creativity and intelligence

[robot]

can stupid people create art? i don't mean can stupid people draw well.

i'm saying... can they create art?

[when you are the moon]

I think that would depend first on your definition of art, wouldn't it?

[robot]

well of course

[töm]

i think so very much. anyone can create art. if anything, i think that excessive intellegence can actually stem creativity. a "creative genius" in no way or form must be a "genius."

but then again, whatever anyone makes isn't art. it's just percieved as it. things just happen. we put labels on it. "good," "bad," or "art."

[Citizen Kane]

like those painting elephants....

ART

[Takker]

how about this: if picasso was stupid, would he still have been able to make his masterpieces?

[ManiacTHP]

Well, art is a matter of perspective. One person could look at a canvas covered in random splashes of paint and think that it is the most emotional and exquisite piece ever created. Someone else could look at it and wonder what the person was smoking while they created it. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

[pussycat]

I think the better question is what do you define as stupid? people who are bad at math and science or anything scholarly could be masters at art. some autistic people are extremely skilled at creating art. so.. so yeah.

[when you are the moon]

how about this: if picasso was stupid, would he still have been able to make his masterpieces?
Well, he managed to do it while being a horrible misogynist and all around shitty human being, so why not?

I think if you define "art" in the broadest terms (basically everything not related to survival or reproduction drive could be considered uneccesary and therefore "creative"), the yes, everybody is certainly <i>capable</i> of creating art. I think if you're looking in terms of quality however, I would think those of a more intelligent bent would have a better shot at it, as they pretty much do in any other area (having more to pull from intellectually would, I think, give the artist a leg-up as far as inspiration to derive works from).

Ditto Cat, though: are we talking about greater innate intelligence, or "learned"ness?

[Davey Rootbeer]

The lines for what we call "genius" and what we call "stupid" are actually very fine. Both do something different than "normal", and have different thought processes than "normal people" would have, so their works can be seen as more "creative" by "normal people".

It's not smarter, or dumber. it's just different.

[MST3Kakalina]

i think a better question would be, can non-sentient things create art?


(my definition of art in this case is an expression of self and/or fulfilling an inner drive to create something. just to make things...easier. because i think all humans, barring extremely braindead vegetables, are capable of creating "art" in that sense.)

[when you are the moon]

Non-sentient? Do you mean, like... rocks? I would think anything they would be capable of "creating" would be largely the result of outside factors acting on them, and not resulting from an inner drive. Therefore not really "creative" so much as "accidental". Not to mention that any "creativity" would have to be based entirely on <b>our</b> subjective observation of a "creative behavior"; it'd be more ad hoc explanation than anything else (since a rock isn't about to audibly declare "hey, check it out! Art!"). Since I'm pretty sure that one of those defining factors for "sentience" is self-awareness, and one deifinition of art is closely tied to self-awareness, I think art kind of falls to us sentient beings only. I would think.

[the Worms]

but then again, whatever anyone makes isn't art. it's just percieved as it. things just happen. we put labels on it. "good," "bad," or "art."

You cute little postmodernist, you! Unfortunately, then we have a world in which communication is meaningless and saying the world "beautiful" to anyone is just an egotistical cry for attention. Postmodernism is a cold and lonely place.

Well, art is a matter of perspective. One person could look at a canvas covered in random splashes of paint and think that it is the most emotional and exquisite piece ever created.

Why must art necessarily be emotional? Sure, there can be emotional content involved, no question, but is it really defined so? What is an emotion? Is it not an irrational, passing reaction to a rational or instinctive notion? What is anger but a reaction to a hurt sense of justice? What is fear but the instinct of self-preservation? It is not the emotions that are paramount. The emotions have a place in the world, but they are not an end, because they represent something else. It seems to me that all are is a representation of existence in the primary sense, and secondarily, art is a form of something that appeals to the specifically human notion of purposeful form (i.r. something that is what it is for a reason), and not necessarily to emotion or desire. In our very act of creation, we are imitating what we imagine to be the origin of the world in that the world seems to us to also have a purpose and to have the traits of having been created. I find it interesting that Hegel believed that human art is a beauty higher than nature, in that it is the creator creating through his greatest creation.

