Can a scientist *really* appreciate nature's beauty?

[Tez]

Kopji's post (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1870461975#post1870461975) in NTW's thread of quotes ridiculing scepticism reminded me of a situation recently wherein I was confronted by the accusation in the thread title.

Basically a colleague had tried to set me up with his niece. We'd been on one date, and I wasn't really interested, but being new in town I was not picky about the company I was keeping - also she was an English literature major and studied art history, and I have a weakness for intelligent girls I can suck information out of - and thus we went on a sort-of second date to a modern art exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery and then the British Museum. After the museum we went for a coffee. Her coffee arrived without milk, on request she was given one of those irritating plastic mini-cartons of plasticy creamer, but of course no spoon. As we both watched the clouds in her coffee, I made a remark along the lines of "And so the fight for thermodynamic equilibrium."

Hey, its certainly not the wittiest thing I ever said, but in my defense we were talking German, a language I cannot really speak. What little I know I picked up in a physics department, and thus pretty much the only long words I know are physics related. Anyway, at this remark she took exception, and essentially accused me of being unable to see the beauty of the clouds through the fog of my scientific cataracts. I attempted to argue the point, but we parted with me feeling I'd failed to make my case.

Somewhat annoyed at my bumbling efforts in this regard, I returned home and wrote the mini essay below. In the end the experience of writing it was enough of a catharsis, and I never sent it to her. Heres a slightly de-personalized version:



I remember the day I really got to know ice.

When I was growing up in Malawi (the true heart of black Africa), it was, to somewhat understate the situation, damn hot. Perhaps contrary to most peoples' expectations, we did have a few modern appliances (although often 30 year old versions of them!). In particular we had a refrigerator and freezer; I did not live in conditions so primitive that I had never experienced ice. Ice was this stuff we put in drinks to make them cold.

When we moved to Australia the quality of our appliances improved. Ice, however, remained merely an aid to cooling down drinks. After five years of living in Brisbane, a place one can fairly describe as damn-hot-most-of-the-time, my family took a trip down to New South Wales. It was early summer, I was 17 years old, and I remember almost nothing of the trip except for the following incident. We were driving near the Snowy Mountains, and one of my siblings caught sight of a glistening patch of white near one of the mountain peaks. We clamored for my father to drive us there, and he readily acquiesced. You see, none of us had ever seen snow. Although there is no permanent snow on the Snowy Mountains, a patch had survived summer's initial foray.

The winding mountain road afforded us quasi-periodic glimpses of our goal, and an almost hysterical excitement began to take hold. When we finally arrived at the nearest point reachable by car, we four kids piled out and raced each other the 50 metres or so to the edge of the white patch. I cannot remember exactly what I expected, but I know that I was completely surprised once I got there. For a start, the white stuff wasn't soft fluffy snow, it was actually hard ice - a patch about 80 metres long and 40 metres wide. In our confusion we tried to have a "snowball" fight - it took one thump in the head from a chunk of ice thrown by my cricket-playing brother for me to realise that generations of kids growing up in colder climes were either considerably tougher than I'd ever given them credit for, or Australian snow, like so much else, was considerably hardier than its northern hemisphere counterpart.

What I do remember well is how my conception of "ice" was expanded exponentially by the 30 minutes or so we spent on the ice field. I saw that ice comes in different colours, and it can catch the light in a myriad of different interesting ways. Some of the ice was really slippery and some of it wasn't. And I finally realised that ice was, to somewhat understate the situation, damn cold. Somehow the true coldness of ice was something for which I had developed no intrinsic appreciation.

A few years later I was living in Canada, and I experienced more ice than one might reasonably think is necessary in one person's lifetime. I experienced the beauty of ice crystals and icicles, the hard work of drilling through ice to go ice-fishing, the danger of hitting "black ice" while on a motorcycle, and much more.

Yet another realm of my experiences with ice has to do with its physical and chemical properties. Ice is rather an amazing substance. It assumes a wider variety of crystalline structures than any known material. The unusual fact that ice floats on its liquid form has major implications for life on this planet - as does the fact that the heat required to melt ice is relatively large. This in turn is related to the fact that ice will melt under pressure, something that every glacier needs to get started on its doomed bid for freedom from the mountains. Sudden stress causes ice to fracture, but with gradual stress it can bend. And so on. This realm of my experience with ice is, of course, due to my training as a scientist.

