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I think there's a good reason why there's often a separation between creatives and technical people, and this is it: In order to be creative, or more specifica

I think there's a good reason why there's often a separation between creatives and technical people, and this is it: In order to be creative, or more specifically "artistic", you have to be comfortable with the irrational. In fact, you truly need to be able to appreciate the irrational. Most technical people I've met (particularly engineers) can't make that jump, and it's not easily taught or learned. By definition, there's often not really a rational way to go about irrationality.

mattgreenrocks 15y ago
Good point. Too often on the Internet, irrationalism gets a bad rap, when in reality it is responsible for generating some of the most interesting and profound material. Rationalism is the dogma of the age, and it is firmly entrenched in engineering culture as the way of building systems. It isn't the only component -- we need systems where the designer had a clear vision, and a certain taste that pervades everything. Engineering students should have at least a basic background in aesthetics, because the concepts are important to building systems that have empathy for their users. (Your mother doesn't want to learn Linux, nor should she.) Case in point: Apple (mostly).
geraldalewis 15y ago
Most art is most definitely rational, deliberate, and reasoned. It doesn't appear so when you're thrown into the deep end (personally, although I'd been exposed to it countless times, it took me a while to appreciate work like that of Mondrian). Blocks of code look equally irrational to non-coders. All the great Renaissance painters were as obsessed with math as they were pigments. Their art is accessible, so probably appears rational. Modern art is also rational, but understanding why it is rational sometimes means the viewer needs an understanding of its history, or the artist's intentions. Cubism is a great example of this: it might appear irrational for the artist to paint a subject's eyes and their nose on the same plane, but it is not. Cubism is a process in which multiple vantage points are presented at once. Even though it is not a mechanical process dictated by strict rules, it is indeed a process. while i --i subject.angle = random() * 360 # copies a nose, eye, etc. feature = copy( subject.facial_features[ random() * 10 ] ) paint( feature ) Edit: I'm afraid I didn't express myself clearly -- by `rational`, I mean: reasoned, thought out, and deliberate.
- mattgreenrocks 15y ago
  The output may seem rational, but was the process of synthesizing it 100% rational? Can you write a program that creates the Mona Lisa while explaining each decision along the way?
  - geraldalewis 15y ago
    The rationale for the decisions da Vinci made while painting the Mona Lisa are actually pretty well documented http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa .
    - mattgreenrocks 15y ago
      Yes, they are. I think we can agree that there is a beautiful elegance to it that is similar to that of mathematics. But that doesn't answer my question, which asked how to write a program that was capable of outputting the Mona Lisa while rationalizing the decisions it is making. Shouldn't we be able to feed everything we know about the Mona Lisa into a program so it could generate something similar? If not, why not?
      - geraldalewis 15y ago
        I'd say that simply because something is rational doesn't mean it can be codified into a computer program (yet). (Maybe my example code disrupted my point more than helped.) The design of most computer programs is rational, but a computer isn't sophisticated enough to program itself. I'm actually having trouble thinking of an important human endeavor this was not in some way rational. Maybe some `Outsider Art` created by mental patients? Programmers who work in `BrainFuck` or `LOLCODE`? I guess I'd only think of something as irrational if I thought a reasonable person would not come to a given conclusion based on the same inputs (such as knowledge, skill, experience, etc).
  - khafra 15y ago
    Explain to me exactly what it is about creating the Mona Lisa that cannot be done by a machine, and I will write a program which does it (with apologies to Von Neumann). In other words, this sounds like an "irrationalism of the gaps" theory.
simplify 15y ago
Could it be that they're afraid to make the jump because they've already labeled themselves as non-artsy? I think one common reason people think they can't do something is because they try once, fail, and attribute it to the idea that they're "not that type of person".

mattgreenrocks 15y ago

Good point. Too often on the Internet, irrationalism gets a bad rap, when in reality it is responsible for generating some of the most interesting and profound material. Rationalism is the dogma of the age, and it is firmly entrenched in engineering culture as the way of building systems. It isn't the only component -- we need systems where the designer had a clear vision, and a certain taste that pervades everything. Engineering students should have at least a basic background in aesthetics, because the concepts are important to building systems that have empathy for their users. (Your mother doesn't want to learn Linux, nor should she.) Case in point: Apple (mostly).

geraldalewis 15y ago

Most art is most definitely rational, deliberate, and reasoned. It doesn't appear so when you're thrown into the deep end (personally, although I'd been exposed to it countless times, it took me a while to appreciate work like that of Mondrian). Blocks of code look equally irrational to non-coders. All the great Renaissance painters were as obsessed with math as they were pigments. Their art is accessible, so probably appears rational. Modern art is also rational, but understanding why it is rational sometimes means the viewer needs an understanding of its history, or the artist's intentions. Cubism is a great example of this: it might appear irrational for the artist to paint a subject's eyes and their nose on the same plane, but it is not. Cubism is a process in which multiple vantage points are presented at once. Even though it is not a mechanical process dictated by strict rules, it is indeed a process. while i --i subject.angle = random() * 360 # copies a nose, eye, etc. feature = copy( subject.facial_features[ random() * 10 ] ) paint( feature ) Edit: I'm afraid I didn't express myself clearly -- by `rational`, I mean: reasoned, thought out, and deliberate.

mattgreenrocks 15y ago
The output may seem rational, but was the process of synthesizing it 100% rational? Can you write a program that creates the Mona Lisa while explaining each decision along the way?
- geraldalewis 15y ago
  The rationale for the decisions da Vinci made while painting the Mona Lisa are actually pretty well documented http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa .
  - mattgreenrocks 15y ago
    Yes, they are. I think we can agree that there is a beautiful elegance to it that is similar to that of mathematics. But that doesn't answer my question, which asked how to write a program that was capable of outputting the Mona Lisa while rationalizing the decisions it is making. Shouldn't we be able to feed everything we know about the Mona Lisa into a program so it could generate something similar? If not, why not?
    - geraldalewis 15y ago
      I'd say that simply because something is rational doesn't mean it can be codified into a computer program (yet). (Maybe my example code disrupted my point more than helped.) The design of most computer programs is rational, but a computer isn't sophisticated enough to program itself. I'm actually having trouble thinking of an important human endeavor this was not in some way rational. Maybe some `Outsider Art` created by mental patients? Programmers who work in `BrainFuck` or `LOLCODE`? I guess I'd only think of something as irrational if I thought a reasonable person would not come to a given conclusion based on the same inputs (such as knowledge, skill, experience, etc).
- khafra 15y ago
  Explain to me exactly what it is about creating the Mona Lisa that cannot be done by a machine, and I will write a program which does it (with apologies to Von Neumann). In other words, this sounds like an "irrationalism of the gaps" theory.

simplify 15y ago

Could it be that they're afraid to make the jump because they've already labeled themselves as non-artsy? I think one common reason people think they can't do something is because they try once, fail, and attribute it to the idea that they're "not that type of person".