Johan Lehrer’s main point in this article “The Future of Science… Is Art” is that in order to answer life deepest questions and gain more knowledge we will need to draw from both science and art. His closing statement that ties this main point and his entire essay together is, “.. science and art, so that each completes the other” (6). The greater point throughout the essay is that both art and science can benefit from one another. I could follow and agree this greater idea; however, specific examples, some quotes, and the intricate language used in the article made it hard for me to understand, or grasp every piece of information discussed. For me because the essay was a bit hard to follow, but I got the main point, it seemed as though the writing was a bit lengthy and hard to stay interactive with. I definitely had to remind myself to think of it as a conversation and to stay engaged at points.
That being said one way I made sure to stay engaged was by glossing the text in order to better understand words or phrase I did not get. Some words I had to look up included, lepidopterist, quantum, enigma, inception, paradigm, ephemeral, quaila, parse, arcane, quaint, non-euclidian, and zeitgeist.
Along with these I also looked up the required ones. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is the statement that its impossible to measure two properties of science at once. What I could grasp about “The Bridging Principle” from the essay is it is “the neural event that would explain how the activity of our brain cells creates the subjective experience of consciousness”. I believe it is looking at how events turn into consciousness from within the brain. Reductionism is analyzing and describing a complex phenomenon on a simpler more fundamental level, or the purpose of the phenomenon. A Synapse is the junction between the neurons where neurotransmitters diffuse. Epiphenomenon is a secondary byproduct of an event that does not cause or influence the event. A Holistic perspective is a type of view in which one is interested in engaging in. A metaphor is a phrase that compares two objects for symbolic reasons or understanding.
One person I choose to look up was Arthur Miller. His role in Lehrer’s paper was to show how as an academic he combined art into his studies. He is one of the first people mentioned because the greater conversation of the essay is the mutual benefits arts and sciences can have on one another and Miller is a great example this.
The second person I looked up was Brian Greene. He is a theoretical physicist, mathematician, and string theorist. On the fourth page of the essay Lehrer writes, “… Brain Greene wrote, the arts have the ability to ‘give a vigorous shake to our sense of what’s real,’ jarring the scientific imagination into imagining new things”. The purpose of quoting Greene here is to show that slowly scientists are acknowledging the benefits art could have on science. The benefit stated here is how art can cause new ways of looking at science or new ways of trying to answer scientific questions.
You made excellent use of hyperlinks, here! Nice work. I am so pleased that you continued to stay with the text despite its density, and you definitely picked up on the main idea! Well done! Make sure to reread the essay, as the more familiar his words become, the clearer his sentences will be come. 3/3