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I would be totally with you if lowglow's question was: "what about a long division test?" or something similarly snarky. but art is an interesting cultural ph
by jpwagner 16y ago
I would be totally with you if lowglow's question was:
"what about a long division test?" or something similarly snarky.
but art is an interesting cultural phenomenon that very likely occurs in some form in many animals. Alan's supposition that there was some bad intent in posing the question is absurd here, in my opinion.
- chc 16y agoArt is an interesting cultural phenomenon, but not something that even all humans are very interested in (unless you define it very loosely). I wouldn't be surprised to see animals produce some form of art, but neither would I surprised to see a species as intelligent as humans — or even more intelligent — that didn't give a hoot about art. Let's reframe the validity of this test in terms that we don't have thousands of years of cultural baggage around: If an alien species arrives here and teaches us all sorts of miraculous things, would we feel compelled to conclude that they are not intelligent beings if they aren't very interested in the works of Rothko? It seems particularly likely to me that an aquatic species would not have art at least until it was very advanced, since they don't have the tools or media for creating it that, say, a caveman did.
- jpwagner 16y agoart is not what you learn in "art class"