Steve,
I understand your point. I do think we need to make a distinction between
technological efforts and fundamental research into basic mysteries of the
physical world. The desire to shed light on the latter is , in itself, a
humanizing experience, in the same spirit as what is uplifting about pursuit
of the arts and other humanities. In fact, it is from the same cloth.
Jack
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Smith" <[email protected]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, December 26, 2008 1:51 PM
Subject: [Norton AntiSpam] Re: [FRIAM] Science and Art
Jack Leibowitz wrote:
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.
I can agree that "the Age of Reason" and much of "Science" as we know it
is wonderfully correlated with other important features of humanity, I'm
just not sure that they are attributable to them. I feel that the
rampant technological progress we have achieved since (variously: dawn of
Civilization; Renaissance, Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution,
Information Revolution) has outstripped our cultural/spiritual progress.
I also applaud many of Science's greatest thinkers for not being in
single-minded pursuit of "objective truth", but also often interested in
something less tangible, something less verifiable, that is not the domain
of the Scientific method, though clearly entertwined with the Sciences.
Thanks again to Ann for spurring this level of conversation, and to you
Jack for adding your own well-studied contributions. I should definitely
read your book "soon"!
- Steve
Jack
----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Smith" <[email protected]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group"
<[email protected]>
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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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
