A Response to Denise's Question

How would you describe art to an intelligent life form that has no understanding of the concept?

This is a very sticky question. I honestly do not know how you could possibly describe art without giving examples or to someone who has no concept of the concept. Art is a taught thing. From birth we are immediately learning new art forms and ways to create art. We are given finger paint as children and told to create art. We are told what is art by our parents and trusted adults. Our teachers tell us what is good and what is bad. As we grow older, we learn if we are artists or not. Whether we have the talent to become an artist or if we are simply not artistically talented. We then learn of all the different types of art. We learn there is paintings, literature, film, sculptures, plays, and music. We are shown examples of great pieces of each of these types of art. We are shown plays by Shakespeare and compositions by Bach and books by Hemingway and paintings by Picasso. I know I am using the most obvious and famous artists but it was what we were shown, these are the things we were shown to show us "great" art. From this we learn what is good and what is bad, what is art and what it is non-art. Although none of us or the great philosophers from years past can pin down the exact conditions that constitute art, we know what is art and what is not. So how are we supposed to explain this to a life form that has no concept of it? We would have to use examples, many many examples and show them what we mean. There is no way we could simply explain art to a life form no matter how intelligent they may be. We, as humans, cannot even pin down conditions or define it, we could never explain it or put it into words. So is this the way we should define or pin down art as well, use examples, compare new art to old art?