The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Ask a dozen people in a room their definition of art, and you’ll get a dozen different answers. Ask the same dozen the same question a year later, and you’ll likely get half a dozen or more new answers. 

I was, and still am, one of those dozen people in that room who have a personal definition of art that is anything but a fixed perspective. As I age, dive deeper into my philosophy and spirituality, and bolster my beliefs with the teachings of the greats, I’m no closer to the perfect answer than I was in my teens fifty years ago.

The more I learn about my philosophy and spirituality, the more I realize how little I know about either.

With generative AI coming into our collective consciousness at warp speed, this simple question, “What is art?” percolates even more to the top of my mind. Is art the sole domain of humans, or is it more like gravity—a primordial force that was here long before us and will still be around long after we’re gone?

I decided to allow AI to weigh in on this philosophical furball and pointed Google’s NotebookLM analysis tool to the Wikipedia entry on Aesthetics. I then asked it to generate a two-person podcast discussing one of humanities “hard problems.” What is art?

“Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and the nature of taste and, in a broad sense, incorporates the philosophy of art.[1] Aesthetics examines the philosophy of aesthetic value, which is determined by critical judgments of artistic taste;[2] thus, the function of aesthetics is the “critical reflection on art, culture and nature.”

In a future blog post, I will discuss my answer to this question and then give the two AIs my response to hear their thoughts.

I biased the generation of the podcast with a few key ideas.

• The conversation is between two AIs discussing the philosophy of art. They often complete each other’s sentences. 
• They focus on the intersection between art, philosophy, and spirituality. 
• They ask whether art transcends human consciousness and, if so, what this means for human understanding of both art and consciousness.

Here’s what they had to say. It’s long, just over fourteen minutes and, bluntly a bit disturbing at times. But also revelatory so be warned.

Midjourney prompt

a closeup portrait of the sculpture David by Michelangelo painting a picture of a rose in an art museum –ar 2:1 –c 10 –style raw –v 6.1