The School of Athens (1509 – 1511) by Raphael is an empiricorationally noble work of art. It fancifully depicts a large group of philosophers from antiquity, from various times and regions, all together in the same place and time. They are each engaged in writing, reading, studying or discussing philosophical or learned topics. There is a powerful sense of shared purpose and dedication to striving for greater wisdom and understanding.

Empiricorationally noble art reflects the values and principles of empiricorationalism and the sense-of-life of those who adhere to it; these include:

There are innumerable artistic or creative works which portray mysticism or mystical values as noble. (Examples would be works which portray supernatural events or a devotion to uncritically accepted faith.) Such mystical nobility is really pseudo-nobility, a false nobility and therefore a non-nobility or ignobility based on the false values of a mystical sense-of-life. Scionics holds empiricorational nobility to be the crowning and defining characteristic of a Scion; such true nobility can never be held by a mystic, nor can it ever be a characteristic of art which glorifies mysticism.

One is better able to achieve one’s goals and attain happiness and fulfillment if one’s thinking and actions are consistent with reason and reality, in other words, if one’s thinking and actions are empiricorational. Because empiricorationally noble art promotes empiricorationalism, one’s survival prospects and capacity for the enjoyment of life tends to be elevated by the experience of empiricorationally noble art.

The regular experience of empiricorationally noble art also leads to a greater appreciation of (and a greater ability to appreciate) such art. Most people, however, do not regularly experience empiricorationally noble art, and often have a hard time readily apprehending its intellectual, emotional, and aesthetic value, due (1) to the typically greater complexity of such art, and (2) the mystical nature of most individuals. This, unfortunately, leads many to avoid empiricorationally noble art and music, instead preferring forms which are more readily accessible but which unfortunately tend to suppress or diminish empiricorationality. Empiricorational thought thus tends to be diminished in those who eschew empiricorationally noble art, but amplified in those who embrace it.

Literature

Fiction

While fiction (whether presented purely as a written work, or as a play or screenplay) is a very different art form than painting, it is still certainly possible to create empiricorationally noble works of fiction. Such works portray the world and the people and things which inhabit it as understandable, albeit possibly complex. There is nothing magical, mystical, or supernatural in such fiction. The protagonists tend to be individuals who acknowledge reality as real and deal with it as such, who bow to no higher authority while also respecting and upholding the non-aggression principle, and who strive to realize their goals in truly heroic or noble fashion. Gratuitous violence, particularly by the protagonists, is non-existent. The protagonists tend to choose empiricorationally noble individuals as their serious romantic partners. (This is not to say that the protagonists are unconcerned with the physical attraction they feel to their partners, but that such physical attraction is merely one of many characteristics by which romantic partners are evaluated.)

Exposure to empiricorationally noble fiction presents one with characters which exemplify an empiricorational approach to life, and promotes an empiricorationally noble sense-of-life. It helps one to internalize empiricorationally noble values, and to reflect them in one's own thinking and actions. Regular exposure to aesthetically noble fiction will also tend to affect one's tastes in such a manner that aesthetically noble fiction becomes more enjoyable over time. One will find oneself ever more gravitating towards empiricorationally noble fiction as it increasingly reflects one's ever growing empiricorationally noble sense-of-life.

Non-Fiction

The goal of non-fiction is obviously very different from that of fiction. Whereas fiction is a selective re-creation of reality (an attempt to create characters, situation and other aspects of reality) non-fiction is about various aspects of reality itself. Non-fiction as such is not, therefore, a strictly artistic endeavor as it has been defined herein, but is a means for describing, documenting, interpreting, or commenting upon actual reality. It may, of course, employ certain artistic elements (such as music in the case of a documentary film, as just one example) but these are not the focus or purpose of the work.

Non-fiction is, however, often considered and read as an alternative to fiction. It is because reading non-fiction works is often an alternative to reading fiction, and also because works of non-fiction can (like fiction) often convey some particular sense-of-life, that non-fiction will be included here, in a discussion otherwise devoted to art.

