Creativity in science on the example of a famous person.
What is creativity? Creativity is the creation of something new by a person that has never existed before. Creativity is the highest human activity. Intuition, imagination and fantasy are considered to be elements or mechanisms of creative activity. It is these elements that help a person create something new.
Now let's try to answer the question, is there creativity in science?
First, a few words about science. Science is a sphere of human activity aimed at obtaining and systematizing knowledge about the world. The key word for us in this definition is gaining knowledge. After all, any new knowledge in science is nothing more than the receipt of something new, as well as in creativity.
And really, the purpose of any discovery? This is to create new information, new knowledge that has never been there before.
So, for example, the great Russian scientist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev for a long time could not solve the problem of the periodicity of chemical elements, moreover, no one in the world could solve this problem. However, at one fine moment he was able to compose it, for the first time !!! Thus, making a splash in the scientific community of chemists.
On the example of Mendeleev, we see that science and creativity are very closely related. Without creativity, it would be impossible to gain knowledge that never existed before.
It turns out that artists often turn to science for inspiration. We present to you a selection of the most interesting stories of the creation of artistic masterpieces.
Edvard Munch. "Scream"
The Scream by Edvard Munch
Norwegian artist Edvard Munch painted The Scream in 1893. In his diary, he said that he was inspired by the blood-red sky that he saw while walking with friends. The amazing atmosphere of the picture gave rise to a lot of controversy about what exactly Munch saw in the sky. One of the most popular hypotheses suggests that the artist may have observed the ash of the Krakatoa volcano after its eruption in 1883.
Popular Mechanics has already talked about the most recent guesses of the researchers: a meteorologist from the University of Oslo suggested that Edvard Munch might have been inspired by seeing a rare phenomenon in the sky - nacreous clouds, which are caused by low temperatures and high degree of illumination.
Maria Sibylla Merian. Watercolor drawing of guava tree (Psidium guajava), tarantula (Avicularia avicularia), spider-spider (Avicularia gen.Spec.), Wolf spider (Rhoicinus spec.), American cockroach (Periplaneta americana), leaf-cutting ant (Atta cephalotes ), tailor ant (Oecophylla spec.), hummingbird (Trochilidae gen. spec.).
Scientific Sketching as Art, Maria Sibylla Merian
German artist Maria Sibylla Merian saw beauty where others did not notice it. As an entomologist, she often depicted insects in her paintings. In 1705, the artist made a sketch of a tarantula eating a hummingbird. Her work ultimately gave the name to the entire family of spiders (tarantulas). Despite the fact that at first her engraving was criticized and called "pure fiction", later it was proved that tarantula spiders still sometimes feed on poultry meat.
Most of the most striking works of Mary Sibylla Merian came from her two-year scientific expedition to Suriname (South America) from 1699 to 1701. She depicted in detail the metamorphosis of insects that no one had ever seen before, and some of the representatives she captured are still searched by researchers around the world.
William Turner. "The Decline of Carthage"
Volcanic sunsets by William Turner
British painter Joseph Mallord William Turner (better known as William Turner) was famous for his paintings of spectacular sunsets, raging seas and moonlit scenes. According to a 2014 study in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Turner wrote his famous sunsets in 1816, impressed by the volcanic eruptions in the atmosphere that were caused by the eruption of the volcano on Tambor in 1815 (it was the largest volcanic eruption in the history of mankind). As a result, global climatic anomalies were established in the world, which gave rise to a Year without Summer.
Mehmet Berkmen and Maria Penil. "Neurons"
Microbial masterpieces
In the American Society of Microbiology's annual art competition, bacteria and yeast become paint, and agar becomes canvas. Microbiologists are creating masterpieces inside Petri dishes, such as Neurons by Mehmet Berkman and Maria Penil. She won first prize in 2015, beating a map of New York made of microbes and a picture of a farm in harvest season made with yeast.
Vincent Van Gogh. "Starlight Night"
Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh's painting "The Starry Night" may seem bizarre and unrealistic, but it also has to do with science. In 2006, physicists from the National Autonomous University in Mexico dedicated an entire study to this masterpiece. They found out that Van Gogh actually depicted turbulence. It is interesting that the artist depicted this physical phenomenon in other paintings on which he worked while struggling with mental problems. These are, for example, "Road with a cypress and a star" and "Wheat field with crows".