In this sense, the artistic genius is one who understands what it is that we (humans) find beautiful, and sees a truth that no one else does.

some autistic people are extremely skilled at creating art. so.. so yeah.

Autistic people are sometimes good at reproducing art. Don't mistake the skill of the concert pianist for the art of the composer.

I think if you define "art" in the broadest terms (basically everything not related to survival or reproduction drive could be considered uneccesary and therefore "creative")

Art doesn't have to be beautiful anymore? Producing a thing is not necessarily creating, and creating is not necessarily artistic.

I think if you're looking in terms of quality however, I would think those of a more intelligent bent would have a better shot at it, as they pretty much do in any other area

The more intelligent the person, the more disastrous and catastrophic his ideas can be if he bases them on a false premise. E.g. Raskolnikov in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.

The lines for what we call "genius" and what we call "stupid" are actually very fine.

That line being truth and falsehood, reality and phantasm, reason and irrationality.

i think a better question would be, can non-sentient things create art?

Of course not. Nature and art are both beautiful, but one appears to have the purpose of achieving beauty (nature) and the other actually does have that purpose (art). In this sense and in the sense that man has imagination, art is a distinctively human enterprise.

[Ravenous Monkey]

What if beauty is defined as harmony, eloquence or the unexpected product of trying to survive most efficiently? Nature could be striving for those things (beautiful flowers to attract insects) and creating things that we consider beautiful or at least magnificent.

[the Worms]

The problem with that is that beauty seems somehow inherently tied to sense-perception.

[töm]

it's not postmodernism, it's a detachment from necessary influence and the acknowledgement that you have control over your own mind. the person stepping on your toe doesn't anger you, you anger yourself by your reaction. you can let go. same thing with art, it seems.

[leatherface]

Well look at me. I'm not very intellegent, yet I've been selected to go to one of the country's best art schools. I think that pretty much solves the argument or at least its simpler aspects.

[MST3Kakalina]

ah shit. i should explain myself further.

let's look at AI, for example. if you wrote a computer programmed designed to write music, and it did it REALLY well (to take a cue from Alan Turing, you couldn't tell the difference between a three minute piece the computer wrote and one a human wrote), would that piece of music be considered art, even if the computer wasn't "aware" of itself while creating it?

THAT'S what i meant by non-sentient.


Tom: how Zen of you.

worms: i'd also argue that autistic people can and do create art. maybe not extremely low functioning savants, but even then i think they can at least create something that's art to THEM.

whatever. i'll stop pretending like i know what i'm talking about, now.

[Ravenous Monkey]

I feel computers, if advanced enough, can imitate if not surpass humans in their ability to make art.

Art is formulaic, if those formulas can be cracked and codified, then it is possible.

[the Worms]

I think that art is not formulaic in that if an artwork has been created, the work that it does on its observer can only be done in the way it is done. That is, you can't conceive of an art work fully, because when you translate it into ideas or words, you lose a piece of what was the artwork; you lose the art in place of a summary. Art cannot be formulaic because a formula defeats the purpose of art. In the case of a Michael Moore movie, for example, everything in the movie can easily be re-represented in prosaic form without any loss of meaning. Thus, the movie is just a more convincing way of saying the same thing, i.e. propaganda.

it's not postmodernism, it's a detachment from necessary influence and the acknowledgement that you have control over your own mind. the person stepping on your toe doesn't anger you, you anger yourself by your reaction. you can let go. same thing with art, it seems.

You sure? If it is only art to me because I have labelled it so, then the label means nothing outside my mind, as do all other labels. That is nominalism. Nominalism plus detachment from influence equals extreme, isolated subjectivity. Extreme subjectivity is the basis of postmodernism. Anyhow, your last statement sounds like stoicism; their problem was that they couldn't figure out why they were supposed to care about anyone else because outside influence was the source of evil for them. What I am trying to say is that a satisfying ethic is difficult to find if you also want to be self-sufficient.

let's look at AI, for example. if you wrote a computer programmed designed to write music, and it did it REALLY well (to take a cue from Alan Turing, you couldn't tell the difference between a three minute piece the computer wrote and one a human wrote), would that piece of music be considered art, even if the computer wasn't "aware" of itself while creating it?

Now I can easily answer this by referring you to my comments on formulaic art, because art from a non-sentient being must be formulaic.