"My all-time favourite in the literature of exaggerated claims on behalf of the digital computer is from John McCarthy, the inventor of the term ‘artificial intelligence.’ McCarthy says even ‘machines as simple as thermostats can be said to have beliefs.’ And indeed, according to him, almost any machine capable of problem-solving can be said to have beliefs. I admire McCarthy’s courage. I once asked him: ‘What beliefs does your thermostat have?’ And he said: ‘My thermostat has three beliefs — it’s too hot in here, it’s too cold in here, and it’s just right in here.’"
— John Searle, Minds, Brains, and Science, 1983
For this 2011 work, Italian artist Giuseppe Penone carved away the successive growth rings of a fir tree, revealing the sapling of its early days.
My artwork shows, with the language of sculpture, the essence of matter and tries to reveal with the work, the hidden life within.
