Oh Brother, What's Art though?

You know what I saw the other night in a Holoreport?

No Idea, ‘tan. Sometimes I wonder if I want to know.

It was about people who make ice sculptures. You know, they take a chainsaw, laser cutter, or even hydrogen focus compressors, and they cut, burn or hammer into a block of frozen water to create a sculpture, some sort of art.

I see…makes a change from the concrete, I suppose.

It wasn’t about that. You know, my thought was: Boy, that wouldn’t be possible, if the water wasn’t below 273.

Quite. Imagine that: A cigarette smoking git hammering the water shores with a variable-focused Hydrocomp. Although, it could be quite some art…

Hang on. I was obviously required to draw the parallel to reality.

Your ever-inquisitive mind, you mean?

Yes. I thought - that artist, and I dare say, the sculptures were quite beautiful, he could only do this, because the water was in a specific state that allows it to be cut and formed with tools. The same activity wouldn’t be possible with liquid water.

Fair enough. But you can do other sorts of art with liquid water. What about waterfalls? …for all I know darned beer breweries create some real good sculptures with water and ingredients.

You still drink that old-fashioned stuff? Well, you are right, there are other forms of art going on with water. Thing is, liquid water may prove aesthetic to you, but only because it also adheres to specific states. It has density, it will interact in a gravitational field, and it provides the host for uncountable chemical reactions…

..Right, right, I get it. What I don’t get, though, is - What are you on about?

Aah, glad you ask me. I want to postulate: Art is not possible without an existing and time-invariant set of rules.

Wooohoo, time-invariance, don’t bring us there again! I think there was too much sunshine yesterday? You should surf the net a little, some artificial light will do you good.

Oh, please!

And anyway, what makes you think that art requires any rules to be art?

My idea is based on the motivation that to create something artful, you require ideas and information, sometimes a lot of it. You consider all sorts of things. Influences, the world around you, concepts or ideas. A piece of art is based on an idea. And since the final result of art, which can in itself be something requiring the time dimension to be fully understood, is a projection of an idea, the complete process from the idea up to its finalisation must be consistent in itself. In fact, for the artist to be able to create art, confidence is required in the rules that will aid in creating the outcome.

Ah, yes, but ideas can and actually do change with time. And sometimes you must throw away an idea, because it is not feasible.

Fair enough, but I think this is a different mechanism altogether. This is more about the translation from one set of reality to another. And also, you are talking of an idea changing. I do not deny that. The rules that the change follows, though, will be interlinked with the consistency of the whole process.

Bold words…I wonder if you ever admitted to not knowing something. So, let’s not get confused, hmm? I think that my girl-fiend’s body is wonderfully artful. And indeed, the consistency of Evolution may give your postulation some bonus points.

Thank you.

Let us not get too hasty, old man. What about negating the idea? What happens if you try to create art within an inconsistent set of rules. Beginning with the idea and ending with the result?

If the idea that I create initially is not consistent with the outcome, you have a paradox situation. How could the result ever have been achieved, if it is not consistent with its origin?

And, if I remember one of our discussions, even if someone changed essential parameters, so that idea and result are inconsistent, it would actually still have to appear consistent to us, as otherwise there would be no information flow available between idea and result. Which, in turn raises its ugly head in the form of a Paradox - Hey, something artful, who the hell put it there?

Couldn’t have put it better…and yet, exactly that argumentation could potentially lead us into trouble when trying to explain how the universe began…It has been pretty much proven that the Universe as we know it had a beginning. There is a point from which the constant set of rules that we know does not see beyond. The parallels to our Paradox are striking! After all, who the hell put it there?

Yes, it is really that something artful and quite intricate, almost intricute…

Oh, c’mon!

…well something appears just there, out of nothing, which we postulated to be impossible.

Yup, and we have two solutions left. Either, the Universe did not grow from an idea and therefore does not adhere to our rudimentary definition of art…

No way, José. My girl is art. And juuust a second. Thing is we actually see that sudden break in our set of rules from which an idea emerges. We see the Big-Bang. Didn’t we say that for us to perceive art, the process between idea and result needs to be consistent?

But we are almost able to describe the complete process from the Big Bang to you talking a whole load of crap right now.

I wonder why you always get offensive. Ideas are a lot of trouble anyway. Who put them there? Do they have an origin? Is the Big Bang just the idea that was translated into something artful, or do we perceive the birth of the Universe as an act of art?

If it is, we just don’t get the connection with its initial idea. Nonetheless you should rest assured that there is a consistent set of rules that projects the idea to a result that can be perceived as art. Either way, if the Universe is such a result, I expect a framework to be found that is time-invariant in the truest sense, meaning that meaningful applications of that frameworkt do not require a time parameter to be understood. After all, the time parameter is clearly set within our Universe, it is part of the object of art. Denying this means that we are not able to solve our paradoxon of the Big-Bang which with our current knowledge appears like a rift between some sort of idea and the thing as we see it.

truest sense! You watch too many lawyer-movies! But I see where you are getting at. Our current set of rules always require the time factor in order to be applied. And they are merely describing the look of our object of art. It indeed tells us nothing about the idea behind it. And those darned rules just fail at the point of the Big-Bang. If the Universe arises from an idea, which is my belief, it requires a consistent set of rules that does not depend on time. It is almost like the very rules that we use in describing the world are the result of an art creating process.

Ain’t it sweet? We will soon do the step to a metaphysical description. Plus, we got rid of time! What next?

Space?

Don’t be silly, boyo. A tough nut to crack. Next time, eh?