Jan Lukasiewicz
ABOUT CREATIVITY IN SCIENCE *
Equally, both scientists and people who stand aside from science often believe that the goal of science is truth, while they base the truth on the harmony of thinking and being. Thus, they believe that the job of a scientist is to reproduce facts through true judgments. Likewise, a photographic plate reproduces light and shadows, and a phonograph reproduces sounds. A poet, artist or musician creates; the scientist does not create, but only reveals the truth.
This interweaving of thoughts fills many scientists with unfounded pride, encourages many artists to neglect science. These views created an abyss between science and art, and in this abyss the understanding of a priceless thing - creativity in science - perished.
Let us pass this plexus of thought with the blade of logical criticism.
1. Not all true judgments are scientific truths. There are trivial truths in science. In the Clouds Aristophanes says that
Socrates recently asked Herefont:
How many flea legs do fleas jump?
Before that, a flea bit Herefont on the eyebrow
And she slipped away to the head of Socrates. "
Socrates caught a flea, plunged its legs into melted wax; thus the flea received the shoes, after which he took them off and measured the distance with them. And there is a truth about the flea jump that caused Socrates to suffer: but for such truths comedy is their proper place, not science.
The human mind, creating science, does not strive for omniscience. If it were so, then we would care about the most insignificant truth. Indeed, omniscience seems to be more of a religious ideal than a scientific one. God knows all the facts, for he is the Creator and Seer of the world, as well as the Judge of human aspirations and deeds. According to the psalmist, God
“Sees all the sons of men;
from the throne on which he sits,
He looks upon everyone living on earth:
He created the hearts of all of them and
he delves into all their deeds. "
How differently Aristotle understands perfect knowledge! And according to his opinion, the sage knows everything; however, he does not know individual facts, but possesses only knowledge of the universal. Knowing the universal, he knows, to a certain extent, all the details that fall under the universal. So he potentially knows everything there is to know. But only potentially; actual, essential omniscience is not the ideal of the Stagirite.
2. If not all true judgments belong to science, then in addition to truth there must be some other value that raises judgments to a high level of scientific truth.
Already Socrates and his great followers considered the universal to be such an additional value. Scientific knowledge, says Aristotle, does not refer to random events (such as the leap of a flea from Herefont's eyebrow), but to constantly, or at least to frequently repeated facts. General judgments are the expression of such facts, and only they belong to science.
Yet the universal is neither a necessary nor a sufficient property of scientific truths. It is not a necessary property, for it is impossible to delete isolated judgments from science. The single sentence “Vladislav Jagiello won at Grunwald” speaks of an important historical event; a single judgment that predicted the existence of the planet Neptune on the basis of calculations belongs to the greatest triumphs of astronomy. Without single judgments, history would cease to exist as a science, and scraps of theory would remain of natural knowledge.
Universality is not a sufficient property of scientific truths. About Mitskevich's quatrain
“All at the same hour, in the same place,
Where in one dream we wanted to merge,
Everywhere, always with you, I will be together, -
After all, I left a particle of soul there. ”#
the following general judgments can be made:
"Each line contains the letter s"
"Each line that contains the letter m contains it twice."
“In each line, the number of letters m is a function of the number of letters s according to the formula
m = s2 - 5s +6 "
Such general truths can be created without number; do we refer them to science?
3. Taking the universal as a sign of scientific truths, Aristotle fell under the spell of metaphysical values. In the depths of constantly repeated facts, he had a presentiment of unchanging existence, different from the insignificant phenomena of the sensible world. Today scientists see, perhaps, practical value in the general.
General judgments, outlining the conditions for the occurrence of phenomena, make it possible to foresee the future, cause useful and prevent harmful phenomena. Hence the view that scientific truths are practically valuable judgments, rules of effective activity.
But practical value is neither a necessary nor a sufficient property of scientific truths. Gauss's assertion that every prime of the form 4n + 1 is the product of two conjugate numbers has no practical value. While the message from the police that the things stolen by them were taken away from the robbers is true, for the victims from a practical point of view it is very valuable. And how many phenomena can be foreseen, how many accidents can be successfully prevented by virtue of the law, which Galileo did not know in such a formulation: "All the pencils of the Joint Stock Company Mayevsky and his comrades in Warsaw, without being suspended or supported, fall at a rate that increases in proportion to the time of the fall!"
