X-Message-Number: 11523
Date: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 22:36:53 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Simulated Poet, Real Poetry

Thomas Donaldson, #11519, writes,

>A poet that is basically a program in a computer does not
>write poetry (though if the programmer who created that poet is good
>enough, he might make the poet write something that looked very much
>like poetry.

It would seem that your definition of "poetry" incorporates something about
the *origin* of the text in question, i.e. it is based on something more
than the text itself. While I don't have a precise definition, to me whether
a piece of text is to be regarded as "poetry" or not depends on the text
itself, and not how it was created or what produced it. Again, I submit that
a simulated poet would write real poetry. A simulated mathematician would do
real mathematics, etc.

I'll try to check on Wittgenstein.

Mike Perry

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