Like fiction, non-fiction works can also convey some particular sense-of-life. The focus can be on wars and violence, or upon peace and peacemakers, for example; as another example, they can be focused on the empiricorational scientific study and understanding of the universe, or they can be focused upon on the study of ancient so-called “holy books,” or upon any number of other mysticisms.

The orientation or focus of a non-fiction work can certainly be in accord with and promote empiricorational nobility. It can describe the actions of real, historical individuals who have intellectually triumphed over ignorance or mysticism, who have come to understand reality in ways previously unimagined by others, or who have chosen to resist violence, prejudice, or evil in the face of great adversity. It can describe the workings of the world in ways which are reality-based, logical and enlightening, from physics, chemistry, biology, economics, politics, psychology, medicine, philosophy or any subject at all. Furthermore, aside from the empiricorationally noble sense-of-life which such works can convey, the information they contain, being focused on reality itself, can often be applied in one's own life to great advantage.

Music

Music is a very different form of art from either painting or literature because music is abstract by its very nature. Whereas painting and literature can be used to represent concrete things (such as a recognizable portrait or landscape, or a detailed descriptions of persons, places, or things) music is really only able to convey emotions and feelings. (When speaking of music, we are excluding lyrics, which are really not the music itself, but words which accompany the music, or which are sung as a way of making music via pitched words.)

The Evolutionary Origins of Human Music

Humans have both linguistic and musical abilities far beyond those of other animals. Like the advanced human capacity for language and literature, the advanced musical capacity of humans is based upon the ability for conceptual thought. Other animals also have the ability to communicate, of course, but these abilities are quite limited in comparison with those of humans; likewise, some animals also create songs of a sort, e.g., birds and whales, but these musical abilities, such as they are, are extremely limited in comparison with those of humans.

In human evolution, musical capacity evolved in tandem with linguistic capacity. In our early evolution, in fact, they were not two separate things at all, but instead were both part of a single communication system to which Stephen Brown has given the name “musilanguage.” As human evolution progressed and conceptual abilities grew, humanity began to distinguish between, selectively apply, and relate differently to the two different aspects of musilanguage which we now identify as “music” and as “speech.”

Even today music and speech have many aspects in common; for example, both music and speech have rhythmic qualities, and both involve variations in tone (pitch). Although rhythm and tone (pitch) are much more obviously involved with music, humans almost universally employ tone to convey meaning in speech, and also quite commonly speak in rhythmic cadences. The use of tone and cadence varies from language to language, but it is nevertheless true that tone and cadence are elements (although often unconsciously employed elements) in spoken language around the world.

There is also a sort of universal “mothering language” which is employed by mothers to their newly-born babies, and to which these babies also universally respond. New-born babies do not understand words, of course, but they do understand and respond to this mothering language, which is characterized by certain specific tonal and rhythmic patterns used to convey meaning to the babies, who react to it on a purely emotional level. Although the verbal content of this mothering language differs depending upon the language spoken by the mother, the tonal and rhythmic patterns remain quite similar across all cultures.

It should also be noted that this mothering language is not actually limited to mothers. It seems that all humans instinctively know the tonal and rhythmic “mothering language” and use it not only with babies and small children, but often even with pets.

“Dynamics” is another common aspect of both music and speech, although it is more typically associated with music than with speech. In music it typically refers to the volume or loudness of a note or phrase, often in relative terms rather than absolute terms; in other words, it refers to a particular note or phrase being louder or softer relative to the rest of a piece, rather than the actual absolute volume. Dynamics may also refer to other aspects of musical performance, such as whether the notes under consideration are played staccato (essentially, “short” notes) or legato (“long” notes), or how quickly something is played. It should be obvious that these same dynamic qualities which apply to music also apply to speech.

