From: Richard Steven Hack (richardhack@pcmagic.net)
Date: Thu Mar 07 2002 - 11:39:09 MST
At 04:04 PM 3/7/02 +0100, you wrote:
>Scott McCloud made the point in his _Understanding Comics_ that turning
>a realistic picture into a cartoon makes it more generally applicable. A
>photograph of a face represents a certain person; a sketch a small
>number of similar people, a cartoon many people and a circle with two
>dots nearly all people. So by removing details we can make something
>more general. But conversely, by making a caricature we emphasize
>important aspects (the nose, a lock of hair, a mannerism) and make them
>stronger - and people actually recognize celebrities better from
>caricatures than from photos. It is a bit like supernormal stimuli in
>animals: many birds react to certain patterns like the red spot on a
>parents beak or the tailfeathers of a peacock, so when researchers
>amplify these features (by painting a larger spot or attaching huge
>feathers) the response is amplified (take a look at how Boris Vallejo
>amplifies secondary sexual characteristics in the same manner). So by
>removing irrelevant aspects and amplifying relevant aspects, we can make
>something (or someone) produce a more intense experience of a thing.
>
>Vilayanur Ramachandran has coined the term "Neuroesthetics" for the
>study of the neuroscience of art appreciation (see e.g.
>http://noemata.net/?no=262 or
>http://www.unesco.org/courier/1999_06/uk/signes/txt1.htm).
Interesting - I should look into that, since I am convinced of the primacy
of neuroscience over regular psychology in understanding human behavior.
>But while intensity is important, *what* is being intense can also be
>important. Beauty and emotion are the mainstays of intense art, but I
>have become more and more interested in enjoying intensively
>intellectual art - just as a Picasso can hit the senses straight on,
>certain pieces of Philip Glass may hit my thinking straight on.
I agree entirely. I wouldn't want you to misunderstand my post on
intensity. I am in no way anti-intellectual nor do I prefer the emotions
over the intellect - quite the opposite, mostly. Clearly, something
intellectual can provoke an intense emotional reaction - but the intensity
is still there, both in the emotional reaction and in the precision and
clarity of the intellectual component.
Having mentioned Jodie Foster's comment that acting was not an intellectual
matter may have mislead you. In fact, my attraction to her is because she
exhibits intensity on all levels - emotional, physical, and
intellectual. And she herself does take a substantially intellectual
attitude toward the work. But she also takes a very emotional
approach. For Contact, which is a very "intellectual" movie - a "head"
movie - she waited three years to do it because of the scene in which her
character is reunited with her father (who is actually just an image
projected by the alien race). She did the movie primarily to do *that* one
scene - because she never had a connection to her father in real life (he
abandoned her family before she was born and she has been estranged from
him all her life) and it was emotionally important for her to act out that
situation.
As another example, if you have ever seen the original Superman movie with
Christopher Reeve, there is the quick scene where Superman dives into the
San Andreas fault and pushes it back into place. The concept is
intellectually absurd, but the image of Superman shouldering most of the
West Coast tectonic plate on his shoulders, Atlas-like, is one of the more
striking images of the movie.
>I guess that as we develop our bodies, that many of us will want to
>create a more intense form of ourselves - we will concentrate our
>personal essences into our appearance, until we look exactly like we
>*are*. That is where self-transformation starts to turn us into music
>and dance itself.
>
>
>--
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
>asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
>GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
>
Agreed. Initially, before nanotech is fully developed, we may enhance our
physical forms to reflect who we are. Later, however, I suspect that our
forms may be dictated by our intellectual needs rather than our emotional
needs. I am not sure that Transhumans will have "emotions" as we
understand (or do not understand) them. I'd be interested in your or
anyone's comments on whether a post-biological, hyper-intelligent entity
would "need" emotions. Note that I assume such an entity could easily
implement emotions. What I'm asking is, does anyone think they would
*have* to have emotions.
Richard Steven Hack
richardhack@pcmagic.net
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