The main questions in philosophy of mind parallel the main questions in aesthetics. We find that the relationship between artwork and its material substrate (i.e. the stuff it is made of) is as intricate as the difference between the mind and the body. We are flesh just as a painting is paint, but are we more than flesh - is art more than paint? Is the mind just the sum of neuronal firings in a lump of gray meat in our heads? Is a painting just the sum of brush stokes on a canvas? The answer to what art is might come with the answer to what consciousness is. The answers seem linked by the notion that there would be no art if there were no minds present to appreciate it.
