Do You Think Other Species in the Universe are Creating Greater Literature than Man?

[kev67]

I was careful not to say they wrote the worst poetry of all, that was actually a human's, but on average.

[WolfLarsen]

To write literature it helps to eat first, and half of the human race lives on less than two dollars a day.

Most people spend huge amounts of their time working long hours just to make miserly wages so they can survive.

My point is if everybody on the planet is eating, and let's suppose everybody worked 20 hours a week, then more people than ever would be creating art, literature, music, etc.

But how do you expect people to be creative when they're hungry? How do you expect people to be creative when they work all day?

When human civilization is more advanced, then the arts & literature will advance with it.

I'm not sure, but the forum rules might prevent me from discussing what it would take for people to have a decent standard of living, with everybody working 20 hours a week with lots of free time for creativity.

Oh well.

[WolfLarsen]

Then again, maybe the form rules don't prevent me from discussing what it would take for people to work less hours, have a better standard of living, and more time for creativity.

If it's related to literature in some manner I think you can discuss how living in a different kind of society, or different type of economy, would make it possible for the human race to achieve things it never achieved before.

But I will tell you this: if you want to unleash the great creative potential of mankind then you have to make sure that everybody's eating, and that people have sufficient free time to reach their potential.

People said you can never shorten the workday from 12 hours to eight hours. But it happened. And instead of wages going down, they went up.

But if we're working for a privileged oligarchy, and we don't have any free time for ourselves, then we're not able to achieve our creative potential as writers or painters or musicians.

[WolfLarsen]

A privileged oligarchy has most of the money and most of the free time. But, instead of dedicating themselves to literature many a young man of the upper classes dedicates himself to being a playboy.

Meanwhile, somebody else comes home from a long day at work and is too tired to write a great novel or a great poem or whatever.

And we currently live on a planet where more people have access to a cell phone then have access to a toilet. People's basic needs are not being taken care of.

Creativity is a basic need for many human beings. But they don't have the luxury of using that creativity in the arts or literature because they don't have the time. They're working all the time just to survive.

Under a different & superior economic system there would be a lot more wealth to go around, plus less of the wealth would be hoarded by a privileged few. Therefore, it would be possible for people to work fewer hours, have a decent standard of living, and lots of free time to engage in creative endeavors like writing.

[ennison]

I agree Wolf but this different economic system has yet to be discovered. Perhaps more of us should see our tedious soul-destroying occupations as a form of satisfying art and hey presto they would no longer be tedious. All these drains I've dug, all the concrete mixed, all the scaffolding erected and dismantled, all the hidden pipe work could become my artistic contribution. Pipe dream! I think I'll settle for a handful of good tunes. One good strathspey. A few marches and reels.
Clopin wants to ban veils. Television is worse, high heels, dark glasses, ghetto bonnets, three year old whisky and other offensive junk. I'd send Ollie Kamm to live with Kim illlDindong as a kind of reality tv show. (I wouldn't bother watching it)

[YesNo]

Perhaps it is irrelevant to the topic, however, I think you must know that humans use their brains' only a percentage is an urban myth. All areas of the brain have a function. We use our brains' %100. It is known even my illiterate country!

P.S. You should read ten percent of the brain myth article on Wikipedia.

That was a good article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_per...the_brain_myth The "single unit recording technique" most convinces me that we use all of our brains. The only part of the article I disagree with is the claim that there is no evidence for "psychic powers". The nonexistence of psychic powers is also a myth.

Another myth is that the brain doesn't change, but since the 1960's that has no longer any scientific basis: http://psychology.about.com/od/biops...plasticity.htm

I agree with Wolf that the best literature is not in the past. We are making it now and technology is helping with that. However, I don't think AI is what it is cracked up to be. That's another myth. We are full of myths. A computer can "read", in a way, but it can't like or dislike what it is reading.

[ennison]

That Artificial Insemination will never beat the real thing as the bull said when he saw the AI man arriving

[YesNo]

I suspect both the bull and the cow would agree with that.

[Anton Wild]

sounds very funny!?