William: Thank you (sincerely) for your provocative note. In the case of my
conceivably having brain surgery, no amount of self-reflection, alone, would
lead me to permit someone to open my skull. On the other hand, if we are
theorizing about perception or the way the mind works, measurement and
reflection (self and otherwise) will function just fine. However, I am
reminded of the encomium, creativity is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.
Science is pretty similar.
On Lehrer and Proust (whom I stil haven't read): If Lehrer's thesis is that
by intuition/whatever, Proust arrived at insights only now demonstrated by
neurobiology, that would make for interesting reading. And, good for him.
However, that phenomenon would overlap in my perception with Jeanne Dixon's
prediction that President Kennedy would be assassinated. I don't know how
they came to their conclusions; perhaps we're only noting the ones later
demonstrated to be true. Still interesting though.
Subversion of art: Well. OK. By your perspective, the quote/reference
doesn't tell us very much about modern art, if all art subverts all
preceding art. (Although we might conclude that the process of subversion
was less dramatic in ancient Egyptian art.)
Geoff C
From: William Conger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Scientific View
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:28:56 -0800 (PST)
I suspect Miller has googled Leher to find reviews that are critical of
that author's book. How quaint! Wouldn't it be at least honorable and
honest to read the damned book first? Leher is advancing the thesis that
some geniuses who did not have the apparatus or methodology available today
did anticipate, intuit, guess, presume, foresee, some of what is being
measured in today's neuroscience. Note my word "measured". I use the word
to emphasize the importance of new imaging technology to examine the brain
and how it functions and to measure what is seen. That exemplifies a
rather mechanical process. What is so odd about that? It little different
from the development of anatomical knowledge in the early 15C which was
done by measurement, dissection, and gradually improved as the technology
for doing so progressed. Frankly, I think it's plain stupid (and I rarely
use that word) to think that knowledge about the world and how we regard it
(to value
it variously) can be obtained without some mixing of measurement and
self-reflection.
As for art subverting art, yes, I loudly agree with the statement. All
creativity is a revision of some sort and thus is a subversion of some
presumed ideal, even when it appears to be nothing but refinement. I'll go
further: all acts are subversive. All remembrances are subversive. Every
breath and beat of the heat is a subversion of the previous breaths and
beats because they replace them, consciously intentional or unconsciously
automatic.
I believe there are two questions continually in paradoxical tension: What
is the art of nature? What is the nature of art? Both mingle the
objectively scientific or measurable) with the subjectively felt or
personal.
WC
--- On Fri, 11/14/08, Chris Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From: Chris Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: Scientific View
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Friday, November 14, 2008, 8:15 AM
> "I just don't see how a methodology which is
> supposedly value-free can
> pronounce on the value of artifacts."
>
>
> Some artifacts serve as better scientific evidence than
> others -- that's
> how.
>
> So an archaic torso of Apollo might be worthless to an
> archaeologist, even if
> it inspires a poet to write "You must change your
> life"
>
> The subjugation of the humanities to the sciences is an old
> story of the 20th
> Century -- and yet it continues full-steam -- as we find a
> new, popular
> journalist, like Lehrer, proclaiming that the canonical
> artists of modernism
> really did make important contributions to science. (so now
> we can admire them
> even more!)
>
> It's so pathetic.
>
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