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The aesthetic approach to the universe

by kbrecordzz July 17, 2026 Science, general thoughts, philosophy, art

In physics, the underlying laws that create the details we see in the world are often treated as the most fundamental reality. The physical laws exist somewhere, deep down in the structure of the universe, and aren't just tools to explain patterns we tend to see in our day-to-day experience of the world (although they can be described like that also). The current "most true" theories - quantum field theory and Einstein's general relativity - explain the world as something fundamentally different than what you see of it, as if there's a deeper reality that you can never see with all your human biases. Like: Gravity isn't things attracting other things, it's "objects bending four-dimensional spacetime".

Science and materialism have such a firm grip on our view on truth, because of its incredible success in the last centuries, that it's easy to forget how many parts of our experience can't be explained by science, logic and rules. I would claim even most of the world can't be described with science and logic. All the rich varieties of human experience, human societies, almost everything coming from the living parts of the universe (arguably the parts that really matter), can often not be described well in that way, which is what has led to the division of the natural sciences and the humanities or social sciences. The social sciences are much more tied to experience and to living matter, to how it feels to experience the world and not just how dead matter works. And how it feels to experience the world can only be fully understood by actually experiencing it. In some ways, true understanding of the world is sometimes more felt than reasoned to. Knowing another person isn't about knowing all the facts about them, it's an emotional connection you have. Understanding what to do in the world and what's important comes more from intuition than from science.

When you experience art, you feel things and understand things, but not by using logic and reasoning. To me, art isn't just a thing in the world, it's an approach to the world, a way to take it in and experience it. To experience something and feel it without trying to interpret it, judge it, calculate it or explain it. It's when you look up at a starry night sky and just take it all in. Or maybe it's better to call it an aesthetic approach to the universe, and use the word "art" for the most interesting aesthetic experiences. In the aesthetic approach to the world, explaining things doesn't work like it does in physics. If you were to find a fundamental theory explaining what art is and how it works, these "laws" wouldn't be laws in the same way as the physical laws. These laws aren't more fundamental than the actual art you see, they're less fundamental, and are only interesting as a tool to help us find, experience and create more great art. Experiencing the actual details of the art is the only understanding we want in the end. The more details, the more varied, the more unexplainable the better, completely opposite from the physics approach where simpler means better and more powerful. The aesthetic approach is about seeing the world as it is and not reaching for a deeper abstract explanation for everything. All knowledge, even the most scientific one, starts from your experience, and the aesthetic approach to the world ends there as well.

That last part is why I sometimes believe the aesthetic approach to be more "true" than the cognitive approach where we're restricted and bound by the rules of logic and objects (whatever true means after you've thrown logic out the window...). Value judgements of experience, like the feeling of great art, are in a way impossible to fully describe with logic, because experience comes before logic - logic is created by us in our experience (probably as a tool for survival), and not the other way around. The fact that I'm using logic to describe this right now shows how confusing this idea is to take on, but hey, I try.





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