Now, to what extent does my scientific "knowledge" of ice differ from the other experiences which together form the somewhat ethereal conception of "ice" in my mind? Although, superficially, one can quickly list a variety of differences, most of them melt away under a more intense examination. Even those properties I have not directly "put my hands on" in a laboratory I understand only through their relationships with other concepts, observations and experiences - some of which are considered scientific, many of which are not. These in turn I appreciate and understand through a complicated network of relationships to yet further objects, concepts and associated experiences, and it is the ephemeral whole of all these relationships which serve to give me scientific understanding of physical properties. The dichotomy between the things I know from my studies in physics, and the things I know from my "other" experiences is tenuous at best. Science is simply a schema for deepening my understanding and appreciation of this intricate network of relationships, an understanding which cannot be divorced from the personal experiences which I, an 84 kilogram, semi-stable excitation of the electromagnetic field, seek representation for with linguistic constructs such as "ice" .

So here's the crucial question: Is it possible that my scientific appreciation of ice has somehow been to my detriment? I cannot think of circumstances under which one can possibly uphold that argument. When I use the word "ice" in a conversation, I do not, of course, think about all my experiences of ice. Over the years I have internalized an ever broadening set of mental images and remembered senses that I implicitly draw on when I think of, or use, or hear, the word. The word "ice" is a representation of that whole range of my experience. Similarly when I encounter a beautiful snow crystal I do not automatically start thinking about the physical processes by which it was formed, nor, for that matter, do I start thinking about that first experience of an ice field. My appreciation of the beauty of ice is enhanced by the breadth of my scientific knowledge, not through some series of dissociated calculations, but because my relationship to the object is one of greater breadth and implicit understanding than it might otherwise be.

Of course I am not the first scientist to confront such sentiment. Famously, the poet John Keats complained that Newton, by explaining the origin of the rainbow in terms of the optical properties of raindrops, had destroyed its beauty:


Philosophy will clip an angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine -
Unweave a rainbow


During the famous `Immortal Dinner' Keats and Lamb berated Wordsworth for not joining their toast of "Confusion to mathematics and Newton."

It seems such "anti-scientific" sentiments are somewhat cyclical, and in current post-modernist circles it appears we are at (what I hope is) a peak in such a cycle. It is easy to shrug these opinions off as simply the defensive mechanisms of a group of people who live in fear that they may, in fact, be missing out on something. After all, should I consider seriously the opinion of someone who believes that the truth of scientific laws is a matter of social convention? As tempting as it is to dismiss them as crackpots, these people are responsible for the education of large numbers of humanities students, and that troubles me.

Keats' last words were "Don't breathe on me, it comes like ice."

[Floyt]

Enhancement of nature's beauty, I believe, is what I have received from my scientific training. I can now look at a tree and appreciate the algorithmic intricacies of its form; enjoy the freakish yet awe-inspiring thought that it is in one sense the exploded matrix contained in a tiny seed, in another sense part of a vast network of hyphae, soil chemistry, a gazillion ants and almost as many magpies; see it as a 300mya product of nagging away at a reed-like thing with a succession of herbivores; and still just revel in the pattern of light and shadow the leaves cast on each other. All of these are complementary. I'm very happy I need not be a person who cannot be more specific in the appreciation of that beauty than to say "Well, it looks kinda nice"...

(Although, to be fair, I have experienced this nice caveat - no idea where it's from -: "You know you have been working with computers too much if you look at a tree and think, 'Wow, that's massive resolution!'" But that was after a straight 8hrs of raytracing, doesn't happen that often :) )

[Cleopatra]

Wow Tez what a post.

It brought tears to my eyes for two different reasons.

1. Only yesterday I was telling to some people a story about when I was 6 and we were living in Israel and I asked my dad what is this Germany everybody was talking about back then. My dad replied with a couple of vague things about the war and some nasty things that took place ( " Grandma Esther suffered a lot" ) and he gave me this novel for kids "Heidi". "Germany is in central Europe and it's a place that has a lot of snow".