Those who would be glad to make a servant out of it in everyday life think down-to-earth about science. Tolstoy thought more sublime, although not better, when, condemning experimental research, he demanded from science only teachings in ethical matters. Science is of great practical importance, it can raise a person ethically, it happens that it becomes a source of aesthetic satisfaction; however, its essential value lies elsewhere.
4. Aristotle saw the beginning of science in surprise. The Greeks were surprised that the side and the diagonal of a square do not have a common measure. Surprise is an intellectual and emotional state of the psyche. There are many such states, for example, curiosity, fear of the unknown, distrust, uncertainty. They have not yet been studied in detail, but even a superficial analysis reveals in them all, along with emotional factors, an intellectual element, a thirst for knowledge.
This craving refers to facts that are meaningful to individuals or to all people. A lover who is tormented by uncertainty, whether the beloved reciprocates, would be glad to get acquainted with a fact that is significant for him alone. But each person looks at death with fear and curiosity, trying in vain to penetrate its secret. Science does not care about the aspirations of individuals; she studies what can arouse the thirst for knowledge in every person.
If this thought is correct, then the additional value that, in addition to truth, each judgment should have in order to belong to science, could be defined as the ability to cause or satisfy, directly or indirectly, intellectual universal human needs, i.e. those that can be perceived by every person standing at a certain level of mental development.
5. The truth about the leap of a flea from the eyebrow of Herefon does not belong to science, for it does not cause and does not satisfy any intellectual need. The news from the police about the stolen things may be of interest only to individual people. Also, no one needs to know how many times the letters m and s appear in some poem and what is the connection between their number. Even the judgment about the fall of Mayevsky's pencils will not find a place in physics textbooks, for the striving for knowledge already satisfies the general law on the fall of heavy bodies.
Gauss's assertion that it is possible to decompose primes of the form 4n + 1 into conjugate components is known only to a few scientists. And yet it belongs to science, for it reveals the amazing regularity of numbers. The laws of numbers, this powerful instrument of research, arouse interest in every thinking person. The existence of the planet Neptune may not concern everyone. But this fact confirms Newton's idea of the structure of the solar system. Thus, it indirectly refers to the satisfaction of the intellectual need experienced by humanity since ancient times. As such, Jagiello's victory may not affect the Japanese. But this event is an important link in the historical relations of the two peoples, and the history of the people cannot be indifferent to every cultured person.
As art grew out of the need for beauty, so the desire for knowledge created science. Finding the goals of science outside the realm of thinking is as big a mistake as tying art to views of utility. The same slogans are used: “science for science” and “art for art”.
6. Every intellectual need that cannot be immediately satisfied in experience gives rise to reasoning. Whoever is surprised by the disparity of the sides and the diagonal of the square is eager to explain this fact for himself; he thus seeks the justification from which a judgment of disproportion would emerge as a consequence. Whoever is frightened by the passage of the Earth through the tail of a comet tries to deduce, using the well-known laws of nature, the consequences that this event could cause. The mathematician, unsure whether the equation xn + yn = zn is solvable in integers and non-zero numbers for n> 2, seeks a proof, i.e. reliable judgments that would substantiate this famous statement of Fermat. A person who is prone to hallucinations and at the moment does not trust his observations, seeks to check their objectivity; thus, he seeks the consequences of the premises of not being hallucinated. For example, he asks others if they see the same thing that he does. Explanation, conclusion, proof, verification are types of reasoning.
Each reasoning contains at least two judgments, which are connected by the formal relation of following. Many judgments connected with such an attitude can be called synthesis. Since any common human intellectual need can be satisfied only by reasoning, individual in nature, and not by experience, it turns out that science does not belong to individual judgments, but only to the synthesis of judgments.
7. The composition of each synthesis of judgments as a necessary component includes a formal relation of following. A common, though not the only, example of a proposition associated with this relationship is the syllogism: “If every S is M and every M is P, then every S is P”. The following relation, which connects the premises of the syllogism with the conclusion, is called formal, because it arises regardless of the meanings of the terms S, M, P, which define the “matter” of the syllogism. The formal succession relation is asymmetric, i.e. it has the property that if a judgment or a set of judgments A is in relation to following to B, then B can, but does not have to, be in the same relation to A. Judgment A, from which B follows, is a basis, B is a consequence. The transition from the foundation to the effect determines the direction of the movement.