Selectivity and Empiricorationalism in Music

Musical preferences are highly subjective and variable: it is related to each person's cultural conditioning, disposition, mood, and other factors. Music can convey a sense of fun, mania, peace, anger, violence, serenity, triumph, exaltation, sadness, and so on. One's musical preferences typically reflect one's own mood and sense-of-life; conversely, the sense-of-life of a piece of music can influence the mood and sense-of-life of the listener. (“Mood” is a more short-term state, while “sense-of-life” is an analogous but deeper and more long-term condition.)

Instrumental music eliminates the linguistic word- and concept-based aspects from speech and elaborates richly upon its tonal, harmonic and dynamic aspects, i.e., it selects tonal, harmonic and dynamic aspects and then selectively arranges or organizes them. Music is inherently abstract in nature, employing sound to convey or elicit emotions and feelings rather than communicating concrete concepts.

The very simplest aspect of music is rhythm, although it is possible to create quite complex rhythms. One can produce a musical rhythm while completely ignoring melody, harmony, or anything at all to do with pitch or musical tones. In fact the very first musical instruments were simple percussive things which made a sound when they were hit or struck; these evolved into drums.

It is not possible to play a melody at all by simply banging two rocks together, or by hitting two sticks together, or by banging on a drum; quite complex rhythms can be created, but not melodies. Percussion alone, even the most complex thereof, evokes a very limited range of emotional effects upon the human mind. One never listens to a purely percussive piece thinking of what a beautiful song it is, or sad, or happy, or anything like that. About the only thing which can be communicated is a sense of speed, and regularity or irregularity in terms of the beat. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a bad note when playing a drum or other purely percussive instrument. It would be like playing a piano, with only one key. Because there is only one key, there is no possibility of a bad note. The only room for selection (and hence error) would be when or how loudly to play that single key. This same thing generally holds true in the case of percussion, even in such cases where one has multiple drums or other purely percussive instruments at one's disposal. If one strikes the wrong drum the effect is never even close to the sense one gets when the wrong note is played on a piano, for example.

Beauty is related to the pleasurable appreciation of the arrangement, organization or form of a thing, and the recognition that this arrangement or form is somehow superior to or preferred over other possible arrangements or forms. The experience of a piece of music with a high degree of selectivity would be greatly impacted by an alternative selection of its musical elements (the notes, melodies, harmonies or other elements) whereas the experience of music with a low degree of selectivity would only be slightly impacted by an alternative selection of its musical elements.

Most musical forms, from popular to classical, typically do have a fairly high level of selectivity, although the selectivity of classical music does tend to be much higher than in popular music. In popular music a degree of selection is required for short sections of the song, but then these sections are often simply repeated over and over, and there is no selection involved in this repetition. In classical music, on the other hand, certain themes may be restated from time to time, but this it typically done with variations of the theme rather than simple repetition, and also typically with a high degree of non-repetitive musical exploration outside of the theme.

In both classical and popular music (actually in much of Western music in general) selectivity is often related to musical resolution, i.e., the progression of notes or chords from dissonant states to consonant states. There is often a sense of suspense or incompleteness when notes or chords are in a dissonant state, and a sense of completeness when this is resolved into a consonant state. It is also possible to create a sense of surprise or of the musically unexpected when music is resolved in novel ways. The skillful manipulation of suspense and resolution (through such elements as harmony, dissonance, expectation and surprise) requires a very high level of selectivity. Such selectivity in terms of suspension and resolution is present in both popular and classical music, but it is much more manifest in classical music, again because the repetitive nature of popular music greatly diminishes the role of such selectivity.

A high degree of selectivity regarding musical suspension and resolution (i.e., the skillful selection of notes, chords, harmonies, dissonances, and the manipulation of musical expectation and surprise, for the purposes of creating musical suspense and resolution) is at the apex of musical artistry and achievement; this is also the apex of musical empiricorational execution. In Scionics, such selectivity regarding the creation of musical suspension and resolution will be specifically referred to as resolutional selectivity.