It wasn't difficult for me to understand the notion of war and I sensed that something really bad had happened in that war but snow? What the hell snow was? My dad who has studied medicine gave me "the scientific" explanation: " When the temperature in the water we drink becomes really low, the water become like a glass but we are talking about very cold, you cannot imagine how cold". :)

What was this cold I could never possibly imagine? I figured out almost 10 years later and I remember the thought :" It sucks. It cannot be compared to our hot sand".

2. The first time I cooked for my husband, I cooked a " mystical" recipe , "Sultan's Secret".The main ingredients are pomegranite's juice and lamb.It's a simple dish but difficult to make the sauce so my grandma has taught me a spell to say while stirring the sauce. Of course I knew that it wasn't the spell who did the trick but I though that it was my cooking skills that did it. When I told Nick ( who had studied chemical engineering) he smiled and he asked me to list the ingredients in details. After I did he said that it was the three drops of orange juice that did the job. Orange is very high in pectin... My jaw fell on the ground and I became furious. How could he possibly ruin my magical recipe with his silly science? :)( I eventually learned to use the "silly science" in cooking and create spectacular dishes but this is another story...)

I have thought about this episode many times. I have also come across this ideas according to which science ruins the mystical beauty of nature and I have concluded that MAYBE the reason why we get so upset with scientists is because they have a way, a tool to explain what overwhelms us so much that we cannot possibly find the words to describe it. It seems that scientist know the language that describes and therefore explains the beauty. We are envious of them.

But in any case I believe that scientists and science need to develop some better P.R as well:)

If Science is nothing but the code that describes the beauty of Nature, if it's like those pixels that depict something beautiful on our screen or like those notes that seem meaningless silly marks on a piece of paper until they are played by an istrument,if science is those drops of pectin that make superb "Sultan's secret". if science is all these as well ( because science is many important things) then scientists remind me of the beautiful women who are ashamed of their beauty. You know, the women that believe that if they appear good looking nobody will appreciate them for their brain. :)

If your Science is beautiful Tez you and other scientists have show to us the ignorants how to learn to perceive this beauty.You learn to appreciate beauty. I know that I understand very few things in scientific terms but hey, most people love to learn "foreign" languages. You have to teach us how to say "rainbow" in your language. :)

Now that I am thinking about it all my dad needed to say so as I understand how cold snow is-- was to tell me that snow is something that burns the way the sand in the desert does but no , he attempted to say it in the scientific way. :)

[wollery]

To me, understanding the physics is appreciating the beauty.

I could look at the swirls of milk as it's added to coffee and think, "Ooh, aren't the swirls beautiful."

Or I could think, "Wow, look at the beauty of the simple workings of chemistry and thermodynamics. The interplay of diffusion and the attempt to achieve thermodynamic equilibrium. Isn't it amazing how atomic and molecular interactions create such natural beauty on a macroscopic scale."

In my own field of astronomy most people would look at the stars and think of the constellations and the different colours of the stars and how pretty they are. But I see the myriad possibilities for extra-terrestrial life, the cycle of creation and destruction of a stars lifetime, the intricate balance of forces that stop a star from collapsing or exploding. I see the vast distances and huge differences in scale through the Universe. I understand the huge energies released by a simple star and marvel at the almost incomprehensible energies involved in a supernova, gamma-ray burst or the accretion of matter onto a super-massive black hole. I see a nebula and understand how the stunning colours are created by the reflection , emission or absorption of different wavelengths of light by particular gases, and further I know how the elements that make up those gases were created partly by the fusion reactions in a stars core and partly by the heat of that stars death throes. I understand how the elements that are so important to my life were created by various types of supernovae.

The Universe is a beautiful and wondrous place, and the most beautiful and wondrous aspect is how it all works.

[roger]

One of my vividest memories is from the summer of 2001, on the last pitch of The Direct Route on Half Dome in Yosemite. From there you can see the whole valley and Toulume. As my partner headed off on the last pitch, I stood at the belay, looking out over all those glacier carved granite domes and wept for the beauty of it all. You could see the past million years carved into the rocks, if you knew how to look. It was breathtaking and searing to be in such a precarious stance, a tiny dot on a huge face carved by forces we can't normally see and appreciate, and I bawled like a baby at the beauty of the world and the impermanance of man.

[alfaniner]

I'm in a community band, only been playing for a few years. Initially it was tough just to make the right sounds but eventually I became fairly facile with making some music. One way I know I'm really into something is if I buy a lot of books on the subject.

