Raises it to an art… this might make you think different about what we do here.

[ShelbyDawn57]

As snippet (posted the link below in case it doesn’t work here)from Neil DeGrasse Tyson about creating art. What we do here is unique and that makes each and every one of us special.

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[dirk2024]

Laurel should send him a complimentary membership.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

It’s a wonderful sentiment, but I suspected long before hearing it from Neil deGrasse Tyson that my magical butt plug story was very special.

 

[MelissaBaby]

You're so very special.
I wish I was special,
but I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo...

 

[Djmac1031]

Laurel should send him a complimentary membership.

Who says he's not already a member? Not like he'd have to use his real name.

He probably came up with something clever, like I_Like_Uranus69

 

[TheLobster]

It’s a nice sentiment but it’s also complete nonsense. NDGT has clearly forgotten about monkeys with typewriters.

 

[StillStunned]

It’s a nice sentiment but it’s also complete nonsense. NDGT has clearly forgotten about monkeys with typewriters.

Well, except for the fact that the monkeys-with-typewriters thing is very obviously impossible.

*In theory* every piece of art can be replicated at random, but *in practice* it would take an infinite number of attempts. Even Gen AI, drawing on valuable natural resources and the sum of pirated human writing, can't create anything close to what might be considered unique art.

 

[TheLobster]

*In theory* every piece of art can be replicated at random, but *in practice* it would take an infinite number of attempts.

He’s saying that if you don’t create that piece of art which allegedly only you can create, then no one else ever will. That’s obviously false.

Just like discovering facts about the universe, creating art is also searching through a space. Anything you find there, someone or something else can find as well.

 

[StillStunned]

He’s saying that if you don’t create that piece of art which allegedly only you can create, then no one else ever will. That’s obviously false.

Seems pretty self-evident to me. If only you can create it, then obviously no-one else can.

Just like discovering facts about the universe, creating art is also searching through a space. Anything you find there, someone or something else can find as well.

Creating isn't finding. Creating comes from within, and draws on our brain's makeup, our past experiences, the world around us, the people in our lives and everything else. If I write a story today, it won't be the story I write next week, even if I try to make it exactly the same.

For two individuals to create identical pieces of art, they'd have to be completely identical people, in terms of physical, mental, emotional makeup, experiences, memories, interactions with others and so on.

 

[TheLobster]

Seems pretty self-evident to me. If only you can create it, then obviously no-one else can.

Hence I said "allegedly."

For two individuals to create identical pieces of art, they'd have to be completely identical people, in terms of physical, mental, emotional makeup, experiences, memories, interactions with others and so on.

You are thinking about the provenance of art and ascribing a kind of nigh-supernatural quality to it. Think about its representation instead.

Creating is finding, because all those representations already exist in the same way isosceles triangles do. Anyone can find them; no one is barred from stumbling upon "your" art simply because they aren't you.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

A long time ago one of my teachers put it like this:

If you set a maths question with variables x, y and z, students will return the same correct answer every time.

If you set an English writing prompt about x, y and z, you'll never get the same answer twice.

 

[StillStunned]

Hence I said "allegedly."


You are thinking about the provenance of art and ascribing a kind of nigh-supernatural quality to it. Think about its representation instead.

Creating is finding, because all those representations already exist in the same way isosceles triangles do. Anyone can find them; no one is barred from stumbling upon "your" art simply because they aren't you.

My feelings on the matter aren't nearly strong enough for me to argue this any further.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Hence I said "allegedly."


You are thinking about the provenance of art and ascribing a kind of nigh-supernatural quality to it. Think about its representation instead.

Creating is finding, because all those representations already exist in the same way isosceles triangles do. Anyone can find them; no one is barred from stumbling upon "your" art simply because they aren't you.

So what you are saying that somewhere, sometime, someone with literary talent writing in a vacuum (for that literary talent to not know about the previous famous works) could accidentally write Catch 22 or Slaughterhouse 5 or The Satanic Verses?

Okay that would be difficult due to length, but how about Orwell's one-page essay on drinking tea? (which I disagree with completely, Orwell knew fuck all about how to drink tea : P)

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Both views are religious in their essence. Beliefs presented as reality.

We can enjoy the beauty of art and remain blissfully agnostic about it. It kinda beats these unprovable claims about what art is and how it works.

 

[alohadave]

but *in practice* it would take an infinite number of attempts.

That is the point of that thought exercise.

 

[MelissaBaby]

So what you are saying that somewhere, sometime, someone with literary talent writing in a vacuum (for that literary talent to not know about the previous famous works) could accidentally write Catch 22 or Slaughterhouse 5 or The Satanic Verses?

Okay that would be difficult due to length, but how about Orwell's one-page essay on drinking tea? (which I disagree with completely, Orwell knew fuck all about how to drink tea : P)

I have only a passing familiarity with Rushdie, so I can't speak to that, but Joseph Heller flew sixty combat missions over Europe during World War Two. Kurt Vonnegut was present, on the ground, during the firebombing of Dresden and its aftermath. Nobody else, ever, in the lifetime of the universe, can write Catch-22 or Slaughterhouse 5. The notion is absurd.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's kind of a nice sentiment, but I'm a bit too crusty and hard in my thinking to accept it. It's tautologically true that whatever I as a unique individual create is uniquely my creation, different in at least some particulars from anything anybody else makes. If I built a chair from scratch, designing it and constructing it myself, it would be different from anyone else's chair. But uniqueness doesn't count for much if it collapses the first time somebody sits in it. I prefer to think of the value in art as arising from some hard-to-define blend of the objective and subjective. It's not just my own personal self-expression. I hope it means something "out there" in the world, to somebody, for some reason.

 

[crookedletter]

So what you are saying that somewhere, sometime, someone with literary talent writing in a vacuum (for that literary talent to not know about the previous famous works) could accidentally write Catch 22 or Slaughterhouse 5 or The Satanic Verses?

Okay that would be difficult due to length, but how about Orwell's one-page essay on drinking tea? (which I disagree with completely, Orwell knew fuck all about how to drink tea : P)

As Borges illustrated, it would still be a different work of art, even if it happened to be word for word the same.

 

[iwatchus]

All art is unique, but that does not make all art worthwhile. The trick is to create something that is both.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

All art is unique, but that does not make all art worthwhile. The trick is to create something that is both.

That may be the trick, but what I feel is the most important piece is to just create.

 

[MelissaBaby]

As Borges illustrated, it would still be a different work of art, even if it happened to be word for word the same.

That's exactly right. If someone else did manage through some miraculous fluke to independently write Slaughterhouse 5 again, word for word, the reader would take it in without the knowledge that the author had actually lived through and been profoundly affected some of the events described, and those words would carry a different weight than the original.

 

[DanOkeffie]

You're so very special.
I wish I was special,
but I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo...

would you be my weirdo? oh wait, is that a weird thing to ask?

 

[crookedletter]

All art is unique, but that does not make all art worthwhile. The trick is to create something that is both.

Perhaps it's not worth everyone's while, once it's out in the world. I'd say the act of creating it is always worthwhile, whether or not the result speaks to anyone else.

 

[MiaBabe23]

Very well said, deGrasse Tyson is a fucking legend
Which isn’t to say art is superior in importance - writing our unique takes on, say, polio while drinking unfiltered sea water and wearing leaves might feel less special - but he’s so right that everyone is an artist if they let themselves be

 

[NuclearFairy]

Part of the discussion in here reminds me of the lesson from Ratatouille; in that, anyone can cook, but not everyone is going to be good at it.