Reasoning that looks for an effect on the basis of reasons is called deduction; an argument that looks for a foundation based on consequences is called reduction. In deduction, direction and reasoning are mutually consistent; in reduction they are mutually opposite.
Deductive reasoning can be deducibility or verification, reductive reasoning can be explanation or proof. If we obtain consequences from these reliable judgments, then we deduce; if we look for grounds for these reliable judgments, then we explain. If we are looking for reliable judgments, which would be obtained from the given invalid [judgments] as a consequence, then we check; if we are looking for reliable judgments from which these invalid [judgments] would be obtained as consequences, then we prove.
8. Every reasoning contains an element of creativity; this is most strikingly manifested in the explanation.
One type of explanation is incomplete induction. This is a way of reasoning that for given single reliable judgments “S1 is P, S2 is P, S3 is P ....” looks for a basis in the form of a general judgment “each S is P”.
Incomplete induction, like every reduction reasoning, does not substantiate the result of the reasoning based on the initial position, since S1, S2, S3 do not exhaust the scope of the concept S, and a conclusion only from some single judgments of a general judgment is not formally legitimate. Therefore, the result of incomplete induction as such is not a reliable judgment, but only a plausible one.
Generalization: “each S is P” can be understood either as a set of single descriptions, or as a dependence: “if something is S, there is also P”. Since a generalization is a set of single judgments, it covers not only the cases studied, but also the unknown ones. Assuming that in unknown cases the manifestations are the same as in the studied ones, we do not reproduce the data in the experience of facts, but we create new judgments based on the model of judgments about known cases.
Since generalization expresses dependence, it introduces a factor alien to experience. Since the time of Hume, it has been permissible to say only that we observe the coexistence or onset of phenomena, but not their dependence. Thus, the judgment of dependence does not reproduce the facts given in experience, but again is an expression of a person's creative thought.
Creativity is scanty; let's get acquainted with the more fruitful.
9. Consider Galileo's generalization: "All heavy bodies, not suspended or lying, fall with a speed that increases in proportion to the time of fall." This generalization contains a law expressing a functional relationship of the form v = gt between the velocity v and the fall time t.
The value of t can take integer, fractional, immeasurable, transcendental values. There is an infinite power of judgments about events that no one has ever observed and will not be able to observe. This is one creative factor already mentioned.
The second is contained in the link form. No measurement is accurate. Therefore, it is impossible to say that the speed is absolutely exactly proportional to the fall time. Thus, the form of communication does not reproduce the facts given in experience: in its entirety, communication is a product of the creativity of the mind.
On the other hand, we finally know that the law of the fall of heavy bodies can only be true in approximation, for it assumes the presence of non-existent conditions, such as the constancy of gravity or the absence of air resistance. Thus, he does not reproduce reality, but only deals with fiction.
Therefore, history teaches that this law did not arise from the observation of phenomena, but was born a priori in the creative consciousness of Galileo. Only after the creation of the law did Galileo verify its consequences with facts. This is the role of experience in every naturally scientific theory: to be an irritant to creative thoughts and to supply material for testing them.
10. Another type of explanation is the formation of hypotheses. To form a hypothesis means to accept the existence of a fact that is not observable in experience, with the aim of obtaining a reliable judgment as a consequence from a judgment about it as a partial basis. For example, someone knows that some S is P, but does not know why. Intending to find an explanation, he accepts that this S is M, although he does not observe this fact from experience. However, knowing that each M is P and, if it is assumed that S is M, then from both these judgments we can conclude that S is P.
The hypothesis was a judgment about the existence of Neptune, while this fact was not observed in experience. Until now, a hypothesis is a judgment about the existence of Vulcan, a planet located closer to the Sun than Mercury. It is a hypothesis and always will be the point of view that there are atoms, electrons or ether. All paleontology rests on hypotheses; since, for example, the judgment that some gray lumps of lime found in Podol are traces of arthropods that lived in Silurian or Lower Devon speaks not of observable phenomena. History is a huge network of hypotheses that, with the help of general judgments, most often taken from everyday practice, explain the facts given in experience, i.e. monuments, documents, structures, customs existing today.
All hypotheses are creations of the mind, since he who accepts a fact that is not observed in experience creates something new. Hypotheses are permanent components of knowledge, and not temporary thoughts, which, through verification, would turn into established truths. A judgment about a fact only ceases to be a hypothesis when this fact can be observed directly in experience. This is extremely rare. To show only that the consequence of a hypothesis is in agreement with the facts does not yet mean to replace the hypothesis with truth, for from the truth of the consequence it is impossible to conclude about the truth of the foundation.