I had questions on just what makes music "music" instead of just noise. Then I read about note frequencies, how they relate to the chords, music theory, etc. I probably know more about the workings behind music than most of the people in the band, even though they have probably been playing longer.

Yet I'm the one who has difficulty in seeing the music as my eyes well up during a particularly poignant piece.

Those who know the science don't appreciate it less -- they appreciate it more.

[Cleopatra]

And yet I will never be able to appreciate the beauty of science the way Tez or wollery perceive it. Also, I will never experience what Roger has and I cannot really complain about that.

Some summers back when I was in an excavation in Nothern Greece we opened a tomb that was intact. I was the second person who jumped in and since the tomb was intact we could see the footprints of the last persons who placed the dead and then sealed the tomb. This was the ultimate communication with the past. I felt that I literally touched the past.

This episode made me realize that the beauty that only those who devote themselves in a science can experience is the reward of the hard work one needs in order to be able to see those things.

It's the reward for the endless hours of effort so, "the rest of us" cannot really complain when we cannot see it and cannot really accuse the scientist of destroying our limited perception of beauty. :)

[Bluegill]

One great thing about science is that it allows one to see the fascinating, surprising connections which are themselves avenues to more beauty. We become more and more aware that the world around us functions on so many levels, and each level has its own layers that are striking, dramatic, comedic, or difficult to comprehend.

I think one could draw analogies to the appreciation of art. Someone who has no knowledge of art history, and has made little effort to find what is meaningful in art, appreciates it at a more superficial level. The Bob Ross/ “Happy Trees” painters one sees on PBS are great, but how can one enjoy looking at Jackson Pollack or Mark Rothko? By careful consideration, experience, and learning to draw the right connections.

I think surprise and respect are the underpinnings of aesthetic appreciation, whether its in a Pollack painting, swirls of creamer in coffee, the strata revealed in roadside bedrock, or consideration of our own psychology. Learning, through critical examination, is the surest road to both surprise and respect.

[zer0vector]

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.

- Henri Poincaré.

[slimshady2357]

My appreciation of the beauty of ice is enhanced by the breadth of my scientific knowledge, not through some series of dissociated calculations, but because my relationship to the object is one of greater breadth and implicit understanding than it might otherwise be.


That sums it up nicely for me :)

I was thinking about the various extra levels people who understand more about anything can enjoy. In your example, the many different ways you can enjoy watching the swirls of coffee and cream.

One example that frustrates me sometimes is hearing people describe a book they've read (and I've also read at some point), and finding out they've come away from it with so much more. Hearing them discuss themes, symbols, analogies, etc... that had never even occured to me! And yet often I have still highly enjoyed the book. Of course, just like science, one can practice and get better at these kinds of things too :)

Great thread/post Tez.

Adam

[Zep]

To me, computer science suddenly became "beautiful" with the advent of non-linear mathematics. From something simple, beauty grows...

Take this:

Z₁=Z+C

and map it in complex space, and what do you get...

Sheer beauty.

http://www.jimloy.com/fractals/mandel11.gif

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Originally posted by Tez
I attempted to argue the point, but we parted with me feeling I'd failed to make my case.


So I take it you didn't get any? :D

[Cleopatra]

What a beautiful sophistry Zep! :) ( I don't use the word sophistry here in a negative way)

[varwoche]

That was one of the great posts.

[Beancounter]

A simple (not particularly scientific) experiment in response to the thread topic.

The pictures below show four human beings that, from a scientific perspective, are, to all intents and purposes, the same. The beauty in the way each is constructed from a technical perspective is largely identical. BUT

Which of these do you find more beautiful? I am sure that the answers of scientists would be much the same as poets, artists and, yes, even accountants.

[Lemastre]

What do you mean by "appreciate"? If you mean understand how things work, then scientific types certainly can appreciate things. Beyond that, there's no way to generalize about how people respond to anything.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Beancounter
A simple (not particularly scientific) experiment in response to the thread topic.

The pictures below show four human beings that, from a scientific perspective, are, to all intents and purposes, the same. The beauty in the way each is constructed from a technical perspective is largely identical. BUT

Which of these do you find more beautiful? I am sure that the answers of scientists would be much the same as poets, artists and, yes, even accountants.

