Order is a necessary condition for anything the human mind is to understand. Rudolf Arnheim More Quotes by Rudolf Arnheim More Quotes From Rudolf Arnheim What, then, is the basic difference between today's computer and an intelligent being? It is that the computer can be made to seebut not to perceive. What matters here is not that the computer is without consciousness but that thus far it is incapable of the spontaneous grasp of pattern--a capacity essential to perception and intelligence. Rudolf Arnheim what-mattersdifferencesintelligent Orderliness by itself is not sufficient to account for the nature of organized systems in general or for those created by man in particular. Mere orderliness leads to increasing impoverishment and finally to the lowest possible level of structure, no longer clearly distinguishable from chaos, which is the absence of order. A counterprinciple is needed, to which orderliness is secondary. It must supply what is to be ordered. Rudolf Arnheim levelsmenorder A cloud can look like a camel, but a camel is unlikely to look like a cloud. This is so because the signifier must be able to stand for the whole category of the signified. The cloud looks like all camels, but no camel looks like all clouds. Rudolf Arnheim camelsableclouds A good documentary or educational film is not raw experience. The material has passed the mill of reason, it has been sifted and interpreted. Rudolf Arnheim documentariesfilmeducational Modem science, then, maintains on the one hand that nature, both organic and inorganic, strives towards a state of order and that man's actions are governed by the same tendency. Rudolf Arnheim naturemenhands Now equilibrium is the very opposite of disorder. Rudolf Arnheim equilibriumdisorderopposites When a system is considered in two different states, the difference in volume or in any other property, between the two states, depends solely upon those states themselves and not upon the manner in which the system may pass from one state to the other. Rudolf Arnheim differenceschangetwo The arts, as a reflection of human existence at its highest, have always and spontaneously lived up to this demand of plenitude. No mature style of art in any culture has ever been simple. Rudolf Arnheim simplereflectionart Form is sometimes considered a mere spice added by the artist to the representation of objects in order to make it pleasurable. Rudolf Arnheim spicesartistorder The clarification of visual forms and their organization in integrated patterns as well as the attribution of such forms to suitable objects is one of the most effective training grounds of the young mind. Rudolf Arnheim trainingorganizationeducation Order is a prerequisite of survival; therefore the impulse to produce orderly arrangements is inbred by evolution. Rudolf Arnheim inbredssurvivalorder Would there be any truth in saying that psychology was created by the sophists to sow distrust between man and his world? Rudolf Arnheim psychologymenworld Some popular quotations smell of airless closets. They exhale the stale imagination of the intellectual lower middle class. "Suspension of disbelief" has become one of them. Dressed up as a scintillating double negation, it serves the pedestrian notion of art as illusion. Rudolf Arnheim smellclassart The experienced physician, mechanic, or physiologist looking at a wound, an engine, a microscopic preparation, "sees" things the novice does not see. If both, experts and laymen, were asked to make exact copies of what they see, their drawings would be quite different. Rudolf Arnheim novicesdrawingpreparation In many instances, order is apprehended first of all by the senses. Rudolf Arnheim instanceorderfirsts Today we no longer regard the universe as the cause of our own undeserved troubles but perhaps, on the contrary, as the last refuge from the mismanagement of our earthly affairs. Rudolf Arnheim ownlastuniversetoday Furthermore, order is a necessary condition for making a structure function. A physical mechanism, be it a team of laborers, the body of an animal, or a machine, can work only if it is in physical order. Rudolf Arnheim teambodyworkanimal The absurd consequences of neglecting structure but using the concept of order just the same are evident if one examines the present terminology of information theory. Rudolf Arnheim presentconsequencesjustinformation Man's striving for order, of which art is but one manifestation, derives from a similar universal tendency throughout the organic world; it is also paralleled by, and perhaps derived from, the striving towards the state of simplest structure in physical systems. Rudolf Arnheim manstructureworldart
