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RE: Where Science and the Humanities Meet
If a thing is real, and exists in reality, then it can be tested.
Can poetry be tested? Does it exist?
If poetry subsists upon that which is real,
I see no reason to reject its appeal;
Yet what use is poetry if it has no fact,
Even if it's beautiful, forward and back?
But if a poem is not here to give verifiable truth,
If it's just a feeling, upon which there is nothing to sleuth,
I would question its use in technological development, and the betterment of society,
For it could be nothing more than a dessert, with the true meal being scientific inquiry.
Nice! Though I'm not sure if you're playfully disagreeing or facetiously taking my side. Either case is fine!
"If it's just a feeling... the true meal being scientific inquiry." This is how many can end up treating what they call the "soft sciences" - with "soft" usually implying inferior or illegitimate.
For example, think about the psychology of love. "Can it be tested? Does it exist?" Can love be quantified, measured, manipulated? Biologically speaking, love is essentially a bunch of neurons firing in the brain triggering a release of endorphins, oxytocin, and dopamine that elevate our heart rate, make us more alert, relax our muscles, etc. - all creating "feelings" of pleasure, arousal, social bonding, and motivation. Science can explain how all this happens physiologically. Yet most would say that there is something more that is happening.
Love is more than the sum of its parts. Science can definitely help us understand our own responses, help us avoid negative patterns of behavior, and help direct and reinforce positive behavioral aspects. But science can't help as much with the other parts of love: self-sacrifice, patience, perseverance, faithfulness, integrity. That is where the poets come in, exploring the complex intertwinings of relationships, bringing insight to the unknowable, voicing words that bring hope. These things can't be measured, per se, but they can be experienced.
Poets without science are flighty, ungrounded. Scientists without poetry are just plain dull. Why can't we be both? ;)
If they would say this, then why?
A sunset is beautiful, but when taken apart, it's just radiation refracting off atmospheric gases.
Is this bad somehow?
Is oxytocin bad? Is reality wrong for not being literal magic?
How can a thing be experienced, but not measured?
I get the clear feeling that people don't want to measure these things, because if measured, it would yield answers that they don't like. Such as: Love is an evolved instinct that allows people to breed and protect each other.
Yet, having a family and community isn't bad, is it? I just don't understand this disdain of reality being explained, as if it had to be something "more."
Scientists without poetry are not plain dull.
I don't think poets need science to produce glorious art.
Why must insults be thrown around? =p
Really now, I try to see everything in a positive light, WITHOUT having to embellish things, or ignore aspects to it that make things seem over analyzed. I love analysis and detail put into things.
I love a good piece of fiction, with clever plots, deep characters, and fun mysteries.
What lowers the quality of fiction for me, is deus ex machina type plots, which here, seems to equate to needing to make love into "more" than what it truly is.
Ok. A glorious conversation. Yes, I can handle that!
It's worth saying that my reference to "poets" and "scientists" shouldn't be taken literally, but more as symbols for tendencies to look at life in different ways. I don't mean to create straw-men here that I can dismiss with a stroke of a pen (or thumb, since I'm typing on a tablet).
I also don't intend to dismiss science either. I have a degree in computer science, and have worked as a software engineer and I.T. administrator before I went into a career in education. Science is important! It teaches us how to carefully observe and study our world, critically think, understand how things work, etc.
I suppose conversations like this eventually come down to some level of faith. I can't prove to you that love is more than the sum of its parts. It's a gut feeling, a hunch, a commitment. It's how I choose to live my life. I understand that others could see that as a weakness, believing that I somehow need to make life into something it's not in order to make it worthwhile. I see it as a strength, something that gives me direction and purpose.
There are many times I find I have to exercise love towards others in ways that run contrary to my feeling. Someone hurts me in some way, and my natural inclination is to withdraw or fight back - the evolutionary response, flight or fight. What happens if I do neither? If I use the cutting pain of woundedness to understand myself and understand the other? I find strength to stand without a response of fear or anger, and I find compassion towards the other, even seeing glimpses of myself in them. What begins as hostility can end (at least on my part) with unity. I see myself as one with them, knowing they may not see the same.
This for me is the "more" to love that gives meaning to my life, more than relational practicality, social collectivism, or natural selection. I recognize that others could even explain my response above in evolutionary biological terms, so I guess it just comes down to me seeing it differently and being OK with that.
I would be interested to hear what brings meaning to your life. Where do you find value and give yourself to it wholeheartedly?
For me, I find meaning in the little things.
Things like love, good food, a warm bed, security in life. Making money, learning stuff, reading cool stories and ideas, and whatever else is real and true.
I'm content with just living my life as it appears, and not looking too deeply into those dark corners. And if I do look into them, I use a light, and generally find that the dark corner is just like the rest of the room, and it was hiding nothing spooky at all.
I don't mind the biological or scientific. I can multi-task, and feel both the happiness of an idea, and also the technical aspects of it, and be content with both.
So although you mentioned before "there must be more to love," which I assume is something to do with the grand psychedelic mystery of the mind and genetic code, for me, it's just a thing that I assume can be explained, even if it's wonderfully complex.
Oh, and I wouldn't consider it taking your side OR disagreeing.
It's dialectic awesomeness. It's exploring an idea. Not a debate, but a glorious conversation. A meeting of the minds. I'm here to learn your philosophies, and grow as a person.