But not of BillyTK. ;) From my perspective (as a designer) they're all equally ugly, not because of the subjects of each photo, but because the layout and composition of each one is way off. But layout and composition were always really important to me even before I became interested in design; the latter simply gave me an analytical approach to understanding what I was seeing, what was wrong and how to fix it. I have no idea what this contributes to the subject of the thread–sorry!

NB I also love Pollock's action painting; discovering that it was created by near random splashes of paint added to the beauty.

[Beancounter]

But not of BillyTK. From my perspective (as a designer) they're all equally ugly, not because of the subjects of each photo, but because the layout and composition of each one is way off. But layout and composition were always really important to me even before I became interested in design; the latter simply gave me an analytical approach to understanding what I was seeing, what was wrong and how to fix it. I have no idea what this contributes to the subject of the thread–sorry!

Nature's beauty is not merely trees, clouds and mountains - it is also the human form. Concentrating on physical beauty and (for I am assuming, perhaps wrongly, that this is what this thread is about) I was merely trying to demonstrate that scientists are likely to have the same concept of human physical beauty as anyone else. Therefore demonstrating that if anyone can appreciate nature's beauty so can scientists. A bit crude perhaps, but I'm taking a macro view here.

By the way, whilst I understand your point, I hope you didn't go into all that design spiel when your wife /husband walked up the aisle (or you saw you girlfrined/boyfriend for the first time). Serious trouble :D

Originally posted by BillyTK

NB I also love Pollock's action painting; discovering that it was created by near random splashes of paint added to the beauty.

Actually, you may be able to help me here, because when it comes to art I am a complete philistine.

Why is Jackson Pollock so popular and highly regarded?

You mention above "near random splashes of paint", is there something there that makes them not totyally random, beyond the fact that JP was consciously putting them on the paper? Did a well known critic say that his paintings were good and therefore the lesser known critics concurred and the cycle went on? (Parallel with religion?)

This reminds me of a BBC program where they got a bunch of kids to ride bikes etc on a canvas and then wheeled in a group of critics (who weren't aware of the situation) to comment on the picture. They made complete fools of themselves.

This is a genuine concern of mine and I am not being facetious - it is just something my hard-wired brain just does not get. Please help as would love to see the beauty in the pictures.

Also, I am a bit off thread here, so if there is a more appropriate thread please direct me.

[Zep]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
What a beautiful sophistry Zep! :) ( I don't use the word sophistry here in a negative way) Really? Well, thanks, but I wasn't trying to.

Which reminds me. I promised Kitten an Australian fossil, and here it is. Why is this important here in this thread?

As a scientist, you can look at this and see the phylum and genus of the plants which left their mark here - delve into the ages of the rock they reside in, their chemical composition, their geography, and try to fathom what this means about the evolution of this particular particular plant species. In much the same way as an Agatha Christie detective novel, it is a search for answers given only a few clues at a time. The whole barrage of scientific technology can be brought to bear.

Or you could look at the plant itself, and wonder what life was really like when it lived. Were there little creatures living with it? What were they? What did they look like? Was it a quiet place, calm and green. Or was it some raging and stormy coastline.

Or you could appreciate the plant for its own aesthetic beauty - the fan shape remarkably like that of a cathedral roof, almost but not quite melding into the rock itself, like the rock walls of an old church...is it really a fossil after all?

I'm a scientist...these are just some of my own thoughts running through my own head. What do you think?

http://www.optusnet.com.au/~claritas/Kitten-rock.jpg

[kittynh]

oh that is a cool fossil!

I think that Kitten actually SEES the beauty of the rocks now. when we are driving all I am seeing is the road. She is looking at the cuts through the mountains! she is thrilled with all the mystery and what could be just THERE on the side of the road waiting to be found. Me, I just see rocks.

However, when I see the photographs from the Hubble telescope I'm just blown away. Or Kitten2's class is studying water. They are looking at river water under a microscope. It's really "cool". I can think of nothing more beautiful than the view of the Earth from space. We have a really beautiful planet!

Plus, let's face it, we NEED those science types. The scientist who inventer Prozac was once asked if he ever thought about all the people his invention had helped. He said no, he was busy working on the next project, though he had really enjoyed the challenges of developing Prozac. To him, it was the creation and not the result that mattered.

