Wednesday, July 23, 2008

When one lacks the means to document or measure a thing of interest, two things happen: the thing goes underdeveloped (you're blindly grabbing or are operating within a vacuum), and second, you eventually lose concern for the desired thing (a combination of emotional and cognitive pruning as a result of the strain of the situation).

For example, take a digital camera: it is a tool for documenting what one may see with their artistic eye. In this way, the photographer may come to depend on this tool, as it serves as a source of "feedback" both theoretically (the concept behind the shot) and technically (the actual execution of the shot). If the camera becomes "indisposed" in some way- lost, broken, stolen, etc.- this source of feedback has been removed. Chances are, if knowing upon an encounter with a stimulus of interest that one's access to a permanent representation of their artistic eye has been revoked, the photographer's motivation to invest effort in using their congenital artistic lens (their eye) would diminish.

I think their willingness to invest the effort is directly proportional to the perceived probability that the feedback will again become available...

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