Music which demonstrates the artist’s empiricorational understanding and use of the artistic medium of music, particularly in its degree of resolutional selectivity, is empiricorationally executed music. Because music is incapable of directly portraying concrete things or events, however, it is therefore also incapable of directly portraying either empiricorational realism or empiricorational nobility. That being said, however, musical pieces with a high degree of resolutional selectivity tend to convey the greatest sense of the empiricorationally noble, due to the extraordinary effort (or plain artistic genius) which the creation of such music typically requires. It is as though the listener is able to perceive, through the music itself, the extraordinary care and precision with with the various parts of a piece were selected by the composer, to produce exactly the final effect desired. Such music exemplifies the ability to know, understand, and control reality, as specifically applied to the creation of music.

(In the case of painting or literature, it is possible to empiricorationally execute a work very well, but still have the work portray something which is not empiricorationally noble. In such a case the non-empiricorational nature of the thing portrayed would cause the work to fail to be classified as empiricorationally noble. In the case of music, which is abstract by its very nature, there can be no direct portrayal of anything concrete, whether empiricorational or not. In the case of music, then, since there is nothing actually being directly portrayed, it is only the execution of the music – the creation and playing of it – which determines the empiricorational nobility of the piece, with high resolutional selectivity as the highest musical achievement.)

Remembering that beauty is related to the pleasurable appreciation of the arrangement or form of a thing, musical beauty is closely related to resolutional selectivity. Of course, if one is unable to appreciate the artistry and skill of a particular musical composition, one will not really be able to experience the beauty of the piece. It should also be noted that certain sounds tend to be viewed as more beautiful than others; for example the sound of a harp tends to be perceived as more beautiful than the sound of a tuba. Thus the beauty of a piece of music may be judged in terms of the structure of a piece (with resolutional selectivity being a component of this), on one hand, or in terms of the actual sound of the piece, on the other. So, the sound of random wind-chimes may be sonically beautiful, but the structure of whatever random “melody” they create is rather simple and uninspiring, with essentially no resolutional selectivity whatsoever.

In terms of musical aesthetics, one cannot characterize a purely percussive piece of music as having any sort of resolutional selectivity at all; it also therefore possesses very little musical (structural) beauty. It may be complex, or “technical,” or some other such thing, but true musical beauty requires more. Beauty is related to the pleasurable appreciation of the arrangement, organization or form of a thing, and the recognition that this arrangement or form is somehow superior to or preferred over other possible arrangements or forms. In music, such beauty is the result of the artist's selection of various musical elements. Because there is very little selection in purely percussive music there really can be no right or wrong notes (because there really are no notes) and therefore also very little or no resolutional selectivity or true beauty.

Once one adds the element of pitch or tone, the level of musical selectivity increases vastly, and one can then weave truly rich, beautiful, and complex sonic tapestries, and elicit a wide range of deep human emotions. Different tones can be played at the same time, creating chords and all sorts of harmonies and disharmonies. The order and speed of the notes creates the form and content of the music, and even without the addition of purely percussive instruments (e.g., drums) the music can certainly have a rhythm.

It is possible, however, for tonal elements to be present in a piece of music while the level of musical selectivity remains rather low; this is usually due to a high degree of tonal, harmonic, and resolutional repetition, and also often due to a highly repetitive percussive aspect. Such music tends to be rather banal and limited in terms of the mood and sense-of-life it elicits. If, on the other hand, the beat is rather unobtrusive, and the melodies and harmonies have relatively little repetition (and hence are typically more complex, well-developed, and resolutionally selective) a wider range of deeper, more meaningful, and more complex moods and senses-of-life can be expressed, including the fullest and deepest musical expression of an empiricorationally noble sense-of-life.

“Popular” music, whether rock, rap, heavy-metal, hip-hop, techno, country, dub-step, or the like, is obviously far more complex than a simple, regular beat, due to to addition of melodies and harmonies, and often a more complex beat. This tends to make popular music more interesting and more enjoyable to listen to than a simple, regular beat. In popular music, however, the beat tends to be quite prominent, the notes tend to have a fairly low level of variety, and (most importantly) the melodies and harmonies tend to be very repetitive and low in terms of resolutional selectivity. These qualities tend to make popular music rather banal and limited in terms of mood and sense-of-life; any “noble” aspects of such music tend to be rather underdeveloped and simplistic.