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Geckos put smiles on my face.
http://www.menagerie.on.ca/12-99/leopard.gif
[url]

http://magazine.audubon.org/images/PE-Gecko.jpg

[LucyR]

How about making this a Showcase thread? I think that Tez and others have said some things that are worth preserving for posterity.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Beancounter


Nature's beauty is not merely trees, clouds and mountains - it is also the human form. Concentrating on physical beauty and (for I am assuming, perhaps wrongly, that this is what this thread is about) I was merely trying to demonstrate that scientists are likely to have the same concept of human physical beauty as anyone else. Therefore demonstrating that if anyone can appreciate nature's beauty so can scientists. A bit crude perhaps, but I'm taking a macro view here.
Forgive me if my tone was unnecessarily nitpicky ;); my intention was simply to demonstrate there's other (more subjective) forms of beauty. Although we might construe design as a cultural artefact, the forms it uses are natural in origin; you'll find the same proportions used in layout and composition as you will in the proportions in Brad Pitt's face.

By the way, whilst I understand your point, I hope you didn't go into all that design spiel when your wife /husband walked up the aisle (or you saw you girlfrined/boyfriend for the first time). Serious trouble :D
My wife designed her wedding dress and we collaborated on the wedding invitations; she even let me with the groom party's outfits!

Actually, you may be able to help me here, because when it comes to art I am a complete philistine.

Why is Jackson Pollock so popular and highly regarded?
Pollock invented Abstract Expressionism, is the short if unhelpful answer; the long answer would involve a couple of thousand words on the art history from about the 16th century onwards, but the basic premise is that technological and social change led to a rejection of Western European traditions of figurative art (light and shade, perspective, paintings looking like the things they were based on ;) ) and Pollock was the latest in this line. i don't think you can get more reactionary than throwing paint at the floor :)
You mention above "near random splashes of paint", is there something there that makes them not totyally random, beyond the fact that JP was consciously putting them on the paper?
Although Pollock is described as an Abstract Expressionist, his work was heavily influenced by the Surrealists, and their investigations of the unconscious mind (Freud was all the rage back then). But whereas the Surrealists tried to paint the unconscious, Pollock wanted to let his unconscious paint; the only way he could think to get round conscious intentionality was the spontaneity of throwing paint at the floor.
Did a well known critic say that his paintings were good and therefore the lesser known critics concurred and the cycle went on? (Parallel with religion?)
I believe his critics were equally divided; some saw his action painting as revolutionary, others considered it to be meaningless, immature tosh. I think this controversy helped his reputation as much as his work and influence has.
This reminds me of a BBC program where they got a bunch of kids to ride bikes etc on a canvas and then wheeled in a group of critics (who weren't aware of the situation) to comment on the picture. They made complete fools of themselves.

This is a genuine concern of mine and I am not being facetious - it is just something my hard-wired brain just does not get. Please help as would love to see the beauty in the pictures.

Also, I am a bit off thread here, so if there is a more appropriate thread please direct me.
This is definitely a thread in itself; basically what do you place the emphasis on: process or product? I've also seen paintings by apes and cows, and each has its merits, regardless of the nature of its originators, but then I'm odd like that. The house I grew up in had solid black bitumen floors, overlaid with a patina of paint splashes from numerous decoratings; I found it completely mesmerising and would spend hours contemplating the patterns I saw, until my parents caught me and told me off for ripping up the carpets, that is!

[roger]

Slight derail: rent the movie Pollack. It wonderfully documents the moment when he invents his new style, and the reactions to it. Watching him (from old films) and the actor (who studied and practiced Pollack's style for awhile before beginning filming) shows that while the paintings may be 'random', the artist is still 'painting'. It's not just flinging paint any ole way. Look at a real Pollack canvas, if you ever have a chance. The color palette he uses, for example, is not random; they work together. And despite the apparent randomness of the final result, look at say, the green, and you will start to see patterns emerge. He's not my favorite artist by any means, but I do like some of his work, and am very moved by some pieces. In any case, the movie is just supurb, and quite haunting.