11. Other types of reasoning do not hide in their content the primary factors of creativity, like explanation. After all, the proof is looking for known grounds, and the conclusion and verification develop the consequences already contained in the given premises. However, every reasoning contains a formal factor of creativity: the logical principle of reasoning.
A reasoning principle is a judgment that says that a follow-through relationship arises between certain forms of judgment. The syllogism: “if S is M and M is P, then S is P” is a principle of reasoning.
The principle of reasoning does not reproduce the facts given in experience, since neither the asymmetric relation of following is the subject of experience, nor the forms of judgments, such as “S is P”, do not express phenomena.
Asymmetrical relationships never connect objects of reality. After all, an asymmetric relationship is called a relationship that can, but does not have to take place between B and A when it arises between A and B. If A and B really exist, then each relationship either takes place between them, or does not. Factuality precludes possibility.
Possibility is also contained in the forms of judgments. The terms S and P are variables that don't really mean anything definite, but they can mean something. The factor of possibility is sufficient to recognize the principles of reasoning as creations of reason, but not as a reproduction of the facts of reality.
Logic is an a priori science. Her statements are true by virtue of definitions and axioms arising from reason, and not from experience. This science is the realm of pure creativity of the mind.
12. Mathematics arises from logic. According to Russell, mathematics is a set of judgments of the form “from p follows q”, and the judgments p and q, along with the variables themselves, can contain only logical components. The logical constants include such concepts as the relation of succession, the relation of the individual to the class, etc. * If all mathematics can be reduced to logic, then it is also a pure formation of reason.
Consideration of certain mathematical disciplines leads to this conclusion. A point, a straight line, a triangle, a cube, all formations studied by the geometry have only ideal being; they are not given in experience. Still less exist in experience non-Euclidean figures or multidimensional lumps. In the world of phenomena, there are also no whole numbers, rational, irrational, conjugate. Already Dedekind called numbers "free creations of the human spirit." Numbers are the basis of all analysis.
Logic together with mathematics could be compared with an openwork net, which we throw into the immeasurable depths of phenomena in order to fish out of it the pearls of scientific synthesis. They are powerful tools of exploration, but only tools. Logical and mathematical judgments are the only truths in the world of ideal being. Whether any real objects correspond to this being, we will definitely never know about this.
The a priori constructions of reason, which are part of each synthesis, permeate the whole of science with an ideal and creative principle.
13. Now is the time to ask the question: What scientific judgments are pure reproductions of facts? If generalizations, laws and hypotheses, and thus all theories of empirical sciences, as well as the entire field of a priori sciences, arose as a result of the creative work of reason, then, you see, there are few in science purely reproducing (odtworczych) [observations *] judgments.
The answer to this question seems to be fairly easy. A purely observation judgment can only be a single sentence about a fact directly given in experience; for example, “a pine tree grows here”, “this magnetic needle is now deflecting”, “there are two windows in this room”. However, whoever looks closely at these judgments may also see the creative principle in them. The expressions "pine", "magnetic needle", "two" mean concepts, and the hidden work of the spirit shines through in them. All the facts contained in words have already, at least primitively, been processed by man. It seems that the "raw fact" untouched by reason should be the ultimate concept.
No matter how things are, we still feel that the creativity of the mind is not unlimited. Idealistic systems of the theory of knowledge cannot drive out presentiments that there is some reality independent of man and that one should look for it in objects of observation, in experience. What in this reality comes from the human mind - this research has long been the great task of philosophy
14. In science, two types of judgments should be distinguished: we believe that some reproduce the facts given in experience, others are created by the human mind. The judgments of the first category are true, since truth consists in the agreement of thinking and being; Are the judgments of the second category true?
We cannot say emphatically that they are false. What the mind has created cannot be purely fantasy. But at the same time, we have no right to consider them true, since we generally do not know whether real being corresponds to them. Despite this, we include them in the [composition of] science, because they are connected by the relation of following with the judgments of the first category and do not lead to conclusions that do not agree with the facts.
Therefore, it is erroneous to believe that the goal of science is truth. Reason does not create for the truth. The goal of science is to build a scientific synthesis that satisfies universal human intellectual needs.
