of being the exact
opposite of that being the smallest thing, which is ants and
being stepped on. Anyhow. So all amplifies humility. On the small
self, the subjects were asked to draw themselves in the
cosmopolitan environment, we just talked about that perceptions of
vastness, humility, and we'll, we'll hopefully publish these
slides a little bit. So what was the central thesis, the central
thesis was, the greater your exposure to beauty, the greater
your ability to see truth as it really is, that doesn't mean that
you're going to stop thinking and not use your cognitive senses, or
you're not going to stop, you're not going to use rationality. But
now we understand that when a person wants to reach truth, they
need to engage with not only, you know, not only gauge on a level of
rationality, but in addition to that they need to engage with the
natural world and engage with beauty. Right, as an experience,
and one of the things that, you know, perhaps the next part of
this presentation would be, would be how does that relate to the
revelation?
ie the Quran from the Islamic paradigm, right? So you have
here related to the Quran, the Quran gives what we call signs or
ayat, and they're always pointing, a lot of times are pointing not
all the time, but they're pointing towards the natural world. And so
you have Angelica Neuwirth, when her in her forward on this book
for the Quran, the aesthetics of pre modern Arabic prose. She has a
really interesting story she says it is it is in the end of the
pagans verdict from Surah Qamar the verdict of his Saba Sahara
Albanian, his transformation of the world into a sign system
transcending empirical reality. Very interesting, that is allowed
to epitomize the Quran hermeneutical achievement. And it
goes back to this idea that the Quran is constantly pulling you
and asking us to reflect upon the natural world. And there's a
reason for that. Because when we do that, we're getting closer and
closer to the truth. Right? And by extension, I'm going to backtrack
to something you know, finish it off here. By extension when a
person goes down that route engages with the Quran engages
with what the Quran is instructing the person to do.
They'll find that in the end, they're able to see truth as
truth. Truth being not only a rational, not being something not
being only limited to rationality, but having other means by which to
get to it in addition to rationality. So those means could
be exposure to beauty, they could be spiritual,
by way of having certain spiritual acts like calling out to God, and
other things, other phenomenological areas and, you
know, thinking deeply about things, and so on and so forth,
which is outside the scope of what we're talking about in this
particular presentation. But hopefully, the thesis that I was
trying to present and that was that beauty leads to truth.
Hopefully, we've substantiated that in some one way or another,
and then allow the, the, you know, allow you, the one who's this in
this presentation to kind of explore this area, a bit more on
your own, by way of the Quran is what I would encourage, and just
by spending more time in nature, so I'll go ahead and stop there.
We'll open up for some questions. I know we've been going on for a
little while. So
let's see what we got.
Okay.
All right. Wow.
Okay. Wow, there's a lot of comments.
So if you have questions, go ahead and post them, we'll take them for
another maybe seven to eight minutes, I think.
Maybe another 10 minutes, if we need to.
All right. So most of the questions have to do with my
electricity going out. So like, where do you go, what happened?
But if you do have questions, go in and post them now. So I can
take a look at them. And if you don't, then that's fine, too. All
right.
Okay.
Let's see.
I don't really see any questions unless I'm missing something.
We got some questions for pondering soul. So I'll let him
handle those questions on his own.
Yeah, nothing. So if you have anything related to topic, go
ahead and post them if not.
Okay, so here's a good question how to prove you must obey God. So
I'm hoping that one of the things that we've transcended is the idea
of having to prove everything. Right. Now, I'm not saying that we
can't prove it. I'm just saying that this sort of mindset about
having to prove every single question that we want to kind of
not jump right into that scenario and say, Okay, well, I'm gonna,
I've got to find a way to prove it. Right. That being said, when
it comes to the idea of obeying God, it starts with the idea of
believing in God and what is your, what is your concept of God?
Because if we believe that, indeed, God is the Creator of
everything, he is an Harlock, then it links to his worship, if it's
true, that He created you, and he knows, right, he has knowledge of
everything, then the things that He has commanded by, you know,
just as a simple kind of, we understand this logically, that
you should then submit to God and obey God because He knows more
than you. Right? He has knowledge that is vast, he is maximally
perfect is knowledge. Similarly, he is also a bird, he is the good,
he's a romance we wants good for you. So it's not like Okay, so if
you know about God, you would miss trust God or anything like that.
And so when we start to study who Allah is, that in and of itself
would lead a person to obeying God, every single person, and this
is part of our fitrah, which, as we come up with, as we'll be
talking about, and other series, every person, part of their fitrah
is the need to worship the need to love something and submit to
something that's part and parcel of our Constitution of our fitrah.