Oh, and try to make your own Pollack sometime. I can't begin to make something with the grace and beauty of what he created. It looks easy, but in practice I think it is pretty darn hard.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by roger
Oh, and try to make your own Pollack sometime. I can't begin to make something with the grace and beauty of what he created. It looks easy, but in practice I think it is pretty darn hard.
Or have a play with a Flash version (http://www.johnsquire.com/index.asp?area=interact&sub=actionpainting) courtesy of ex-Stone Roses guitarist (and action painting enthusiast) John Squires.

Btw, thanks for the film tip roger!

[T'ai Chi]

I think some people are blurring the lines between appreciating science and appreciating nature. Science is not nature and neither is math; they are ways to go about understanding nature.

Can a scientist appreciate naure? Sure. So can anyone else. But what does one mean by appreciate?? For example, when I read what Tez wrote about the cream in the tea, I thought of Ronald Fisher's 'the lady tasting tea', where he used basic statistics to design an experiment to see if a lady could tell if cream was added before the coffee, or after the coffee. Just like that is the first thing that popped into my head, and thermodynamics is the first thing that popped into Tez's head, and perhaps color theory, the taste of coffee, the plants were the coffee came from, or a variety of other things, might have popped into someone else's head, how do we say one of these people appreciates nature more than the other?

I do think it obvious that some people make a leap in science and try to conquer nature instead of just learning about it. They don't want to learn from it. Do most scientists though? No, I don't think so.

[Zep]

An appreciation of nature by a scientist starts with that oh-so-simple question that all children learn very early and which they use to annoy the living daylights out of their parents: Why?

Why is the sky blue?
Why does a rainbow form?
Why is there a plant in the rocks?
Why does that simple mathematical equation create such incredible patterns?
Why does that particular pattern and colour of paint create abstract thoughts for me and not other people?
Why is it that that particular male/female shape of face and body is so attractive to me?

And so on.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Zep
An appreciation of nature by a scientist starts with that oh-so-simple question that all children learn very early and which they use to annoy the living daylights out of their parents: Why?

[...]
Why is it that that particular male/female shape of face and body is so attractive to me?

And so on.
<slight derail>:eek: Science can answer that? You mean all that money I spent on analysis was a waste? ;) :D </slight derail>

[Mercutio]

Of course I am not the first scientist to confront such sentiment. Famously, the poet John Keats complained that Newton, by explaining the origin of the rainbow in terms of the optical properties of raindrops, had destroyed its beauty:How did I miss this thread? (I hear you, LucyR).

I was just speaking with my class on this topic yesterday, and brought up Newton's Opticks. Although this class did not think that Newton had taken the wonderment out of the rainbow, others in other classes have definitely felt that way.

For myself (as I told them), I think rainbows are beautiful. I still will run out in the yard in the rain to look for them. But I also know that the same optics that Newton describes are also responsible for the performance of lenses...that essentially, we may trace a direct line from Newton destroying the beauty of rainbows to the deep-field pictures recently taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Point that puppy to a tiny patch of sky that does not even have stars visible to the naked eye...and see hundreds of galaxies!!! Dissecting the rainbow opened up wonderous things and expanded our understanding of the universe... And of course, we may trace the same line from Newton to Anton van Leeuwenhoek and the invention of the microscope, and once again new horizons are opened to us.

So, now, rainbows are still beautiful...but they also hold in them distant galaxies and near-infinitessimal delights...and I will take those over a mythical pot of gold any day.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Mercutio
So, now, rainbows are still beautiful...but they also hold in them distant galaxies and near-infinitessimal delights...and I will take those over a mythical pot of gold any day.
Your poetic licence is hereby revoked. :p ;)

[Johnny Pneumatic]

I forget who said it but, [paraphrasing] knowing why a flower is the way it is makes it even more beautiful[paraphrasing]

[rppa]

Originally posted by bewareofdogmas
I forget who said it but, [paraphrasing] knowing why a flower is the way it is makes it even more beautiful[paraphrasing]

I think this argument can be held on a much broader range of topics than science vs. nature. For instance, I was startled at the end of a community theatrical production, when another cast member said to me "Now that I've seen all that goes into a theatrical production, it's lost all the magic for me." To me it's exactly the opposite. Seeing the rehearsals, watching the set builders and (most magical of all to me) the set painters, watching the lights get hung... when you see the finished product all those things make it even more mind-bogglingly beautiful.