This synthesis includes true judgments of facts; they primarily excite intellectual needs. These are elements of reconstruction. But synthesis also includes creative judgments; they satisfy intellectual needs. These are structural elements. Both the first and the second elements are connected into a whole due to the logical relations of succession. * These relations give the synthesis of judgments a scientific character.
Poetic creativity does not differ from scientific creativity with a great flight of imagination. The one who, like Copernicus, moved the Earth from its place and directed it on a path around the Sun, or, like Darwin, saw the transformation of species signs in the darkness of history, he deserves to become one of the greatest poets. However, a scientist differs from a poet in that he always and everywhere discusses. He must and can not justify everything, but what he proclaims must be connected by logical nodes into a single whole. At the bottom of this whole are judgments about facts, a theory that explains facts, organizes, retells rises above them. This is how a poem of science arises.
We live in a period of diligent fact-finding. We found natural history museums and organize herbariums. We compile catalogs of stars and draw a map of the moon. Equipping expeditions to the poles of the Earth and the mountains of Tibet that touch the sky. We measure, calculate, use statistics. We collect monuments of prehistory and samples of folk art. We turn over old tombs in pursuit of new papyri. We publish the primary sources of history and compile a bibliography. We would like to save every scrap of the printed page from destruction. This work is valuable and necessary.
Yet gathering facts is not yet a science. He is a real scientist who knows how to link facts into synthesis. It is not enough for this to be familiar with facts alone; you need to bring another creative thought with you.
The more someone will shape both the mind and the heart, the closer he will communicate with the great creators of mankind, the more creative thoughts he will draw from his rich soul. And maybe someday a happy moment will come and a spark of inspiration will sparkle in it, with which a great work will begin. For “all the great deeds in the world - said Adam Mickiewicz once - are peoples, legislation, age-old institutions; all beliefs before the coming of Christ; all sciences, inventions, discoveries; all works of poetry and art - all originate in the inspiration of the prophets, sages, poets ”.
Translated from Polish by B.T.Dombrowski
* The article by Y. Lukasevich was first published in 1912 in the “Commemorative Book for the 250th Anniversary of the Founding of Lviv University”. (O tworczosci w nauce. Ksiega pamiatkowa ku uczczeniu 250 rocznicy zalozenia Uniwersytetu Lwowskiego. Lwow 1912 s.1-15). The second time it was published in the series "Philosophical Library", Lvov, 1934, and also reprinted with minor abbreviations in the "Manual for Self-Teaching" (Poradnik dla samoukow, t.1, Warszawa, 1915) with the title "On Science". In 1961, the article “On creativity in science” was included in the collection of selected works by J. Lukasiewicz “On the problems of logic and philosophy” (Z zagadnien logiki i filozofii, PWN, Warszawa 1961.); The above-mentioned version of the article titled "On Science" was re-published in 1994 in the popular mathematical journal "Gradient" (Gradient, 3-4 (20), 1994).
After writing the introduction to this article, I found the following thoughts in the work of the famous methodologist of historical sciences Xenopola (La theorie de l'histoire, Paris, 1908, p.30): “La science n'est pas une creation de notre esprit, dans le genre de l'art ... Elle n'est que la reproduction intellectuelle de l'univers ”.
Clouds, a comedy of Aristophanes. (Translation by A. Piotrovsky is given according to the publication: Aristophanes. Comedy: in 2 volumes. Vol. 1.-M., 1983.-P.161)
Psalm 32, Exultate iusti in Domino (Rejoice the righteous in the Lord) [Translated from the synodal edition, Moscow, 1993] See also Psalm 139.
Met. A2, 982 a8 et seq., 21 et seq.: “First, we assume that the wise, as far as possible, knows everything, although he does not have knowledge of each subject separately. ... the knowledge of everything must be possessed by the one who has the greatest knowledge of the general, for in a certain sense he knows everything that falls under the general ”.
Met.E2, 1027 a20, 21, 26: “... and that there is no science about the incidental - this is obvious, for any science is about what is always, or about what is in the majority. ... meanwhile, the incidental goes against it. Thus, it is said that it is incidental and for what reason it happens, and also that there is no science about it. "
# Translated after publication by Alam Mitskevich. Selected works, Vol. 1, M., 1955, p. 203.
The given quatrain is the third stanza of the poem to M ***, beginning with the words: "Get out of my eyes." (Dziela Ad. Mickiewicza, wyd. Tow. Lit.im. Ad. Mickiewicza, Lwow 1896, t.I, str. 179). It follows from the formula that for s = 1 (first and second lines) m = 2, for s = 2 (third line) m = 0, for s = 4 (second line) m = 2. (The above formula is valid for the Polish text . Approx. Transl.)
