Divine Artist
Posted on: August 18, 2009 - 6:08pm
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Divine Artist
After reading Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon, my agnostic centre has been stirred into action into believing the posibility that a grand designer exists, indifferent to the lives formed out of chance and evolution.
As this creator grows in maturity, so do the universes.
I'd like to discuss the contents of Star Maker and this view in this forum.
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For those who are unfamiliar with the work, it happens to be in the public domain. Here is a link:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601841.txt
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Its exam time for me so I won't be able to get around to it for a while. I would like to ask, though, why you would believe in some sort of cosmic artist? It seems that humans, with their large brains and highly developed sense of aesthetics, can find beauty in everything. You said that this artist did not, or does not care about the life that evolved (this is what you meant, right?) does this mean that evolved things like flowers, which humans also find beautiful, are not part of this "Universe Artist's" design? If so, it would seem to prove the point that humans will find beauty in pretty well anything, regardless of who or what (process) made it and the beauty we see in the universe is just a misfiring of our sense of aesthetics.
Haven't read it, but I've applied the concept you speak of in fiction. I find it entertaining, but irrelevant to reality due to its very nature. If such were to be the case, then we all would best serve it by doing what we do, and being what we are. Not that contemplating the possibility of it is harmful or anything, but really just pointless. We could never perceive it. By its nature we would be as molecules (literally) to it, forever. No matter what advances we make as a species, we can only be a fraction of the advances it makes. Like trying to get to lightspeed with a rocket, we could theoretically get very close, but never actually get there.
All I can really add is that if there is such an entity, I hope for its sake it isn't the only one. It's bad enough trying to figure life out when you have company, even if a lot of that company sucks. I can only imagine how much worse it would be alone.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
You've really answered your own question, here. Humans can find beauty in just about anything, so it's more likely that we're doing that when we have a sense of awe, than there actually is a cosmic artist.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence