After reading “The Future of Science…Is Art?”, it was clear what Jonah Lehrer was trying to argue. His paper was very dense and full of information. I think that this was on purpose. Lehrer is speaking to an audience who already has some preconceptions of science and is willing to learn and understand more. This is why he talks about such advanced subjects in both “cultures,” science, and art. His argument is that art would further the progress of science. It would eliminate or slowly decrease the “limitations” of science. He talks about how science approaches things like the brain from bottom to top, meaning that things are broken up so that the pieces of a whole can be understood, such as the synapses of the brain. He argues that art naturally approaches perception of self with a top to bottom approach, meaning that it is more about the brain and its consciousness as a whole, instead of breaking it apart. These two processes of understanding things would be great together because they can compliment each other. Scientists are always trying to prove old theories and new hypotheses wrong. Why not incorporate a new way of doing this? There isnt much to lose. As Lehrer explains, the advancement of science is slowly progressing is there is any advancement at all, and we are just learning about all of the things that we do not know instead of finding new things. Incorporating arts and creating this sort of cycle of knowledge between artists and scientists could be the way to take a leap forward in science, especially in the fields of physics and neuroscience, as explained. This is because neuroscience and physics are all about perception and how much we do not know. Overall, I really like the paper. It was enjoyable to read although it was very dense.
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle: This is the idea that there is a fundamental limit to how much we can know and the precision of what we know.
Reductionism: The process of thinking of large processes or phenomena as the things that make them up, such as the cells that make up the body.
Epiphenomenon: This is a phenomenon that occurs in a sort of parallel way with a primary phenomenon, such as the further understanding of the human consciousness through a painting.
Fantastic. I loved this, “He argues that art naturally approaches perception of self with a top to bottom approach, meaning that it is more about the brain and its consciousness as a whole, instead of breaking it apart. These two processes of understanding things would be great together because they can compliment each other. ” I encourage you to try to incorporate this into your paper.