Main Point and Free Write:

Lehrer identifies that there are currently concepts we just can’t comprehend within our world. He goes on to say that in order to come closer to understanding these concepts, we need to bridge the gap between science and art. Lehrer complains that right now scientists fail to realize that artists have valuable data on the world that could help them advance in their discovery. Lehrer goes on to say that art could be extremely beneficial because where science usually takes a bottom up approach, art allows us to start observing at the top. To explain, art allows us to look at the whole picture whereas most science is using the details in order to try to piece together the whole picture. Overall, Lehrer’s idea is that we should be using art and science in harmony in order to further understand our world.

I am not quite sure I fully agree with Lehrer. Although part of this disagreement could just be me not fully understanding his points after the first reading. Lehrer doesn’t really convince me that art can help us understand these scientific concepts. I agree with him when he says art really captures the main picture of how humans think; and I think that this is what allows art to be an amazing form of communication. However, I don’t think it helps us understand anything better. If anything I believe it adds more mystery to our world. Art proposes questions like “why does this shading invoke certain feeling”? And at the same time it brings us no closer to understanding “how” we feel this certain why. To conclude, I definitely need to read through this passage at least a few more times but to me it feels like Lehrer is proposing art as this special “snake oil”, meaning he says it will solve all these questions but I fail to see how it will actually achieve this.

Glossing the Text:

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: We can never know where a certain particle is for sure at a certain time because by measuring its qualities we affect the particle in the process.

The bridging principle(Text): Principles the explain how the activity of our brain cells translate into how we experience reality (our consciousness).

Reductionism: Using simple terms/ideas in order to describe a more complex idea.

Synapse: The space between neurons where they pass electrical or chemical signals to each other.

Epiphenomenon: A secondary effect; not the a direct effect.

Holistic perspective: Looking at something from a big picture point of view. A top-down perspective.

Metaphor: Comparing one idea to another in order to draw comparisons or in order to add clarification.

One Artist and Scientist:

-Niels Bohr was a scientist who helped explain the structure of atoms. Art helped allow Bohr to understand to concept of the atoms complex which helps support Lehrer’s main idea.

-Lehrer uses artist Jackson Pollock as example to show how art can have a measurable effect on us. It excites certain parts of the brain which is data we can gather from.