O. Comte (A. Comte. Cours de philosophie, wyd.2. Paryz 1864, t.I, str.51) outlined the relation of science to activity with the following words: “Science, d’ou prevoynce, prevoyance, d’ou action”. However, Comte did not yet see the goal of science in foresight or action. (see figure 3 on page ...). Today pragmatism equates truth with utility, and A. Bergson, throwing into L'evolution creatrice (5th ed. Paris 1909, p. 151) the slogan: homo faber instead of homo sapiens (which, incidentally, Carlyle had already said before him: Man is a tool -using animal (Handthierendes Theit), Sartor Resarius, Book 1, Section 5) devotes all the power of the human mind to the service of practical activity. A. Poincaré, in his book La valeur de la science (Paris 1911, p. 218), quotes the following opinion of Le Roya, a supporter of Bergson: “la science n'est qu'une regle d'action”.
Gauss: Theoria residuorum biquadraticorum, commentatio secunda, § 33. Examples: 5 = (1 + 2i) (1-2i), 13 = (2 + 3i) (2-3i), etc. Gauss's statement is equivalent to Fermat's statement that every prime number of the form 4n + 1 can be represented as the sum of two squares, for example, 5 = 12 + 22, 13 = 22 + 32, etc.
L. Tolstoy placed his remarks about the goals of science at the end of a book directed against contemporary art. (I know this work only in German translation: Gegen die moderne Kunst, deutsch von Wilhelm Thal, Berlin 1898, p. 171 et seq.) Tolstoy quotes Poincaré in his article Le choix des faits, contained in his book Science et methode ( Paris 1908, p. 7).
Met. a2,982 b11 et seq .: “.... both now and before surprise encourages people to philosophize, and at first they were surprised at what directly caused bewilderment, and then, gradually moving further in this way, they wondered about more significant , ... ";. 983 a16:" ... everyone starts with surprise .... because to everyone who has not yet seen the reason, it seems surprising if something cannot be measured by the smallest measure. " Comte (in the quoted passage on page 5) argues that knowledge of the laws of phenomena satisfies the strong need of the mind, which is expressed in surprise, etonnement.
The states of uncertainty, insofar as they are manifested in desires, were analyzed by Vl Vitvitsky (Analiza psychologiczna objawow woli, Lwow 1904, str.99 et seq.)
Prof. K. Tvardovsky was the first to use the expression "reasoning" as a generalizing term covering "deducibility" and "proof" (Zasadnicze pojecia dydaktyki i logiki, Lwow 1901, str. 19, ust.97). Continuing the views of prof. Twardowski, I present the theory of reasoning outlined in section 7 of this paper.
The above point of view on the essence of inductive inference is consistent with the so-called. inverse induction theory created by Jevons and Sigwart (See my work O indukcji jako inwersji dedukcji, “Przeglad Filozoficzny”, VI, 1903, str. 9).
“Dependency contains the concept of a necessary connection, which is impossible to observe sensually” [“W zaleznosci tkwi pojecie zwiazku koniecznego, ktorego zmyslami spostrzec nie mozna”] (D. , tI, str. 88, ust.100).
Wed E.Mach: Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung, 6 wyd., Lipsk 1908, str. 129 et seq.
Many examples demonstrating the elements of creativity in physics are given by Dr. Bronislaw Biegeleisen in his work On creativity in the exact sciences (“Przeglad Filozoficzny”, XIII, 1910, str. 263 and 387). Among other things, Dr. Begelieisen draws attention to the representation (uzmyslawianie) of physical theories using mechanical models (str. 389 et seq.). Between a model that explains a theory and an invention that is undoubtedly a work of creativity, the difference is only between the purpose and use of these objects. Models also exist in the field of logic, for example, Jevons' logical piano (see the picture in his book: The Principles of Science, Londyn 1883) or Marquanda's logical machines (see Studies in Logic by Members of the John Hopkins University, Boston 1883, str. 12 et seq.).
