Could Science and Art Become One and the Same?

Greg Wendt

"He to whom Nature begins to reveal her open secret will feel an irresistible yearning for her most worthy interpreter, Art." - Goethe

Science aims to help us gain an understanding of reality, yet how can that which is dictated by the laws of logic be used to explain the parts of reality that are non-logical?

Is it possible that art can be used in a scientific way to create a more accurate expression of reality and a greater understanding of human experience?

A recent article by Jonah Lehrer in SEED Magazine called "The Future of Science....Art?" asks whether art is better suited than science to portray the reality of inner experience:

"This world of human experience is the world of the arts. The novelist and the painter and the poet embrace those ephemeral aspects of the mind that cannot be reduced, or dissected, or translated into the activity of an acronym. They strive to capture life as it's lived. As Virginia Woolf put it, the task of the novelist is to 'examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day...[tracing] the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness.' She tried to describe the mind from the inside."

Just by observing the many states of reality that we experience daily we can see that looking through a so-called "empirical" and "logical" lens at the "objective" realm of what is "provable" captures only part of the picture.

Reality encompasses that which is beyond science as we know it, or at least beyond that which the current scientific mindset can explain.

Lehrer refers to physics as a scientific study that’s closely aligned with art in that it deals with the realm of invisible, fundamental forces that defy literal explanation:

"But the surreal nature of physics is precisely why it needs the help of artists. The science has progressed beyond our ability to understand it, at least in any literal sense. As Richard Feynman put it, 'Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there.' It's a brute fact of psychology that the human mind cannot comprehend the double-digit dimensions of string theory, or the possibility of parallel universes. Our mind evolved in a simplified world, where matter is certain, time flows forward and there are only three dimensions. When we venture beyond these innate intuitions, we are forced to resort to metaphor. This is the irony of modern physics: It seeks reality in its most fundamental form, and yet we are utterly incapable of comprehending these fundaments beyond the math we use to represent them. The only way to know the universe is through analogy."

Metaphor, art and non-logical expressions are perhaps the best way to convey the subtleties of reality which cannot be understood "literally” or through any unified logic based theory:

"The fundamental point is that modern science has made little progress toward any unified understanding of everything. Our unknowns have not dramatically receded. In many instances, the opposite has happened, so that our most fundamental sciences are bracketed by utter mystery. It's not that we don't have all the answers. It's that we don't even know the question."

Carey Thompson is a very talented visionary artist who attempts to express realms that science touches with some of his pieces.

He writes about his piece "Omnicentricity," shown above.

"Recent discoveries in quantum and astrophysics have completely destroyed the Newtonian/Cartesian notion of ourselves floating around in a fixed three-dimensional space. Astronomers had even thought they had pinpointed the exact center where the infamous Big Bang supposedly occurred. Our universe is multidimensional, its center being everywhere, with all of its manifestations containing within them everything else just as every pixel of a hologram contains within it the image of the completed whole. Thus, modern science is a approaching the conclusion, which ancient peoples had intuitively understood, that all is one in this vast unfolding singularity. The image before you attempts to convey this idea."

If scientific research, study and expression were to include more creative, intuitive modes of being as its subject matter, than the reverse might also occur, in which other realms of mind and reality are integrated into the scientific process itself. Perhaps with an expanded frame of reference scientists can undertake inquiries formerly considered "unscientific."

In his new book, "The Science of Leonardo," Fritjof Capra writes,

"Leonardo [Da Vinci]'s approach to scientific knowledge was visual. It was the approach of a painter. 'Painting,' he declared, ‘embraces within itself all the forms of nature.' This statement is the key to understanding Leonardo's science."

Capra points out that Da Vinci's genius came from his ability to use art as a way to be scientific, hence throwing the whole distinction between science and art into question. It may turn out that they are more alike than different. If that’s the case then it’s not only the expression of scientific understanding which needs to evolve, but our understanding of the scientific mind itself--or more specifically, scientific consciousness.

It is the very nature of who we perceive ourselves to be as scientists which needs to be identified and understood—this is the brave new frontier that needs to be explored.

In order to answer this, perhaps we should redesign science laboratories to include consciousness expanding facilities like meditation rooms, yoga studios, and floatation tanks for the scientists to spend time in. We could include disciplines of meditation, cognitive science, parapsychology, healing arts and spirituality in every scientific course of study. Schools can encourage non-logical days, art expressions, meditation courses, visionary journeys, and shamanic experiences as part of the curriculum...

Soon we'd have culture of psychonaut-spiritual-art-scientists. And perhaps as a result we’ll share a better understanding of ourselves, and the universe we live in.