Between science and the arts

[technics]

Which disciplines do you think balance the act between science and the arts? I mean arts in a broader sense along the lines of "humanities" and the "liberal arts". Is it mathematics, law, medicine? Maybe economics? Architecture? etc?

What I'm looking for is a discipline that combines both the elegance of the arts - which I see in its ability to extract order out of complexity, be it rhetoric, leadership, philosophy, music etc. and which involves a lot of intuition - and the precision and consistency of the sciences.

And both these elements to a balanced degree. So law would be more on the "humanities" side of the spectrum, mathematics is more on the "sciency" edge of the spectrum. And architecture is a more literal understanding of the question. But which discipline do you think has both to a balanced degree?

 

[muir]

I would divide things up differently

I would divide things up on which side of the brain they tend to rely on more

having studied law for a while i would say that law is more of a left brained pursuit...i would not place it in the category of art if dividing things between art and science

There has been no all encompassing definition created for 'art' so really there is wriggle room here for our subjective opinions

I personally would apply a broad defintion to art and say that art, loosely interpreted, can be anything that makes us think and feel. of course this can apply to pretty much anything! Duchamp once exhibited a mens urinal and said it was art! Well under my definition it would be art...however.....that doesn't mean that all art has equal usefullness or merit!

Would i rather hang a nice beautiful picture of nature on my wall then a mens urinal...yes...because i choose to value the way the picture of nature makes me feel over what a mens urinal hanging on my wall would make me feel

Going back to the law for a minute....law is presented in popular culture as an almost theatrical process where there are these colourful set piece debates in court where two laywers try to win over a jury to their view

This is not my experience of law. My experience of law is that new law is very rarely made so most law is in looking at the established law for each case: 'precedent'

This means that contrary to lawyers having room for creative opinions they are more like mechanical parrots that must look up existing law and regurgitate it.

I found it very stifling and when i switched to humanities i was struck at the difference of approach by the students; the humanities students often started their sentence with 'i think' or 'i believe' or 'i feel'.....a law student has no such freedom

Although i would say that imo the bulk of scientific work is carried out by left brain dominant people i would say the innovative science is carried out by those who are able to use their right brain effectively as well

so left brain people can create 'art' and right brained people can do 'science' but as a generalisation i would say that the culture within these sub divisions tend to have a leaning to one side of the brain or the other

I am not saying one is better than the other...i would in fact say that imo the ideal situation would be to be able to utilise effectively both sides of the brain; what we tend to see however in society is a tension between these two cultures or tribes if you like!

The left brain tribe often looks down on the right brain tribe due to their level of technical competence while not realising that they are actually seeing the world in monochrome while the right brain tribe tend to see the left brain tribe as 'square'

To answer your question in the OP i think what bridges these two things depends on what we do with them

So mathmatics could bridge the gap between art and science as could architecture

However architecture can be very left brained or very right brained. Ancient greek temples were made to mathmatical formulas which were discearned as appearing in nature for example the golden mean, the fibonacci sequence and also musical notation. So sometimes their architecture was music rendered into stone in a sense. They found these equations created architecture that was also aesthetically pleasing....so it appealed to the intellect and to the soul

However neo-classical architecture often strayed from these formulas and also took classical features from what were essentially brochures eg ''i like the look of that tympanum, i will put that on top of this type of pillars'' so it drifted back into left brain territory (ie repition and classification)

Gothic was more from the subconscious and contained forms that were powerfully evocative, unsettling and in the case of gargoyles even disturbing

If you think of gaudis work it is a complete departure form the usual 'rules' so could be said to be more right brained...he wasn't a 'square' stuck in a box of rules for conformists; he wasn't just repeating things, he was creating new ones from his intuition, the source of which is......

 

[say what]

Have you considered social sciences? I've found it bridges the gap between science and art quite well. You have the freedom to use creativity in ways that you don't in pure sciences. Health-related disciplines is a great representation of social sciences. Health promotion, psychology, etc. I would even consider teaching to be a good bridge.

Depending on where you are in your studies, you could also consider an interdisciplinary degree, where you can actually bring together science and arts. I've found it extremely fulfilling, and it's allowed me to use my strengths and interests to create something unique.