Right now that worship can either be directed towards Allah, or it
can be directed towards something else. So you will either love
Allah or you'll love yourself, your money, your spouse, right?
They're not saying you don't you know, love those things, but
obviously a love of Allah comes before all of that. Okay. So
worship is part and parcel of our fitrah
We have a need to worship. The question is, who is worthy of
worship? Is if if I'm, if I'm submitting and to myself, and I
have love for myself, but I'm a limited being, I have cognitive
biases, right? I have limitations. So am I really truly worthy of
submitting to myself? Am I truly the one that I should love more
than anyone else? Of course, we're talking here love from the
perspective of ego pride.
Or is that love and that submission?
Due to the one that's worthy of that? So, hopefully that answered
that. Okay, if you try to someone mentioned, I don't know if there's
a comment. If you try to point out the beauty of this world, how the
sky looks on a dark sky, even from a micro perspective, how gigantic
Allah has made space. They respond, Yes, it is all
scientific. Yeah, that's one of the one of the issues, right, the
one of the,
the, the fact that we live in the modern world, where science has
been taken to be
a type of holy grail in which that, you know, if it doesn't make
sense scientifically, or you can call could prove something
scientifically, then it becomes invalid. And the reality is, is
that while science, again, can give us a lot of benefit, but
there are certain questions that science can't answer. metaphysical
questions, science deals with the physical, the physical world,
metaphysical questions are outside of the scope of science. So we
there are certain questions that science just can't deal with.
Right? Science has its limitations.
You know, and so, what I'll recommend is that if, you know,
there's a section in the book by Hamza Hamza sources, the divine
reality, which speaks about this in you know, has science disproven
God, I highly recommend you take a look through it and go through it.
Okay.
How can we know that our fitrah is not clouded because for many
people nowadays in doctrine to liberalism and belief as an axiom,
so if the majority majority they've deceived easily.
Okay, so I'm going to try to answer the first part of the
question. This is where revelation comes in. Right. And one of the
things that we understand is that there are certain things that are
part of our fitrah. But when it comes to some of the details, this
is where revelation enhances our fitrah. And we're able to have a
clearer idea of what is correct and versus what is incorrect.
Right? There's a very interesting Hadith of the Prophet SAW Selim,
where he mentions that
where he mentions that, that, that, that there is like a path if
I'm remembering the Hadith correctly, that there's a path.
And on both sides of this path are two walls. And there are doors on
these walls that have curtains upon them. And there is a voice
that's calling from the top, and the voice that's calling from the
end. And these walls are the, the limits of Allah, the hadith of
Allah, the the place that we're not supposed to transcend, you're
not supposed to go, you're not supposed to transgress these
limits, right, you're going to enter into the haram. And each one
of these has a door. And every time a person goes towards one of
these doors and tries to open the curtain, a voice says Stop, stop,
keep moving forward. All right. Now, that voice the Prophet system
described it. So that motivation for moving forward on that path
was the process is described as its route and was the pain, the
straight path, one of those voices is the voice inside of each and
every single believer, and the and the objective at the end and the
voice at the end, the province has been described as the Quran. And
so when we go to like, for instance, I had to do Allahu Allah
subhana wa T will ordered, and we analyze the receipt of that it
ends off by saying New Roman Allah nor the new the light of the
fitrah coupled with the light of revelation, that is the thing that
we're able to move forward with, and have this type of cognitive,
psycho spiritual stability. Otherwise, you won't know because
of the environment that you're in what is truly natural, versus what
you should or should not be doing. etc. So I hope I answered that.
We'll go in and stop there. That's the I think that's the last one we
have the last question we can deal with.
So with that said, may Allah subhanho wa Taala bless everyone.
May Allah subhanho wa Taala accept everyone's you know, coming to the
session bearing with the electricity going out. It's
raining quite hard here in Houston. So I appreciate your
patience. May Allah subhanaw taala reward you for that. May Allah
accept all of your efforts, your deeds, and I ask Allah subhanho wa
Taala to forgive me for any shortcuts.
means if there were any mistakes, any, anything that I said that was
incorrect or anything that I've said was even offensive then that
is all for myself and from Shaytaan any sort of benefit any
sort of benefit that you may have received from this session it is
all from Allah subhanho wa Taala Zack Mala head Subhanak Allahumma
will be having a shadow a La ilaha illa Astok Furukawa two way Lake
wa salam aleikum wa rahmatullah.