I had one of my first brain storming sessions at a class yesterday... my new classes are in the management stream and a lot different from my usual mineralogy or paleontology classes.... we were discussing yesterday the ways of scientific thought and the utilization of such protocol in dispute resolution in a corporate situation...
Basically everyone talked about how rigid scientific thought is and how there is a lot of protocol involved when someone talks of techniques in science... so in those terms the body of scientific knowledge is something you can depend completely upon, since its been subject to so much rigor and review....
One of our flock was talking abt how scientific knowledge is pristine and reliable... I guess I wouldn't go so far with defending it... in my opinion there are many limitations on scientific knowledge and the only good thing abt it is that it has gone through a lot of testing and critiques and is probably our best way of looking at things..
But to say science is the ultimate truth is folly... first of all there is no such thing as an impartial observer... every thing observed is always changed in some way or the other by the observer... any phenomenon observed is always filtered into consciousness through the filter of a theory... for e.g. you cannot observe the effects of gravity if you do not filter the observation through your existing knowledge about gravity....
All these things are inherent problems in science and one can never objectively assess the universe because one is part of the universe and is limited by one's sensory perceptions...
The fact however remains that though scientific knowledge can never reveal the ultimate truth, it is still our best and most objective way of structuring and utilizing data...
The conversation went on to how a scientist is therefore limited in his/her perception of the arts.... and I would like to contest that view too....
It is true that a scientist learns how to perceive data in a very rigid form and learns to automatically structure it and analyze patterns... but it is also true that a scientist is at the basis a human being....
Being human endows upon us the gifts of intuition and an appreciation for beauty... it then doesn't matter if you are a scientist...
Art is a way of equaling the ground for us... any person can appreciate the intricacies of a painting or be enraptured by the beauty of a piece of literature... art pulls at heart strings that remind us that our humanity is much more than just being highly evolved intelligent mammals... it tugs at strings that are more universal and more enmeshed within our beings than we realize...
I love sitting in museums and feel surrounded by talent and beauty and inspiration... it gives me an opportunity to get in touch with a different part of my being
I mean, sitting by the riverside need not remind me just of the ongoing fluvial processes that are giving rise to the geomorphology of the land, but I am also able to just appreciate the beauty, the soul of nature, which though compelling when filtered through the rigors of scientific knowledge, is also equally compelling when just viewed as a holistic, aesthetic experience.
