Steve,
I, for one, enjoyed your comments on Art and science, as I did Ann's.
I would add ,though, that science offers more than in the summary statement
expressed in your last paragraph.
One has only to read the Einstein literature, both regarding the motivations
for his discoveries and the "articles of faith" in the wisdom of the "Old
One", beliefs bred from his science outlook. A fundamental scientific
aesthetic guided his discoveries, and even guided his deep humanism.
Jack
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Smith" <sasm...@swcp.com>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <friam@redfish.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 6:02 PM
Subject: [Norton AntiSpam] Re: [FRIAM] Science and Art
Ann -
Thanks for chiming in, albeit delayed.
*"The Future of Science...Is Art?
<http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/01/the_future_of_scienceis_art.php>*
To answer our most fundamental questions, science needs to find a place
for the arts."
Thank you for opening this thread for conversation. In many ways I
couldn't agree with this premise more. But I feel the connection can only
be understood when science and art are seen as equals. Equals? What could
that mean?
1. I fear framing the question that "science needs to find a place for
the arts" reiterates a hierarchy between science and art that is not
defensible and that does not lead to a better understanding of either or
how they are related. More importantly it mis-states the nature of each,
their relationship to one another and the fundamentally different
approach they offer for understanding and living in the world. To be sure
the complexity of the distinction/interconnection between "creatively
discovering" and "art making" should not stop us from trying to
understand both without creating a hierarchy or power struggle between
them.
I am irritated, no /maddened/, by the illusion of this struggle. My
explanation of this is that Science(tm) and Art(tm) are, in fact, in a
deadlock. (tm) implying Trademark, is my designation for a thing which
has been "appropriated" for economic, religious or political exploitation.
Competition for resources in the marketplace, in the political landscape,
in media lead to a sense of competition where there is none.
As a starting point (and a gross simplification...)science's mission is
to discover how the world works not create a way for the world to work.
I recently had a moment of insight in another conversation, that might be
worthy of this one.
/This also begs the question for me of when does Art become Science
and Science become Engineering? For the purposes of argument I
will reduce my definition of Science down to "Creative Exploration
through Hypothesis Generation and Testing". I will reduce Art to
"Creative Exploration through Artifact Generation and Experience". I
will reduce Engineering to "Application of Well-Tested Hypotheses
in the Generation of Artifacts with Known Properties and Uses". The
language describing these three domains does seem to have some
overlap. Engineering supports Science by helping to make the
Testing of Hypotheses easier and more consistent. Art and Science
seem to share the concept of "Creative Exploration".
In our highly praxic world, most Science is well funded (when it is)
in support of Engineering, which supports Technology development
which supports all forms of commerce, economics (and other forms of
violence). Metaphorically, everything is a lever, and to follow
the metaphor, eventually everything, including the fulcrum and the
lever get broken by it's application. The hazard of willfulness, I
call it. /
"Art and artists are more or less given the permission //and// the
responsibility to start anew, to build or create without specific
responsibility for history or precedence. Art as an activity can be as
easily dedicated to the creation of first principles and underlying
assumptions as to the creation of paintings and poetry."
https://www.wkbank.com/knowledge/Civilization_as_an_Art_Form
</horde/knowledge/Civilization_as_an_Art_Form>"
More problematic works of art may contain new principles that science is
best able to discover.
Certainly Science (usually Mathematics actually) has been known to
recognize symmetries and structures within artistic creations that would
otherwise go "unexplained".
Science often progresses by more or less disqualifying and correcting an
earlier understanding and approach.
Science is an iterative process of testing existing knowledge (Scientific
theories) against new data and new Hypotheses. Ultimately this leads to
new understandings which frame the old understanding in a more complete
light. Some may say this disqualifies or corrects earlier
(mis)understandings, but I think it is only in the stark illumination of
hindsight that we feel that the new somehow shames the earlier as being
"wrong".
One work of art regardless of when it was created does not negate or
devalue another work of art. All works of art more or less add to the
experience and understanding of anything.
My own experience of Art is that it always adds to my experience, but not
always to my understanding.
What may go unnoticed here is that this ability of art to start anew and
of science to follow precedence to some discovery, when valued and looked
at carefully provides a check for and on the excesses of both science and
art. It could be said that art keeps the human world open and science
keeps it from flying apart.
I think that creativity is the ability (propensity) to start anew. Art
itself, is often said to be exclusively referential, yet somehow in the
framework of this, there is room for completely new perspectives it seems.
2. By conflating the **arts **(the forms a work of art takes most often
thought of as painting, music, sculpture even new forms...) and **art**,
(the generative power, the human faculty-capibility of art making)
**art** becomes limited to what is sometimes referred to in Judaic
tradition as commentary.
Art vs Artifact is how I tend to frame this. Art as process and
experience rather than product. I am more interested in Art than
Artifact. Artifact is more evident in the world, and we may study Art
through Artifact.
3. A question remains: what can art create that science cannot and what
can science discover that art cannot? And its corollary at what turn
might art lead and at what turn might science take a first step.
To the extent that art is about perception (at many levels), I think Art
offers Science much. Science has always offered Art something mundane
through it's support of materials and processes, pigments and dies, tools
and technologies.
My sense is to create a new civilization as many are trying to do now we
must let art take the lead.
This is certainly a time of hope and rebirth, of introspection and action
in new directions. I think that "a new civilization" might be a little
grandiose, and I fear that history indicates that new civilizations are
borne from the ashes of old ones, and while we do have quite a mess in
this current one, I think we have a way yet to go down before we have the
opportunity to create a new civilization.
That said, I agree in principle that Science has no answers to the kinds
of questions that are involved in "creating a new civilization", excepting
the practical ones relating to the building of things and establishing of
functioning processes. The Arts, if we include Philosophy and Poetry and
Literature offer much more, including the opportunity for some significant
changes in the tides that are qualitatively new. Certainly not a
continuation of the last 8 years and maybe something fundamentally
different than a return to the Clinton era.
- Steve
Ann Racuya-Robbins
Founder and CEO
World Knowledge Bank
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
