### Notes on the meeting. - is my time paper the equivalent of Evan's views on space? # LLM Summary ## [[Feeling Fit]] for Function: [[Haptic Touch]] and [[Aesthetic Experience]] ### Introduction - The traditional view holds that only the distal senses of vision and audition are capable of [[aesthetic experience]], while the proximal senses of touch, taste and smell are excluded. - Touch has been thought to deliver only simple, private sensations rather than complex perceptual states. - However, [[the author]] argues that [[haptic touch]] – active, exploratory touch – allows us to perceive a range of [[material properties]] of objects such as weight, solidity, texture etc. - These properties determine how well-formed an object is for its function. By haptically feeling these properties, we can appreciate [[the functional beauty]] of well-[[designed objects]]. - This constitutes a form of [[aesthetic experience]] in the domain of touch that has been neglected by the tradition. ### Touch and [[Aesthetic Experience]] - Three main arguments have been given for excluding touch from the aesthetic domain: 1. Touch sensations are simple and lack the formal complexity required for [[aesthetic appreciation]]. 2. Touch is essentially private and subjective, lacking a public object. 3. Aesthetic attributions are traditionally restricted to vision and audition in ordinary language. To extend them to touch "would do an injustice to the well-entrenched ways in which this concept is deployed in our discourse." - However, these arguments target only a narrow conception of touch as a modality restricted to sensing [[the state]] of one's own body. ### [[Functional Beauty]] - [[functional beauty]] is a positive aesthetic quality possessed by an object that is well-formed for its function. Appreciating it requires knowledge of the object's function. - An object's features are standard, contra-standard or variable relative to its functional category. - An object exhibits functional beauty when it has no contra-standard features and its variable features are indicative of high functionality. - functional beauty has previously been treated as an exclusively visual phenomenon. The author seeks to extend the notion to haptic touch. ### Haptic Touch and Functional Beauty - Haptic touch involves active exploration of objects and delivers rich experiences of their material properties, not just internal sensations. - These properties are often directly accessible only to touch, e.g. weight, elasticity, rigidity. - We can test an object haptically to discern its functionality without directly using it. This is a disinterested mode of haptic experience closer to traditional aesthetic appreciation. - Haptic exploration reveals the "standard, variable and contra-standard features" of an object relative to its functional category. An object that is ideal for its function feels "fit" - this is the haptic analogue of visual functional beauty. - For example, a perfectly made snowball has no contra-standard features and its variable features (weight, texture) are ideal for throwing. It will exhibit a pleasing haptic quality of "feeling fit for function." - A classic bicycle can be felt to possess functional beauty through the "lightness and flexibility of the steel frame and the firm bounce of the tyres," plus the mechanical smoothness of its parts. These are qualities available only to touch. - An object that only has standard features for its kind may be felt to possess "simplicity, gracefulness, or elegance." - Objects with "pleasingly unexpected or incongruous" contra-standard features can produce "an aesthetically pleasing...tension" that is haptically perceptible, as with a massive door that moves with surprising ease. ### Conclusions - The arguments against touch as an aesthetic modality rest on an "impoverished conception of the content and character of this modality." - Haptic touch discloses rich, complex properties of external objects, not just simple internal sensations. These properties are objective and available for public exploration. - Well-designed objects possess a "functional beauty that can be perceived via haptic touch," consisting in haptically accessible standard, variable and contra-standard features. - Expanding aesthetic attribution to the domain of haptic experience is justified and can be done without "threatening a collapse of the traditional distinction between aesthetic and sensuous pleasure."