Hello Chris, In music, we refer to a second synthesizer as the "slave" to the first. It seems to me that the machine is an efficient slave that only eats but never sleeps. It has a more simple structure for the kinds of multi-tasking that resembles a fugue but we cannot yet imagine the holistic manipulation of stimuli that even human language entails. I guess what I'm thinking here has to do with the use of human time. In ancient Greece and Rome you had other humans (slaves) making leisure time for the citizens. In the old South here in the US the slaves handled industry and also created a leisure economy for those who could afford them. Today's machines are more efficient, can work 24 hours a day and yet we are less able to comprehend what we will do with that leisure time once we have it than ever before. Also the cheapness and duribility of the new "slaves" makes the issue of the definition of value and human worth even more essential than ever. In the past we have chosen some deadly pursuits, i.e. the coliseum and war. Will we find new, more humane developmental pursuits or will we just make the same old choices as before? i.e. Will we choose to develop the external environment and strive for exploration of the Universe or will we seek to develop our own human capabilities through the use of encreased skills and mastery.
How will we balance the inner versus the external? I tend to believe that all of the systems that we develop including the economic one is a cry in the dark from our bodies and minds for development. As I read the language of economics we encounter the same old discussion between internal aspects and externalities. Our machines resemble the body systems that we ignored and simply used up until we died in old age. One could say that they were a projection of our physical imagination but to what intent. The model that we have is one of using up natural resources and we treat ourselves in the same fashion. What if the real underlying intent is a cry for real development or expansion rather than just a using up of a material until it is gone forever? To answer Harry about what defines Art. Art is made by Artists. Artifacts are made by everyone. REH ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christoph Reuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 8:12 AM Subject: Re: [Futurework] Re: Chess (was If a Machine Creates Something Beautiful, Is It an Artist?) > Pete Vincent wrote: > > It seems to me that most real productivity stuff could be done > > adequately well on the computers of the mid eighties. By that time, > > the machines could already do most computing tasks so fast that > > most time was spent idling while the mere human crawled along > > typing in responses. > > I thought PC computing power had to increase to compensate for the > ever-slower, ever-more resource-wasting M$ bloatware... which, btw, > was also responsible for the fact that "most time was spent idling > while the mere human crawled along typing in responses" -- because > the M$ OS had no multitasking... > > Chris > > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
