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Monday, April 16, 2012

Horsehead complete!!

After a month of construction, the beast is finished!
The finished product stands around 5 feet tall and weighs a good deal. Fortunately, I built the sculpture in detachable tiers so it can be moved easily.

The working title is "Ontological Horse: The Best I Could Do".
Ontological arguments found in theological philosophy are arguments directed at proving the existence of an omnipotent creator, usually through reason alone. A well known ontological argument is the 'Teleological Watchmaker' which supposes that if one were to trip over a rock on a beach, one could imagine that the rock could have sat there since the beginning of time, and that there's not much to it beyond this. However if one were to find a watch on a beach, one would have to assume that it was created by someone who knew what they were doing. Waves on a beach might over eons smooth down a rock, but they would never generate a complex mechanism such as a watch. Those who aim to prove creationism, use this argument to point to the complexity of nature and the forms within it as evidence of such a creator. Sadly, this thought can be pretty much tossed out by the old 'Thousand Monkeys in a Room' argument which seeks to prove that nature as a force can come up with some pretty dang complex stuff - namely you, me and everything we know, if given enough time.
What I'm trying to get at with the Ontological Horse is that the complexity of all things, especially living things, regardless of creation or generation, is a beautiful thing to behold. The horse that I made, though it is very complex and even has a clearly defined creator (me), by all accounts is a failure next to the sublime wonder that is a living and breathing horse.
Anyway, hope you can still enjoy the work I did. Even though I only took 30 days, and didn't spontaneously generate it...