Author: Will Singleton
Date: 18:03:33 01/12/99
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On January 12, 1999 at 18:56:47, Fernando Villegas wrote: >Dear Don: >Thanks for your kind words about my "artistry". Sure I would like they were >fully truth :-) Respect your reasonning, I see in it some flaws because of your >examples and perhaps, if you used them as mental models to create your own >reasonning, that's the reason you are somewhat mistaken in this point. Let me >explain: >To produce a product is not the same to compete. You produce or can produce >something adding things, efforts, etc. In fact, that's the esence to do >something. To compete is to decide which product or perfomance or whatever is >best according a criteria, so it is something enterily different. In the first >case it is obvious some process of aditions can be -not neccesarily, but it can >be- useful for the final product; in the second case it is obvious that not >adition counts, but just comparison between isolated competitive elements. The >fastest man of the world IS the fastest, no matter if all population of the >earth compete against him. And so and so, including Gary againts all genuses of >the world, including you and me :-) But if adition is the point, even the best >guy in the world to use the showel cannot create a deepest hole as a million >guys could do. >Now, I think that a chess program cannot be catalogued as a piece of art and so >programming cannot be catalogued as an artistic process. It is based in >techniques that are known, that accumulates in times, that can be compared each >other in terms of eficacy, etc. So chess programming approach a lot more to a >clasic technnological enterprise AND THEN AND SO the addition process gets great >importance, if not decisive. You cannot say that a Charly Parker jazz >improvisation is "better" than one by Coleman Hakwkins, because a real work of >art is something individual, uncomparable, valid in itself for ever. But of >course you can compare between chess programs. CM2000 is not a piece of art >valid forever, just a piece of software valid until a better one made of it a >piece of obsolescence. >Yes, some tech. enterprises can seems to be an art craft because the initial >isolation of the creators, some fuzzyness of the techniques, etc, BUT that is >not enough to think that will be the way to do things forever. I am sure that >Curie was a talented man, but I am sure that sistematic work in any modern >commercial laboratory produces tenfold more ideas and approaches that what weas >done by Curie all his life. In this, sciences, it is matter of critical mass, >specially when this "mass" is highly skilled people. >Fernando Fernando, You make a couple of points I would disagree with, in your thoughtful message. You say "To produce a product is not the same to compete." In the context of the discussion about Microsoft, one cannot produce a product without the prospect of successful competition, almost by definition. In the broader scheme of things, which includes pure research, you are of course correct. But not in a business environment. With respect to whether a computer program is a piece of art, I must say I could not disagree more. Let me turn it around. (Will as Fernando): Now, I think that a jazz performance cannot be catalogued as a piece of art and so playing an instrument cannot be catalogued as an artistic process. It is based in techniques that are known, that accumulates in times, that can be compared each other in terms of eficacy, etc. So playing the sax approaches a lot more to a clasic technnological enterprise AND THEN AND SO the addition process gets great importance, if not decisive. You cannot say that a Bob Hyatt program is "better" than one by Don Dailey, because a real work of art is something individual, uncomparable, valid in itself for ever. But of course you can compare between sax players. Parker is not a piece of art valid forever, just a bunch of fast riffs strung together, played over and over, valid until a better one made of it a piece of obsolescence. [ end of transposition ] Actually, while that was fun, I believe that both chess programming and jazz can be mechanical, or they can be artistic. Depends on who's doing the programming, and also on who's judging. The process of creation and art can exist in the most mundane appliance, or even a can of soup. Will
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