Message:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

 

    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

 

 

John Keats. 1795–1821

THE ARTS AND SCIENCES: OUR SAIL BOAT

Almost all institutions of higher learning are Universities of which the premier program is “Arts and Sciences” or even more prevalent are stand-alone colleges of “Arts and Sciences”.  Then there are Arts schools, and separately Science schools. Science has a proud sibling of Technology.  

Expansion of Technology has cascaded exponentially in the second half of the Twentieth Century and shows little signs of fading, now well into the Twenty-first.

Many of us are now addicted to our laptop computers for receipt and evaluation of virtually all information, immediate, current and historical.  Also, we largely  employ the internet for banking, bill paying, and shopping, including comparative consumer evaluations.  

As fantastic as Technology has become, one should reflect often technology is only the vehicle upon which Science and The Arts take us through the Journey of Life.

The education of my wife and myself made us primarily scientists and the pursuit of these professions have yielded significant rewards both to us and the larger community.  Art enriched our lives and sometimes aided us, especially in the educational component of science.

Without our direction, our sons have chosen The Arts for their education and lifetime endeavors.  Within family discussions, our sons propose, and ,sometimes, insist that in  the BIG PICTURE, that art, not only  is more important, but, moreover is a higher intellectual arena than is science and technology.   The essence of this position is that the “evolution” of the human mind and spirit as well as our cultural development, has been driven and documented by artists.  Science and technology is viewed as nice, e.g. cleanliness, protective shelter, clothing, improved and nutrition but these worldly endeavors serve the higher mental and spiritual activities.  

Currently, nationally, there is a crescendo of heated arguments of, on the one side, faith based conservatives (who emphasize a traditional view the immutable value of the categorical intangibles of mind, spirit and the constraints of interpersonal and community behavior.)  Science is not a priority  of this group.  This community of thought highly values art, but as I see it, art to them is primarily a tool with which they reinforce and promote their message.

On the other side of this argument are “The Progressives” which is a genuine historically defined group with a clear philosophical objectives including assessment and refinement of proposals for the improved pragmatics of the members of the community.  Science, and its essential intellectual discipline, is a critical component for this group.  Art is highly valued for its self-evident qualities, existentially, but is also employed to promote its goals.

All the current media seems to have been torn with, sometimes even to adoption of views, in reporting current events in terms of Right and Left positions.  Although the steam behind these fights is political, the “end justify the means” basis of this activity is a great disservice to The Arts and Sciences.

This food fight between waring factions of post-development minds, bothers me less than the influence and confusion of young minds still in a formative state, whose substance has not yet gelled or solidified.  Furthermore, it is regrettable for the discussions to mix the “apples and oranges” of our intellectual nutrition (Art, Sciences and Technology) and then insist that one must abandon one for  another.

I see the success and values of personal relationships, families and nations as requiring the calm recruitment and repeated rehearsal of the cooperation of the three components of life cited above.

I have enjoyed  sail boating earlier in my life.  I see a happy relationship of the components of our partnerships and communities to be like the components of a sailboat.  One needs the integrity of the hull to keep us afloat and the integrity of the rigging to move us.  This is the Technology.

Next, one needs an energized spirit to power us to exciting speeds, with confidence and even a modicum of drama.  This is symbolized by the Spinnaker sail where much of the thrill and excitement live.  I put this clearly in the Arts Department.

As beautiful and inspiring as the sailboat is, any sailor, with ten minutes of experience, can tell you that your boat  is a useless, nearly inert, collection wood, ropes and canvas without that which  is hiding beneath the surface, the absolutely essential components of stability and steerage: the keel and rudder.  This I claim for Science.

Polarized and fixed positions in the culture wars and politics are, at best, self-defeating.  To cherish one component as superior, is terribly inefficient or destructive.

I trust everyone has heard of the  parable of the nine blind men describing the elephant.

Confidence In the Truth of Our Knowledge

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge..."   Charles Darwin

What do we know?  What can we know?  What have we been taught?  Of that which we were taught, what was indoctrination of unchallenged dogma?  What can we verify?  All of the teachings and "information" which I have received and  am continuously exposed to, cannot possibly be true and some statements are blatantly  contradictory.   Recent examples of conflicting  "information" propagated before and during the Iraq War compared with the release of leaks and now the knowledge in declassified government documents are illustrative.  The Nixon "Watergate" recordings and  discoveries published in The Washington Post are a permanent feature of our national memory.

What was ignorantly proposed as science, included the four humors, spontaneous generation and leaching.   From the dawn of human history, until only about five hundred years ago, there was acceptance and authoritarian defense of  the flat earth  and then more defensive denial of the heliocentric universe.

  

 From elementary school we are taught geography  with all of the heavily lined  borders, pastel colored countries and unmemorable names.   When Armstrong and Aldrin photographed the earth from the moon, I was struck by how there were no boundaries separating nationalities and how small and isolated the earth is.  Of course, my classroom map lines and colors were not to be seen.  This observation seemed self-evident and not subject for debate However, even after four decades of manned and unmanned space missions of several nations, there remains organizations of those folk who contend that the moon landing proved nothing as they are confident that the televised documentation was a staged trick taking place in the Western deserts of the United States.

Testing science:  Do I have go back the laboratory and verify atomic structure, acid-base chemistry, the physics of light and optics?  Must every idea be discarded if it does not with stand the syllogisms of the hypotheses/test/proof model?  What if something obviously works by most people's assessment, when only a few people understand it?  Is it no less true?  If you are advised to have a high Tesla MR chemical analysis or have your  own genome deciphered, do you have to be able to go to the blackboard and explain it to the class before submitting to the procedure?

Doubt, skepticism and examination are core values but if, I, for one, am limited to that which can I can explain, to say nothing of "prove it",  my ability to function would be greatly impaired.  

So at this time, I have several decades of an accumulated inventory of various categories of facts, observations, stories, opinions and indoctrinated religious and philosophical beliefs which have been strongly held by someone slightly ahead of me in life's journey.  Thankfully, some of my mentors gave us some tools with which to examine and review these things.  However, I have come to accept that a lot of what we experienced and do, is based on : somethings just seem right and somethings just feel wrong.  It is impossible to describe the covenant which I have with my wife and children.  I have had a lesser but similar bond with a few teachers, patients and students.  There is a moral core of my soul which I received from the example of the life of my Grandmother.  Before Gandhi, she knew that: you must BE what you want the world to become.

These things are not  scientifically provable, but they are as true as gravity or the proportions of the sides and angles of a right triangle.   

As The King said to Anna: "Life is a puzzlement!"