"Heart"

[Kenneth Lu <kenlu@MIT.EDU>]

At 12:33 -0700 4/10/01, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>  > Is this the "heart" that has been mentioned?
>
>Not IMO.  IMO the "heart" is how the author glues everything together,
>regardless of whether it's morality or description or dialogue or whatever.


I see this "heart" issue as "issues of high complexity that are 
difficult (or impossible) to understand in a systematic and formal 
way, but that human writers can manipulate through intuition."  I see 
intuition as bascially the ability to work with things with 
appearantly insufficient data through the use of all those little 
tidbits of knowledge that you hold subconsciously.  We often do 
things because "it seems right", without a deep formal understanding 
of what we're doing.  I argue that most art require heavy use of my 
definition of "intuition"...  Yes, artists (in any medium) usually do 
have some formal understanding of the craft as well, but what gives a 
work "heart" is the use of intuition.

Why is intuition necessary?  Because the artform is often too complex 
to understand formally completely.  We have some level of music 
theory about harmonics and suchs.. and we have some level of 
understanding of graphic design what looks pleasant and unpleasant to 
the eye, but we do not understand music and visual art fully.  We 
don't understand them well enough to be able to mathematically define 
what is good and what is bad.  Thus, we need human intuition to come 
into play..  The human mind is particularly good at recognizing 
patterns, and we use it to recognize, vaguely, the "what is good art" 
pattern.. We then use that intuition to create art, hoping that our 
intuition does not fail us.  When it doesn't, we say that that person 
has artistic talent.  What we really mean when we say that is that 
that person has a good intuitive grasp on what works in the medium, 
and what connects well with the audience.

(And yes.. that of course is a bit part of why it takes intuition: 
The importances of making a work that connects with the audience.. 
Human thoughts and emotions.. what better domain to illustrate a 
place where human intuition currently works far better than formal 
analysis?)


Anyway, that's how I see the issue of "heart".  I'm not saying it's 
impossible for a computer to express "heart", by any means.. but I do 
think that the issues involved and so complex.. and so far away from 
formal understanding, that, as of yet, only people can even dream of 
doing it.

-ToastyKen

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| Kenneth Lu - kenlu@mit.edu - http://www.mit.edu/~kenlu/ |
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| "Life is far too important to be taken seriously."      |
|                                                         |
|                                          -- Oscar Wilde |
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