Tuesday, July 29, 2008

aristotle's back in town

aristotle was right on in proclaiming the importance of the arts in poetics. but now, times have changed and i think its time to revisit and renew--through the eyes of technology. as we 'advance,' new landmarks are reached. eventually, the pedestals of humanity will be conquered. men will live beyond their natural span. computers will work for us, calculating the minutiae of our lives. computers will be in charge of commerce. economics will be the function of a microchip. but there will always be one redeeming factor of the human soul--the arts. sure the computer can print out a picture of a flower , even draw it from its memory, but only the human mind can make it art. only the human mind could give it the characteristics of the human form, like gaughin. the computer could produce a stale tale--jack and jill walked up the hill. but it would just be a learned structure--subject, verb, object. only the human mind can make you feel the muscles straining against the incline of the hill....tragedy and comedy could perhaps be reduced to formulas that a computer could assimilate, but the next step, whatever it is, is something that will be conquered by the human mind.