Transense: Automotive Sensor IPR for Honeywell, Michelin & The World.

Some meaty and controversial views - thanks for taking the time to reflect on the matter.

I don't think Art is in decline; it's just not incremental like technology and knowledge, and I still wonder why. Yes, it is more subjective than the latter, but we CAN define quality, which is why (0238jr) we can discriminate between the Beano and Shakespeare, or Pop and Pre-Raphaelite art. It's just that, having agreed on the criteria, no culture has advanced Art. Like I say, it seems to be inherently non-incremental, so that the pinnacles in artisitic achievement get no higher across the ages.

I'm not sure we can get round the question by diminishing the advances in technology and knowledge we have made, as soj tries to do. Humans are made up of a few basic elements, but we are nonetheless the most complex known form in the Universe. And nor does hebgb's lament on the decline of artisanship (which I share) undermine the wider tsunami-like surge in our understanding of the world around us in, say, the past 100 years.

I was left with the impression that some TRTers are not a little cynical about the idea of progress, or certainly the West's conception of it. So I reflect, amused, on the irony that it was your collective faith in a new widget that brought you together on this BB:-))