Art Reboot

13 We have two principal modes of waking consciousness: the intellectual mode of the reasoning faculties of mind and an ineffable mode that transcends the intellect. In large areas of the world, predominantly in the East, the existence of both modes has been broadly recognised for thousands of years. Elsewhere, though, and notably in the West since Aristotle, anything that cannot be explained in purely intellectual terms has been stead- ily marginalised and disparaged. My theory argues strongly for the existence of both modes, while simultaneously arguing for the dominance of neither. I propose that the highest mode of consciousness is one in which the intellectual and trans-intel- lectual modes are fully integrated. Along the way, I also discuss the benefits and dangers of the intellect and its sibling, ego, and in particular the hard-wired human urge to transcend the ego-bound self in order to experience a higher order of meaning. In considering the ideas that follow, it is your intellect that will allow you to assess the arguments presented and to judge their potential to change the way you understand art. That intel- lect may also rebel against some of the more radical ideas pres- ented; as we shall see, it tends to demand autonomy, challenging anything that threatens it. But if you accept that, as wondrous as it is, the intellect is only part of the bandwidth of consciousness, you will be able to keep it in its proper place: as a tool to help us embrace the mysterious rather than to deny it.