Comments on: Science & Art: what language do you use?

By: Abhishek Tiwari

Abhishek Tiwari — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 05:57:39 +0000

Excellent posts, I wanted to comment on both but I will do this here only, somewhere Watson and Crick too were using their artistic imagination to draw a DNA helix. It reminds me that “After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always artists as well.-Albert Einstein”

By: Science and Art: limits in scientific creativity « Freelancing science

Science and Art: limits in scientific creativity « Freelancing science — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:23:52 +0000

[...] Michael Nielsen, Theoretical physics, Visual arts by Pawel Szczesny This is a follow up to my recent post in this theme. I got encouraging (thank you!) and interesting responses to that post, some of which deserve a [...]

By: Science & Art: what language do you use? | linkfeedr

Science & Art: what language do you use? | linkfeedr — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:26:17 +0000

[...] & Art: what language do you use? This article was found on Freelancing science. Click here to visit the full article on the original website. Image by cr8it via [...]

By: Steve Grand

Steve Grand — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:34:56 +0000

I tend to work among artists and scientists about equally (my field is artificial life and biologically inspired AI) and it occurs to me that what you’re pointing out isn’t so much a binary distinction as two ends of a continuum.

(Btw, forget the left/right hemisphere thing – that’s misleading).

The thing is, all creative thinkers use some kind of analogy. At the artistic end of the scale these analogies tend to be loose, suggestive metaphors. At the scientific end of the scale we build mathematical models. But in between come many shades of analogy, some more concrete and some metaphorical; some symbolic and some more touchy-feely.

The trick, of course, is to be able to shift freely up and down the continuum as required. Not all artists or scientists can do this, sadly. Many artists are unable to anchor their thoughts in reality and many scientists are too scared to let go of certainty.

But the good news, imho, is that there is a continuity between art and science which connects them.

By: Brutha

Brutha — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:23:36 +0000

If that would be true there would be no problem to have scientists communicate with poets.

By: Shubhendu Trivedi

Shubhendu Trivedi — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:26:07 +0000

At the risk of sounding lame.
I’d say that this is a great post.
And don’t worry about the correctness of the speculations as long as they throw up new, interesting and importantly fascinating questions to which you can look for scientific answers. Even if they are wrong, the horizons of knowledge after such an experience are significantly broadened.

By: gregorylent

gregorylent — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:00:03 +0000

words are traps, no doubt ..

the difficulties facing neuroscience are a good example, burdened by english, which offers only very clunky words for such things as mind, or consciousness … sanskrit, for example, has five words for aspects of “mind”, several for aspects of “consciousness” … imagine how much more sophisticated research could be with a more granular vocabulary with which to phrase one’s hypothesis …

brain hemispheres? … pretty well-known fact that meditation synchronizes them …

jill bolte taylor? …. the yogic view is that she was in the self, but since her only vocabulariy for interpreting her experience was as a person burdened by concepts of hemisphere, that is how she interpreted her experience …

art is simply listening inwards and being aware of what you feel. true of both art appreciation, and art making …. the permission to do that is more an emotional allowing than any sort of training or “creativity” … it is merely conscious sensitivity …

scientists have this ability, of course, but are too wedded to the intellect to allow it to emerge, or to be part of the daily flow …

and “flow” is another interesting concept, you probably will blog about that around, say, june …

enjoy … you are really on to something with this art/science approach .. don’t stop …

enjoy, gregory lent

By: storypeople

storypeople — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:13:54 +0000

I really enjoyed Jill’s video as well. I often feel that I lie somewhere in between the science vs. art argument. I’m interested in the possibilities of allowing an easier interaction between the hemispheres. I’m often fascinated by the way we make something up and then fill in the logic of it to make it happen. It will be very interesting to utilize the whole brain.