Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Got to honour my people.

Before you pat yourself on the proverbial back, could you perhaps explain which aesthetic criteria the "work of art" you cited above meets?

I know its exciting stuff to have a primate* scratch random strokes on a canvas, but surely that cannot be the only allurement here -- I must be missing something.

Edit:* There's a lovely pun hidden here. 😉

Originally posted by no1marauder
What would you consider evidence of "conscious thought" in an animal? Are you sure you don't mean to say "abstract thought"?

Conscious thought is, as far as I'm concerned connected with self awareness. If an animal is self aware, then to my mind it must possess conscious thought. Octopi, many primates and some other animals would fall into this definition. Art is not necessarily "abstract", it can be a very real description of things, such as cave paintings were. However, it is definately the domain of organisms with conscious thought processes.

Originally posted by Halitose
Before you pat yourself on the proverbial back, could you perhaps explain which aesthetic criteria the "work of art" you cited above meets?

I know its exciting stuff to have a primate* scratch random strokes on a canvas, but surely that cannot be the only allurement here -- I must be missing something.

Edit:* There's a lovely pun hidden here. 😉

Random strokes? Read the article again. Morris describes Congo's approach to his work quite clearly.

For me, the painting I mentioned--the one that I like--is a harmonious composition in terms of form and colour. What aesthetic criteria does Kandinsky meet? Your "random strokes" comment reminds me of conservative critical objections to abstact art when it first came out--the "modern art is rubbish" school of thought.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I guess I should clarify my point. I was thinking about that Neandertal flute. THAT dude had no promting...THATS what I mean by not being prompted or taught. They by definition had to teach themselves.

That's right--the flute was an amazing invention (although analogies can be found in nature--inspiration is ever close at hand). A stick for catching termites is also an invention. Now I will not go so far as to say that it's on a par with the Neanderthal's musical achievement (although chimpanzees do express themselves "musically" ) but I would like to know where the inspiration for such innovations among non-humans comes from--or rather, whether it is of a different order or not.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
That's right--the flute was an amazing invention (although analogies can be found in nature--inspiration is ever close at hand). A stick for catching termites is also an invention. Now I will not go so far as to say that it's on a par with the Neanderthal's musical achievement (although chimpanzees do express themselves "musically" ) but I would like t ...[text shortened]... ovations among non-humans comes from--or rather, whether it is of a different order or not.

Speaking, well, typing🙂, of a differant order, I (and thousands of other people for sure) would like to know how advanced whale songs are. The latest is there seems to be a cultural learning curve going on where the songs advance in complexity and other whales respond with differant levels of complexity in return. What if it turns out they are discussing issues related to whale politics or making mathematical statements? Total speculation on my part of course but there is a lot more going on there than anyone can figure out at the present time.
I also wonder if the coming onset of intelligent computers, Ala Kurtzwiel in the book 'the age of spiritual machines', if those computers could crack the code of the whale song.
One thought on the flute vs the invention of tool use. The flute is an open ended invention for self expression that advances throughout the millenia but the stick tool invented by chimps have one use and one use only and has remained so from its first use. Human tool use has continually changed and gotten more complex and general in nature but primate inventions stay pretty much on one level of use.