From: Mark Crosby (crosby_m@rocketmail.com)
Date: Mon Oct 27 1997 - 11:12:40 MST
On Sat, 25 Oct 1997 00:31:22 +0000 Nicholas Bostrom
wrote:
< To put it more provocatively: art tends to be
useless, so it would seem like a good idea to rewire
us so that we no longer find art interesting, and to
use other methods to get the pleasure or emotional
experiences that we would have obtained from wasting
mental resources on art. Unless, of course, we think
that art is valuable in itself. (And unless and until
such rewiring becomes commonplace, art will also
maintain an instrumental value.) >
Thanks for being provocative ;-) and for clarifying.
After I made that post I finally got around to
reading your "Cortical Integration" paper and found
it to be a useful survey. Perhaps another approach is
the "spreading waves of activation" network (see
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/Noetica/OpenForumIssue5/SWA.html
)
One problem I sometimes have in interpreting (or
maybe it’s in responding to) some posts is summed up
by something you wrote in your "Cortical Integration"
paper:
"The thought was to get as simple a world as
possible, yet one that had enough complexity to allow
an illustration of the principles behind the system."
I tend to read between the lines and look for all the
exceptions rather than stick to the basics of the
specific scenario being postulated, immediately
trying to fit it into my own model of reality. I
wonder if that’s a symptom or example of the
unconstrained curiosity you’re making a case against;
or, perhaps, it’s just a desire to skip the hard work
of logical analysis and try too soon for some sort of
artistic integration.
Mark Crosby
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