Re: Interactive storytelling and me; and a challenge

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@indiegamedesign.com>]

WFreitag@aol.com wrote:

> > Art of any sort is difficult and often takes decades to master before 
> > one can
> > actually create 'art' of any sort. Machines will never 'create' art or 
> > story or
> > music of any significance because humans create significant art and 
> > story and
> > music for human needs. Heck, the visual aspect of visual art barely 
> > exists
> > these days simply because of the function of 'art' these days. Art 
> > isn't
> > something which matches the couch any more.
> >    
>
> Here we flying away on useless tangents again. This list needs a moderator. I 
> have no claim to any right to moderate, but maybe we could moderate ourselves 
> a little more?
>  
I don't see why.  One might as well ask people not to make long posts.  
We don't have enough speech around here to worry about whether people 
are making "correct" speech in someone's opinion.  And things remain 
civil, so we don't need that benefit of moderation.

> Is it not obvious that one's interpretation of assertions like this must 
> depend entirely on one's personally held meanings of undefinable and emotionally 
> charged concepts like art, music, story, and create? That without established 
> definitions for them (which we're unlikely to ever achieve consensus on here), 
> and with no metric for judging the threshold of "any significance," the entire 
> quoted statement is actually devoid of comprehensible meaning? And that 
> therefore arguing about it is the height of futility?
>  
Indeed.  Which is why I responded fairly briefly.  It's not an argument 
worth pursuing at length.  I just think that visual arts are indeed much 
easier automation problems than story arts.

> I don't think the quoted post was intended to troll, but I suggest... don't 
> feed it anyway.
>  
Look, don't get into the whole "troll" thing.  Just because you don't 
like how a discussion is going, doesn't make anyone a troll.  If you 
don't like what people are talking about, talk about what you like 
talking about, and see if you can move things towards the direction you 
want.  There's this Monty Python sketch where a husband and wife are 
sitting down, and the husband keeps uttering a bunch of drivel, and the 
wife keeps saying "I don't like this conversation anymore."  Well, 
actually I saw it in a game of "The Meaning Of Life."


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

"Trollhunter" - (n.) A person who habitually accuses
people of being Trolls.