In contrast, classical music often tends to have a rather unobtrusive beat or rhythm (typically without any percussive instrument at all to pound out the beat) as well as a very low level of melodic and harmonic repetition. With lesser repetition there is also “room” for the development of an extremely high degree of melodic and harmonic variety and complexity, and an extremely high degree of resolutional selectivity. Classical music thus expresses a very wide range of deep, meaningful, and complex moods and senses-of-life. It also is the form most capable of most fully and deeply conveying an empiricorationally noble sense-of-life.

It is possible, however, to create musical works which are similar to classical music in the sense that they are long and non-repetitive (and often quite complex, although not necessarily so) but which nevertheless possess a very low level of musical selectivity and in general, and a very low level of resolutional selectivity in specific. The resultant music thus often has a quality of “randomness;” this randomness is essentially the opposite of selectivity. Certain types of jazz, for example, can be very “loose” in terms of the various forms of musical selection. Such jazz (and other slightly- or non-selective forms) are typically rather low in terms of musical (structural) beauty, because such beauty is dependent upon selection. They also are rather limited in terms of sense-of-life, again, because this also depends upon selection; there is very little expression in terms of the empiricorationally noble sense-of-life.

At this point it would be natural to address the issue of why popular music is indeed, popular, and why classical tends to be more limited in its appeal for most individuals. The truth is that it is far easier to produce simple, banal music than complex, selective music. It's also easier to understand and mentally follow along with such music, as it is typically based on very simple and familiar musical structures (such as the well-known “three chord” structure of much popular music) and a fairly strong repetitive beat which is also trivial to mentally follow. It is actually the relatively rare individual who truly enjoys actively engaging their mind in deep, complex, highly selective musical structures, such as found in classical music; such individuals also typically tend to avoid simpler, popular styles of music. Classical music obviously requires a much higher degree of musical intelligence to create, than simpler, less selective forms; it also takes a somewhat higher degree of musical intelligence to strongly appreciate such music as well.

The enjoyment of, or preference for, various forms of music also may be understood in terms of the level of musical interest that the piece holds for the listener, and this is also a direct result of musical intelligence. When someone tries to read or watch something which is over one's head one typically becomes bored with it; likewise, when someone tries to read or watch something which is exceedingly simple in comparison with one's own intellect, this also creates boredom and disinterest. The maximum amount of interest is sustained by that which has just the right amount of complexity, but not too much. In much the same way, the musical forms which one tends to find interesting or uninteresting are a reflection of one's own level of musical intelligence. Due to the much higher level of musical selectivity in general, and of resolutional selectivity in particular, a sustained perception of musical interest in classical music requires a greater degree of musical intelligence; those with such a degree of musical intelligence will also tend to find simpler, less musically selective forms to be rather boring and uninteresting.

It should be noted that musical intelligence is different from other forms of intelligence, in that one does not necessarily have to study anything in order to increase one's musical intelligence. One can simply begin to expose oneself to a greater amount of classical music. The effect of this, over time, will be to train one's mind to learn to recognize and appreciate the complex structural beauty of highly musically selective classical music.

This is not to say that one should force oneself to listen exclusively to classical music, or that one should never enjoy listening to popular styles of music. It is advisable, however, to expose oneself to classical music and, through this exposure, to more fully develop one's musical sensibilities and one's appreciation for classical music. Of course, there will be times when one is simply in the mood for other forms of music – and that's fine! The primary purpose of music is enjoyment and the experience it creates within oneself. Over time, however, one may actually come to regard the simplicity and repetition of popular music to be a bit dull or even irksome, while finding delight and stimulation in the sublime melodic and harmonic structures of the world's greatest classical pieces, composed by true masters of the craft.