```tracker searchType: frontmatter searchTarget: weight folder: daily notes line: title: Weight Tracker yAxisLabel: weight lineColor: blue ``` ## Questions for Enrico about [[the beauty]] in use paper - The Forsey section seems a bit long, especially at the beginning. ### 5. Montero and Proprioception - draft 18th July An alternative approach to [[the aesthetics of design]] comes from considering [[the role]] of proprioception - our sense of the position and movement of our own bodies. philosopher [[Barbara Montero]] has recently argued that proprioception should be considered an [[aesthetic sense]] alongside vision and hearing. She notes that dancers, for instance, often proprioceptively feel the gracefulness or awkwardness of their own bodily movements, and that this is a genuine form of [[aesthetic appreciation]] (Montero 2006). If proprioception allows us to aesthetically appreciate qualities of our own bodily movements, this suggests it may also play a role in appreciating [[the aesthetics]] of ***using well- or poorly-[[designed objects]].*** Consider the earlier examples of using a keyboard, a knife, and a bicycle. Typing on a keyboard, cutting with a knife, and riding a bicycle are all bodily activities that involve sequences of movements - of fingers on keys, of hand and arm in slicing, of legs in pedalling and arms in steering. A well-designed keyboard, on [[this view]], would be one that makes the typing motion feel smooth, even, and precise to the user. A well-designed knife would make the cutting motion feel fluid and controlled. And a well-designed bicycle would make the movements of pedalling and steering feel graceful and intuitive. In each case, the user could proprioceptively feel positive aesthetic qualities in their own movements as they use [[the object]]. Conversely, a poorly-[[designed object]] would lead to proprioceptive feelings of awkwardness, strain, or imprecision in the user's object-directed movements. - We are going to take on Montero's quite broad understanding of proprioception. - what is Montero's view > Proprioception is the sense by which we acquire information about the positions and movements of our own bod- ies, via receptors in the joints, tendons, ligaments, muscles, and skin. A narrower understanding would be just bodily position, with kinetic perception being a different sense. **Footnote: this reading of montero is also backed up in other parts of the same paper:** >**A central reason to think that proprioception is an [[aesthetic sense]] is that one way professional dancers claim to evaluate the aesthetic qualities of their movements is by feeling (that is, proprioceiving) what is right**. - We will take the same broad understanding of the term, while at the same time acknowledging a wrinkle that feeling one's movements brings. To feel oneself move is not simply feeling one's body change position, but to feel oneself as the cause of the change of position. > [!NOTE] > Careful not to self-plagiarise. In the following bit about Horgan - Horgan describes this phenomenology of agency as having two components. "Self as source": >You experience your arm, hand, and fingers as being moved by you yourself—rather than experiencing their motion either as fortuitously moving just as you want them to move, or passively experiencing them as being caused by your own [[mental states]]. You experience the bodily motion as generated by yourself. and “core optionality”: Normally when you do something, you experience yourself as freely performing the action, in the sense that it is up to you whether or not to perform it. You experience yourself not only as generating the action, and not only as generating it purposively, but also as generating it in such a manner that you [[could have done]] otherwise (ibid., p. 80) If this is correct, dancers are not only enjoying the feeling of their bodies moving through space in a particular way, but also enjoy the feeling of themselves to be the cause of these movements. - Understanding [[the aesthetics]] of actions in this way allows for a rich understanding of the aesthetics of *interaction*s with designed objects. Approach goes beyond the ideas of functional beauty and haptic touch in a few ways. Functional beauty is a matter of appreciating the fit between an object's form and its function, but it tends to focus on qualities of the form that can be perceived through vision or touch. The proprioceptive account, in contrast, locates the aesthetics of design in how it feels to move one's body so as to perform that function. Haptic touch, as discussed by Roberts, allows us to perceive certain functionally relevant qualities of an object, like the lightness and flexibility of a bicycle frame. But it does not encompass the full range of aesthetic feelings, like fluidity or precision of movement, that arise through actively using an object. The proprioceptive aesthetics of object use is not just about passively feeling qualities of the object, but about feeling the quality of one's own actions upon and with the object. It is an aesthetics of the interaction between body and object, not just of the object itself. ** ## different part of the same section Understanding the aesthetics of actions in this way allows for a rich understanding of interaction with designed objects. We can see this by considering the sorts aesthetic qualities that interactions with objects might have. This approach goes beyond functional beauty and haptic touch in a few ways. Functional beauty is a matter of appreciating the fit between an object's form and its function, but it tends to focus on qualities of the form that can be perceived through vision or touch. The proprioceptive account, in contrast, locates the aesthetics of design in how it feels to move one's body so as to perform that function. Haptic touch, as discussed by Roberts, allows us to perceive certain functionally relevant qualities of an object, like the lightness and flexibility of a bicycle frame. But it does not encompass the full range of aesthetic feelings, like fluidity or precision of movement, that arise through actively using an object. The proprioceptive aesthetics of object use is not just about passively feeling qualities of the object, but about feeling the quality of one's own actions upon and with the object. It is an aesthetics of the interaction between body and object, not just of the object itself.