Somebody presented four pictures of humans that a "scientific" person is supposed to "appreciate" as equally well-functioning machines. If you're going to work from that perspective, I think that insects are the most beautiful form of life on earth. And the more you know about how complex they are and how well-adapted, the more you can appreciate that beauty. Of course, there are a number I find beautiful from an aesthetic standpoint as well, like cicadas or praying mantises. But I think ants are my favorite from a functional standpoint.

Here's a weird thing: When I'm outside, I love to watch ants work, especially in solving problems. I think they're marvelous. If one happens to choose me as a path from A to B, I won't disturb it, though I may present it some obstacle challenges for fun. When I'm inside, if I see an ant I say "yuck, ants!" and squash them as fast as I see them. Why is that?

[Mercutio]

Originally posted by BillyTK

Your poetic licence is hereby revoked. :p ;) Hey, at least I didn't say I'd take them over a real pot of gold...

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Mercutio
Hey, at least I didn't say I'd take them over a real pot of gold...
It was a backhanded compliment, honest guv'nor!

Exits stage left pursued by bear

[Tez]

Cleopatra:
If Science is nothing but the code that describes the beauty of Nature, if it's like those pixels that depict something beautiful on our screen or like those notes that seem meaningless silly marks on a piece of paper until they are played by an istrument,if science is those drops of pectin that make superb "Sultan's secret". if science is all these as well ( because science is many important things) then scientists remind me of the beautiful women who are ashamed of their beauty. You know, the women that believe that if they appear good looking nobody will appreciate them for their brain.

Now that I am thinking about it all my dad needed to say so as I understand how cold snow is-- was to tell me that snow is something that burns the way the sand in the desert does but no , he attempted to say it in the scientific way.

Fair points Cleopatra, and IRL I try to spend time communicating my passion. I type very slowly (I find it painful), and I rarely get into such discussions here any more.

You do not need to be taught to appreciate science. I believe that, broadly speaking, science captures the process of understanding your environment, and your place in the same, that ever since you pooped (sic) into the world you have been engaged in. In as much as you appreciate this process, you appreciate science. To put it a little differently, if you in any way value the abstract notion of "explanation", you appreciate science.

Of course, there are certain aspects of the world around you that you do not understand and "scientists" do. If a scientist manages to communicate some level of understanding to you, s/he will do so by drawing connections with other aspects of your experience. Why? Because this is the only way that the scientist understands it themselves. The difference between a good explanation and a bad one is simply whether the teacher has understood the network of connections that the pupil has in place already, and the best means for broadening that network in the desired direction. If your father had told you that snow is something that burns the way the sand in the desert does, that would also have been a scientific explanation. Not a complete one, but a reasonable start.

It is a common misconception that science is engaged in a process of prediction of physical phenomena. This is anathema to me, and I suspect most scientists. Predictability forms part of the method of science. It is part of how we evaluate potential explanations. But give me a computer program that can predict everything in the natural world, and I will not be happy. I want to understand. Understanding is my passion.

[Tez]

Originally posted by Bluegill
I think one could draw analogies to the appreciation of art. Someone who has no knowledge of art history, and has made little effort to find what is meaningful in art, appreciates it at a more superficial level. The Bob Ross/ “Happy Trees” painters one sees on PBS are great, but how can one enjoy looking at Jackson Pollack or Mark Rothko? By careful consideration, experience, and learning to draw the right connections.


THis, and some of the subsequent comments on art, gave me some nice pause for thought. In fact, in my impotent conversation mentioned above, I used the example of Cafe at Arles. I asked whether an alien with no experience of cobblestones, lights, chairs, tables and people could appreciate the painting in as much depth as you or I. They may, of course, appreciate the colours and composition at some level. But by missing the underlying threads drawing the splotches of paint together, they are missing out on something.

Having seen what people have written about Pollock (whom I also enjoy after many minutes of mesmerised staring) I realise this analogy is probably not great!

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by Tez
Understanding is my passion. Ok this was too passionate:)

I have mailed this thread to a friend of mine who teaches Computer Science in CalTech.He is a mathematician. He sent me a reply that he named "Mathematical pornography" escorted by mathematical graphics like the one Zep posted. His text and passion about the beauty of his science is breathtaking.

Maybe I will post some parts here after I edit them because he addresses you Tez, personally. He sets up a whole scenario with the girl, you, mathematics et cetera... :)