iPads, Mountains, and Optimus Prime

Apple is, first and foremost, an organization of artists. Yes, they’re scientists. Yes, they’re engineers. But people often forget what distinguishes that particular technology company from all the others. The technology itself appears to have evenly distributed itself across the industry. What sets them apart is their focus, even obsession, with design. The designers at Apple see themselves, in an almost spiritual manner, as artists overthrowing dead culture. They’re certainly artists, and technology is simply their medium.

It’s a fallacy to claim that practicality detracts from the artistic value of something. That a creation has a purpose other than just to entertain has no relation whatsoever to its ability to create an impression. In fact, that added practicality of an object such as an iPad might make it a more valuable piece of art than a simple painting hanging on a wall or a poem sitting on a shelf. The iPad, among iPhones, iPods, Macs, and Apple’s other creations, is a beautiful piece of art. It embodies the best type of design. And you might sit and look at the device for several seconds, and ask yourself, “what design?” It is noticeably simply a large screen. But that action itself is testament to why it is so great. The best type of design is the design you don’t notice. It’s the design that seems so obvious as to make you think, “well, how could there be any other way.” I’m sure if you think back several years to the tablet computers of the early 2000s, you’ll notice the “other ways” and come cowering back to your iPad within moments. The iPad’s form couldn’t be more honest with its function. It’s simplistic, it’s elegant, and it’s beautiful. There’s hardly a painting or sculpture that could consider itself more inherently art than the iPad can.

On the iPad is a landscape of a lake, several trees, and towering mountaintops. It’s certainly beautiful, but is it art? If you look at the landscape as a picture, then I would say its art. This is true to my beliefs that anything created or influenced by human hands can be considered art (this includes taking a photograph). But if we were to look at the landscape as simply a creation of nature, I may contest that it is not art. It doesn’t hold to my beliefs or qualifications for what is art. It may still be beautiful, but it may not be art.

I close out of my Photos app to check the latest movies on Netflix. I decide to watch Transformers. A movie fits in fairly firmly with even the most conservative spectrum of what is considered art. And much of that art is considered beautiful. Yet for me, I can’t exactly bring myself to use that word to describe that film. I’m sure some were definitely entertained by Michael Bay’s work, but I wasn’t one of them. It may even be my fault. I may have missed the “beautiful” in between the giant robots, explosions, and Megan Fox. Then again, the movie was essentially those three things. 

Galileo + Philosopher + Mathematician = Looking For Trouble

The philosopher and the mathematician were naturally very averse to Galileo’s suggestions for a new theory. Throughout their lives, the philosopher and the mathematician had probably come to understand the world through the Ptolemaic system (the theory that is in question). They had been taught this system many years ago by their own teachers, and they had probably pursued their own science with this theory in mind.  A change in the Ptolemaic theory would mean that all they may have pursued in the last several years amounted to nothing – that their own theories were based on unsubstantiated claims and would therefore need to be revised or scrapped. Naturally, the philosopher and the mathematician would wish to believe their original theory, even if they carried some sense of doubt.

Therefore, if I were Galileo, I would doubt that showing my telescope to the philosopher and the mathematician would have any major effect in getting them to profess any change in their beliefs. The only way for either of them to experience their own paradigm shift is by observing (on their own terms and in their own experiment) something that refutes their own sacred theory or something that proves Galileo’s new one. Conversations with powerful rhetoric and attacks on Aristotle would most likely be ineffective.

Review of David Eagleman’s Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

In Incognito, neuroscientist David Eagleman attempts to dethrone the our consciousness as any dominant force of the mind, and in doing so, challenge many of humanity’s conventional beliefs on the brain and how it works. Eagleman works well to use historical allusions and scientific results to back his claims. Though he rarely explicitly mentions having a reductionist point-of-view on the mind, we can tell from the evidence he presents that this is absolutely what he is leaning towards – that the brain is a complex tool of chemical reactions and electronic stimuli. Such a belief obviously does not mean well for any traditional concept of free will. By minimizing the role of consciousness in the brain, he is effectively dismissing free will.

Eagleman spends the latter part of his book explaining how, because “free will” should not actually exist, people cannot be blamed for their actions. Blame is a key word here, because he still believes people can be held accountable to their actions. Yet if the brain is a predetermining tool that allows no room for personal input, we are not in a position to assign moral guilt upon anyone. What we can do, and what Eagleman suggests in order to maintain an effective society, is to shift focus in the judicial system away from assigning blame and onto remediation. In his view, guilt is irrelevant (the brain would have told him or her to do just the same either way). Eagleman suggests that alteration of a person’s thinking process (so that it fits the norms of society) is the most effective way of putting criminals and social outcasts back among everyone else.

While reading the book, I agreed with most of the points that Eagleman made, the most important of which are outlined above. My one challenge with Eagleman, however, was the practicality of the “law & order” system he wished to implement. A society that completely absolves its members of guilt or any sense of personal responsibility may not be the most effective. However, I should be clear that Eagleman merely mentioned this as his ideal. He was most likely aware of just how difficult it would be to implement such a system.

Eagleman certainly is a skilled writer who is able to convey his thoughts and opinions very effectively. That he made an ordinarily dull topic such as neuroscience interesting is certainly a testament to his ability to capture an audience. And he does this through relevant and unique examples. For this reason, I recommend the book to any reader, even if they don’t think they’d find themselves interested in the topic. Whether or not Incognito will “blow your mind” depends on your preexisting thoughts and beliefs on the topic. But I can say that reading the book will offer a new, very interesting perspective.