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Baudelaire’s Ideas of Vagueness and Uniqueness in Art: Algorithm-Based Explanations

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Decision Making Under Uncertainty and Constraints

Part of the book series: Studies in Systems, Decision and Control ((SSDC,volume 217))

Abstract

According to the analysis by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, the famous French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire described (and followed) two main—somewhat unusual—ideas about art: that art should be vague, and that to create an object of art, one needs to aim for uniqueness. In this paper, we provide an algorithm-based explanation for these seemingly counter-intuitive ideas, explanation related to Kolmogorov complexity-based formalization of Garrett Birkhoff’s theory of beauty.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation grants 1623190 (A Model of Change for Preparing a New Generation for Professional Practice in Computer Science), and HRD-1834620 and HRD-2034030 (CAHSI Includes). It was also supported by the program of the development of the Scientific-Educational Mathematical Center of Volga Federal District No. 075-02-2020-1478.

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Correspondence to Vladik Kreinovich .

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Longpré, L., Kosheleva, O., Kreinovich, V. (2023). Baudelaire’s Ideas of Vagueness and Uniqueness in Art: Algorithm-Based Explanations. In: Ceberio, M., Kreinovich, V. (eds) Decision Making Under Uncertainty and Constraints. Studies in Systems, Decision and Control, vol 217. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16415-6_1

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