Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Pixar Versus Mother Nature

12 hours of rendering on Nature's CPU.

After the snowstorm, I realized how much Mother Nature excels in the medium of "landscape painting" versus her competitors (the computer graphics industry). Why just simulate physical phenomena when your canvas is the entire real world? As the computer animation field advances to the point of being able to replace human actors with computer simulacrums that are becoming indistinguishable from real living forms, one has to wonder why we were invented in the first place. Were we born to not only propagate our own beings in physical space, but to simulate ourselves as well? "Born to be simulated"—soon to be the epitaph of humanity and the natural world.

Yesterday I spoke with dog-simulation-specialist Bruce Blumberg about the issue of animal training. I asked Bruce about the new "zap" collars that owners use to shock/surprise their dogs as a training regime. Isn't this counter to the peaceful life of a dog's existence? I think I used to wish I was a dog until these collars started to become prevalent. Simulated dogs can be shocked and zapped innumerable times because they don't have feelings yet. Are simulated feelings any different from real feelings? Is the distinction between real and simulated a necessary one? I think I'll have to run a simulation to be sure.

Posted by maeda at March 30, 2005 12:01 AM