X-Message-Number: 11546
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 00:27:48 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Art and intentionality

Thomas Donaldson, #11358, writes

>A reply to Mike: your story is fine, and I don't deny that you found the
>pebble you say you found.
>
>But did your father consider the pebble to be a sculpture?
>
I didn't ask him. Maybe he would have agreed that it was a "natural
sculpture," though (to him) not a very pleasing example. Anyway, despite the
face, it didn't look as if it were made by human hands, as no doubt it
wasn't. I agree with you that a computer-produced (or nature-produced) piece
of art, poetry or whatever may have meanings to us that it didn't have to
the process that created it (which may be completely unconscious and just
"lucky" or just artfully designed, or may even be conscious but not the way
it seemed to be). But once again, I regard something as art, poetry,
mathematics or whatever based on its intrinsic properties, not its
originating process, and I hope to be consistent about it. I look forward,
though, to seeing what creations will be done by artificial systems of the
future that *do*, by appearances, have real feelings and intentionality.
(Yes, this too is one more reason to be a cryonicist.)

Mike Perry

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