P3D Re: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

[Bruce Springsteen <bsspringsteen@xxxxxxxxx>]

What can be more enriching than a vigorous argument with clever friends! 
At the risk of morphing Photo3D into Philosophy 101 (moderators have
mercy) I'll answer the answers, trying to constrain my examples to
photography where possible.

To my contention that automation of the most ambitious kind diminishes
formerly rich human experiences, George said:

> Bruce, interesting thoughts.  Yes, a Mind is a Terrible Thing
> to Waste but there are photographic situations where if we let
> the mind work we will miss the picture.  That's the no. 1 benefit
> of camera automation.  No one should dispute this!

So when a response speedier than the hand or mind can accomplish is called
for, mechanization of mental and physical tasks (what I'm really talking
about when I use the word "automation" in this context) extends our
"reach" and makes the impossible possible.  No dispute there.  But "reach"
is not the same as "grasp".  I'm only lamenting the simulation of human
mental processes when it's chiefly to spare us the trouble or expense of
learning basic principles and understanding nuances, chiefly to
accommodate a clamoring and careless mass market, with an eye to financial
return over other kinds of profit.  That "low personal investment"
approach to life has a way of catching on, and driving out smarter, more
flexible, creative and satisfying ways of living.

My other response is that George's own inquiries about overriding the
programmed exposure of a modern camera show that his mind has important
insights that the machine will never know - like how he wants his picture
to look, given an unusually dark or light subject.  When I shoot with a
"smart" SLR that promises to recognize a wide range of (stereo)typical
illumination schemes and (based on carefully calculated probabilities, I
suppose, like an insurance actuarial table) pick the "right" exposure most
of the time, even choosing the aperture and shutter in some modes to
optimize depth of field or freeze action, aren't I really buying a barrel
of snake-oil, brewed up to bamboozle the itchy superstitious yokels? 
Towering technological hubris!  Why should my prerogative (and obligation)
to decide what "right" exposure means be handed over a chunk of metal and
plastic?  (Are auto-subject-selection and auto-composition in the works at
Canon, I wonder?)  To compound the folly, if I'm shooting negatives, some
programmed machine at some hurry-up lab is going to second-guess my smart
camera anyway and pick its own "right" exposure.  Then the muddled,
resentful technician and I get to guess at what the machines were thinking
and how to override the whole mess once the unpredictable results are in
hand.  Net education: zero.  Net satisfaction: negligible or negative. 
Cumulative dumbness: growing prodigiously and annually.  I know, most
people don't notice or care, just so they get their vacation snapshots
back, but that's not what we promote on P3D is it, my friends?  Until I
bought a Realist, then found the manual setting on the SLR, I was a faux
photographer and a duller man.  Now *I* see the light!  The camera sees
what I tell it to, and knows its place again. 

> If you think about it, most of our actions are reflexes, automated,
> without much thought... like when we drive (I know you don't but
> anyway) we can think stereo photography and still manage to put the
> right pressure to the gas & break pedals, turn the wheel the right
> amount, etc., without thinking. 

I detect a little semantic sleight-of-hand there, Doctor.  The
"automation" I'm grousing about is the growing fad for replacing the tried
and true automation and adaptive power of the human brain with poor
pretentious mechanical imitations.  What to mechanize is the question
before us.  We can devise our tools to *augment* our evolutionary mental
machinery and tease out its capabilities, or we can delude and marginalize
ourselves by handing off those gorgeous intuitive human functions to
beeping imposters of the simplistic "virtual" kind.  Artificial
intelligence is a siren's song - turn away, turn away!  Do you want to
surrender your driving time to a robot, George?  (I know, you don't like
to drive, but anyway.)  If you do, then what exercise will those wonderful
automatic reflexes of yours get, hm?  Now that you have contracted the
raging RBT fever, will your Realistic mind gather dust, will you forget
your sunny-16 tables, will your S1 learn to post for you on P3D one day,
or start its own stereo club?  Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
;-)

(Weary readers stop for coffee at this point, while I gather my wits. OK,
I feel better now.)

My other friend, Dave Williams, took a slightly different tack:
> When I first started using computers, it was 1971 in the Air Force.  I
> worked in the Reenlistment and Separations office of Personnel.  If I
> needed a list of retirees for a certain month, I had to write out by
> hand several pages of code that spelled out what I wanted and where I
> wanted it on the report page, etc, then carefully key that mess into the
> computer perfectly, then wait a week for the report that was printed in
> some other building, or wait a week for a note that said I missed a
> period in the transaction, etc, etc.

Where George cited quick response to stimuli, Dave cites relief from
tedious and error-prone rote work as the upside of automation.  Again, no
dispute, but still not the circumstance I was referring to.  If I have to
shoot a technical subject repeatedly and to narrow specifications, let the
machine have the job, of course.  I have better things to do.  Machines do
rote work and mechanical precision better than I - I concede it gladly. 
Further, if a multitude of people are on the brink of starvation and an
automated loaf and fish processing machine will get the food to them in
time, so be it.  But that is different from pushing good photography and
good cooking out of our everyday life to accommodate the low expectations
and roaring impatience of a junk-art and junk-food addicted mob.  That's
what is happening at photo shops and photolabs of the affordable and
competent kind.   
 
> Bruce, if it wasn't for that "dumbing down" automation, you'd be hard
> put to write your email about it.  When I worked as a staff photographer
> I wouldn't think of shooting a conference or news event with manual
> cameras, too many important shots missed.  Granted, few if any of those
> press shots were Ansel Adams style masterpieces...

He asks and answers in one breath!  That dumbing down automation lets not
only me, but legions of other half-baked email philosophers fill time and
cultural space with their dispeptic meanderings.  Is that good news for
philosophy?  This is the "automation adds quantity" argument again, while
I'm worried about quality, driven out and watered down in the mad rush for
ease and speed.  The physical and logistical demands of producing a book
once acted as a natural "barrier to entry" in the avocation of writing and
publishing.  A would-be author had to have a pretty good set of skills and
ideas, as well as the cooperation of other dedicated, erudite people,
before daring the effort to put a book in the world.  But now, thanks to
word "processing" and desk-top publishing, everyone can play Hemingway, or
Webster, or Wilde in a fraction of their spare time.  Been in a book store
lately and seen all the titles choking the shelves?  Don't blink, cause
you'll never see most of them again, thankfully.  We see the same
phenomenon with graphics softwares - the guy who once "couldn't draw a
straight line" (because he couldn't be bothered to learn how) suddenly
thinks he's a click-and-drag Rembrandt.  Isn't it all so egalitarian!  I
can't wait for the home CyberSurgeon software and the ArchiTech home
design package for those without the time to learn anatomy or structural
physics. Who likes going to those expensive and arrogant professionals,
anyway? 

> Now, after a week of printing automated prints taken by automated
> photographers with automated cameras, a weekend of using my Realist, or
> a view camera is like therapy!

Amen!  Pass the plate down the pews! 

Bruce (Member, Society for the Preservation of the Righteous Rhetorical
Essay, Above Average Moron Division) Springsteen










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