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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 4937755" data-attributes="member: 59082">I'll try to be more clear. I am not as much saying that one simulation is better than another, but that one is more conducive to "letting in" the non-simulative. Vinyl is less mechanistic, more organic, and thus softer (I listen to vinyl, CDs, and MP3s btw).And yes, I am saying that simulation can never match reality--but it is not a matter of how well it can replicate the sensory experience; that is not the issue for me as I'm sure simulations will be able to replicate sensory experience. What I am saying is that simulations cannot replicate the non-sensory experiences, that of the soul or even "spirit."Of course--I am not saying that all paintings are more pleasing than all photographs, or even that most are...I am not speaking in terms of quantities. I am saying that paintings can, by the nature of the fact that the artist is active in the creation of the image in a more full way than a photographer is with a photograph, more fully embody something beyond just the physical/sensory. And yes, photos can certainly capture the soul of the subject of the photo, but they cannot--or at least not to the same degree--"hold" the soul of the photographer. A somewhat similar analogy would be the difference between a violinist playing a violin piece and someone programming a synthetic violin to play the exact same notes. The first has the soul of a human being involved while the latter is a program (And again, I am a huge fan of electronica, but there is definitely a different quality at work than with instrumental and vocal music).  I think it is a different kind of art. I am not saying more or less, except in terms of how much the artist can enter into the piece.Ah, the great postmodern trump card. For better or worse I cannot remove my subjectivity from this discussion; and it would be impossible (and beside the point) to try to engage this in an objective, weigh-able, scientific-rational manner, as if meaning can only arise through "verifiable facts." All I (we) can do is be aware of our subjectivity, our biases, at work--and try to make distinctions in spite of them. I don't have anything against photography, CDs, digital art, or even video games really, but I am also interested in making distinctions and not reducing everything to "it is all a matter of opinion." That's what Jurgen Habermas calls the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_contradiction" target="_blank">performative contradiction</a> and, imo, is often the death of otherwise interesting discussions.</blockquote>

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