The normal person seldom deviates, & travels the path of least
resistance.
With out normalness, creativeness could not exist.
mando
On May 29, 2009, at 9:18 AM, [email protected] wrote:
I understand the point. For me normalcy has wide range. Exceptional
talent,
for me, is not abnormality, but creative neurosis, often reaching
borderline,
or what I would call good, progress creating exceptional
psychopathy of
personality.
Boris Shoshensky
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Architecture and Philosophy: Review
Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 17:09:11 -0700 (PDT)
I think a great case could be made to show that artists and
scientists are not
normal people. Normal people are conformist and unimaginative, at
least in
abstract conceptualization. A normal artist is a mediocre artist
who thinks
copying is creating. A normal scientist is just not a scientist
but at best
a numb technician.
Exceptional, creative people, drawn to fields where the standards
are so high
as to be almost unrecognizable until after the fact, until they are
set by
some new excellence. Normal people need not apply for the artist
or scientist
job. They should be satisfied to be amateurs and appreciators or even
informed laymen. I've been around real artists and scientists
nearly my whole
long life and I am certain that they are not normal in the usual
sense of the
term. Normalcy is tranquil and safe, commonplace. The bland
average or norm
is the measure of normalcy. But the strangeness of the creative is
dangerous,
foolhardy, odd, committed, obsessed. Neither condition -- normalcy
nor
creative -- has anything to do with happiness but I am reminded of
Einstein's
remark that "happiness is for pigs".
Anytime I hear normal as the necessary condition for the creative
endeavors,
I shudder and think of the social horrors inflicted upon creative
people by
the blindingly mediocre hordes of normal people who insist that
they are just
as creative as real artists or scientists and could do their work
if they
chose. Nope, you don't need to be really nuts to be a serious
artist or
scientist but you need to enter that realm, and leave it at will.
In other
words, abnormality -- or the a-normal -- is a requirement . Normal
people
will never understand this argument because, well, they're normal.
WC
________________________________
From: Michael Brady <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 9:37:00 AM
Subject: Re: Architecture and Philosophy: Review
Frances wrote:
There seems to be more similarities between art and science than
there are
differences. They are for example both acts of only normal humans,
and tend to
be engaged in naturally by instinct without any undue nurturing.
There however
seems to be a clear deference, if not a clear difference, between
art and
science. Science is likely driven to take objects by intelligence and
knowledge.
Who or what is doing the driving? This is not a silly quibble about
the
passive voice: If science is an exercise of the mind ("intelligence,"
"knowledge"), then how is the motivation chosen by the person? hHow
is it put
into operation? What does the human do (choose, decide, etc.) in
order to
initiate the scientific approach (being "driven")?
Art is given uncontrolled to sense for its own sake solely alone.
Art need
only appeal to primitive emotional feelings in the complete absence
of even
any primal knowledge.
Again, who or what is doing the giving? Is art exclusively a human
product? Or
are there some artifacts or artworks that are not made by humans?
If art is
solely a human product, how is it "given," which implies it's
outside the
human who receives it?
Art initiates in life as being an essential part of the normal human
organism, and thus readily prepares for science, because science
cannot
generate itself without the human being and its artistic
initiation, along
with such acts as creation and invention and innovation.
You seem to imply that the human making of art is a precursor to
human science
("really prepares for science"), somewhat like ancient religions
engendered
alchemy and astrology, which led to the sciences of chemistry and
astronomy;
that the fabricating of images led to more ordered organization of
knowledge,
which led to science as we understand the term. Is this a fair
summary of your
understanding?
For science to consume art is not for science to embrace art
totally, but
rather for science to be guided by art. While humans likely cannot
survive and
thrive without the act of art, which they will engage in despite
themselves,
they can exist quite well without the act of science, aside from
their primal
intelligence and innate curiosity to know the stuff around them.
This is a rather sweeping assertion: art is essential to human
survival but
science is not. On what basis do you make a distinction between the
objects of
"primal intelligence and innate curiosity," which you seem not to deem
organized knowledge, and "the act of science," which is?
Art is limited as to what objects can be art, but once objects are
smartly
agreed to be art, the works and say their beauty will likely remain
as art
virtually forever. Science ironically is not limited as to what
objects can be
science or that it can study, but its objects are variable and its
truths are
very fallible. It might thus be held that real applied instrumental
art is
exact formal fundamental science.
This is an intriguing proposition: "art" is limited by what can be
art, but
science is not so limited--i.e., all objects can be studied in
science.
Thus, we're back to my original question: In your view of the
matter, what is
the difference between art and science? And what is the limitation
of "what
objects can be art"?
