The crisis of synthetic likeness: When algorithms sever image from reality

“ For example, see what a difference there is between the face of a man and its image from a mirror: there is a face in the image, a face in the body: the image exists in imitation, the body in reality. ”

“ For if you mix what is false with what is true, falsehood often imitates the truth by treading in its steps. Just in the same way a picture imitates the true man of nature, depicting with its colors the false resemblance of truth. ”

“ Hereby is excluded the assertion of those who wish to represent the relationship of Father and Son as a matter of names, inasmuch as every image is similar in species to that of which it is an image. For no one is himself his own image, but it is necessary that the image should demonstrate him of whom it is an image. So an image is the figured and indistinguishable likeness of one thing equated with another. ”

“ Since my address was published, I have caused trials to be made, and have found, as a matter of fact, that the photographic process of which I there spoke enables us to obtain with mechanical precision a generalised picture; one that represents no man in particular, but portrays an imaginary figure possessing the average features of any given group of men. These ideal faces have a surprising air of reality. Nobody who glanced at one of them for the first time would doubt its being the likeness of a living person, yet, as I have said, it is no such thing ”

“ Unless otherwise provided by law, no one may make, use, or publicize the image of the right holder without the latter’s consent. Without the consent of the person holding the right to likeness, a person holding a right in the works of the image of the former person shall not use or publicize the said image by ways such as publishing, duplicating, distributing, leasing, or exhibiting thereof. ”

“ A legal person is an organization that has the capacity for enjoying civil-law rights and the capacity for performing civil juristic acts, and that independently enjoys civil-law rights and assumes civil-law obligations in accordance with law. Article 58
A legal person shall be established in accordance with law. A legal person shall have its own name, governance structure, domicile, and assets or funds. The specific conditions and procedures for the establishment of a legal person shall be in accordance with laws and administrative regulations. ”

“ THEAETETUS: Now I begin to understand, and am ready to acknowledge that there are two kinds of production, and each of them twofold; in the lateral division there is both a divine and a human production; in the vertical there are realities and a creation of a kind of similitudes.
STRANGER: And let us not forget that of the imitative class the one part was to have been likeness-making, and the other phantastic, if it could be shown that falsehood is a reality and belongs to the class of real being. ”

“ Nor must we forget that image-making may be an imitation of realities or an imitation of appearances, which last has been called by us phantastic. And this phantastic may be again divided into imitation by the help of instruments and impersonations. And the latter may be either dissembling or unconscious, either with or without knowledge. A man cannot imitate you, Theaetetus, without knowing you, but he can imitate the form of justice or virtue if he have a sentiment or opinion about them. ”

“ Indeed, it is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed in any longer. ”

“ Perhaps there is even an order of rank with respect to those burnt children, the born artists who find the enjoyment of life only in trying to FALSIFY its image (as if taking wearisome revenge on it) , one might guess to what degree life has disgusted them, by the extent to which they wish to see its image falsified, attenuated, ultrified, and deified,—one might reckon the homines religiosi among the artists, as their HIGHEST rank. ”

“ To the argument which is urged on the contrary, likeness or defective representation does not involve the idea of falsity except in so far as it gives occasion to false opinion. Hence a thing is not always said to be false, because it resembles another thing ”

“ But now that the imitative art has enclosed him, it is clear that we must begin by dividing the art of creation; for imitation is a kind of creation—of images, however, as we affirm, and not of real things. ”

“ With such illustrations to show how widely spread and deeply rooted is the belief that there is a real connexion between a being and its image, we can see how almost inevitable it is, that man at a low stage of education should come to confound the image with that which it was made to represent. The strong craving of the human mind for a material support to the religious sentiment has produced idols and fetishes over most parts of the world, and at most periods in its history ”

“ But the love of ornament, which is far from caring for virtue, but claims the body for itself, when the love of the beautiful has changed to empty show, is to be utterly expelled. [269] For applying things unsuitable to the body, as if they were suitable, begets a practice of lying and a habit of falsehood; and shows not what is decorous, simple, and truly childlike, but what is pompous, luxurious, and effeminate. But these women obscure true beauty, shading it with gold. And they know not how great is their transgression, in fastening around themselves ten thousand rich chains ”

“ While, on the other hand, the bad, receiving the same Divine life, or love and wisdom, into perverted or distorted mental forms and organizations, turn light into darkness and good into evil: the truth they distort into error and falsity, and the gentle flame of love they pervert into the furious fire of hate. Thus is the Lord's love turned into hatred—His wisdom into folly. ”

“ It is humiliating to find how many comparatively honest people think they get rid of a falsehood by softening the statement of it, by giving it the shape and placing it in the light in which it will least assert itself, and so have a good chance of passing both with such as hold it thoroughly, and such as might revolt against it more plainly uttered. ”

“ But it was left to the remarkable people who ruled when the nineteenth century was yet young to further modernise the ancient residence, and they perpetrated strange things: painting and graining interior stonework to resemble oak, and the like atrocities; the highest ambition of builders and decorators in that era of shame being to treat honest materials as though they were not to be shown for what they really were, and to make them masquerade as something else. No one ever was deceived by the plaster of that age, pretending to be stone ”

“ These results are sometimes obtained by actual materialisations, sometimes by precipitations of pictures apart from exposure, sometimes, as I believe, by the superposition of screens which have the psychic face already upon them, and which give marks as of a double exposure. Among the powers of the control is to build up a simulacrum which may be the image of someone who is still alive, or he may produce upon the plate facsimiles of pictures and portraits which do at present exist, but which are entirely beyond the normal reach of the medium. ”

“ At the approach Of extreme peril, when a hollow image Is found a hollow image and no more, Then falls the power into the mighty hands Of nature, of the spirit-giant born, Who listens only to himself, knows nothing Of stipulations, duties, reverences, And, like the emancipated force of fire, Unmastered scorches, ere it reaches them, Their fine-spun webs, their artificial policy. ”

“ As a matter of fact, Best Society is not at all like a court with an especial queen or king, nor is it confined to any one place or group, but might better be described as an unlimited brotherhood which spreads over the entire surface of the globe, the members of which are invariably people of cultivation and worldly knowledge, who have not only perfect manners but a perfect manner. Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality—the outward manifestation of one's innate character and attitude toward life. ”

“ A person who has been sexually harassed against his will by another person through oral words, written language, images, physical acts, or the like, has the right to request the actor to bear civil liability in accordance with law. ”

“ The first requisites in a healthy, well-developed Imagination are truth and distinctness. To those who deem Imagination but another name for fiction and falsehood, it may seem a contradiction in terms to talk of a true Imagination; but it is not so. Works of fiction charm us always in proportion as they seem true, and it is the morbid Imagination only that delights in falsehood. We sometimes see persons who, without apparent intention of falsehood, seem incapable of speaking the truth. ”