I owe the concept of the "principle of reasoning" to prof. K. Twardowski (see Zasadnicze pojecia dydaktyki i logiki, Lwow 1901, str. 30, ust.64).
B. Russell: The Principles of Mathematics, Cambridge 1903, str. 3.
* It seems that here Lukasiewicz is referring to the symbol of implication and the symbol “I”, which denotes the relation of belonging of an object to a set. (Approx. Transl.)
R. Dedekind: Was sind und Was sollen die Zahlen, Brunszwik 1888, str.VII: “die Zahlen sind freie Schopfungen des menschlichen Geistes”.
In the work On the principle of contradiction in Aristotle (O zasadzie sprzecznosci u Arystotelesa) (Krakow 1910, str. 133 et seq.), I tried to show that we cannot even be sure whether the principle of contradiction holds true for real objects.
* These judgments were later called protocol proposals by the positivists of the Vienna Circle. - (Approx. Transl.).
The Copernican thought of Kant, who tried to prove that, perhaps, objects correlate with knowledge than knowledge with objects, contains views that favor the thesis of creativity in science. I tried to develop this thesis not on the basis of any special theory of knowledge, but only on the basis of everyday realism, using the results of logical research. For the same reason, I do not accept either James' pragmatism or Schiller's humanism.
* From the use in the text of the plural for the term “follow”, we can conclude that ukasiewicz does not yet distinguish between the relation of deducibility (wnioskowania) and succession (wynikania). Recall that this text was written in 1912 (transl.)
Ign. Matuszewski, in his work The Aims of Art, contained in the book Creativity and Creators (Warsaw 1904), develops similar views on creativity in science. His research, undertaken with a different purpose and from a different point of view, led to the same results that logical reasoning leads.
This statement, gleaned from the travels of the Lonely One, is quoted by Wl.Bieganski in his work On Mickiewicz's Philosophy (“Przeglad Filozoficzny”, X, 1907, str. 205).
Since ancient times, the creative process has attracted the minds of philosophers and thinkers who have tried to penetrate the secrets of human consciousness. They intuitively understood that it was in creativity that the main purpose of the mind was laid and manifested. After all, if we consider it as broadly as possible, it turns out that in almost any kind of activity you can find elements of the creative process. Let's try to figure it out in art, using the example of a famous person.
Leonardo da Vinci
Let's start with, perhaps, the most famous personality in the entire history of human culture. The Father of the Renaissance, a genius in so many fields of science and art, that he can rightfully be called an example, which should be equal to anyone striving to contribute to the creativity of mankind. Considering creativity in art using the example of a famous person - Leonardo da Vinci, is perhaps very simple, since everything is quite obvious here.
Probably, invention is one of the most important forms of creativity and the process of creation in general. That is why it is so easy to see this person in such a context. Since Leonardo is known as the developer of the set, only for this he can be given the palm in such a difficult matter as creativity.
Creativity and art
But since we are talking about art, then, obviously, its most important manifestations should be considered. Such as painting, sculpture, architecture. Well, in these areas the Italian genius has shown himself enough. on the example of a famous person it is better to consider it in the context of painting. As you know, Leonardo was in constant search, in an experiment, even here, where a lot depends on technology and skill. Its powerful potential was constantly turned to solving new problems. He experimented tirelessly. Whether it's playing with chiaroscuro, the use of fancy haze on canvases, paint compositions, unusual color schemes. Da Vinci was not only an artist and sculptor, he constantly set new horizons for both thinking and art as one of the manifestations of the mind.
Lomonosov
Another famous, perhaps more in the Slavic world, is Mikhailo Lomonosov. it should also be considered in detail in the chosen context. Creativity in art based on the example of the famous personality of Lomonosov is no less interesting from the point of view of understanding how the genius of reason works. Born much later, which means that with much fewer areas where one can become a pioneer, he chooses for himself the very difficult path of a naturalist.
Indeed, it is much more difficult to get creative in fields like physics or chemistry. However, it was precisely this approach that allowed Lomonosov to achieve heights in the knowledge of the Universe, which Da Vinci did not even aim at. Not to mention the fact that our compatriot has achieved significant success in art. Take, for example, his poetic talent or his quest in painting, which also deserve careful research.
Conclusion
Considering creativity in art on the example of a famous person, we come to the conclusion that any creation implies a search for unexplored horizons, followed by a new understanding, the achievement of the unknown. Many great people became such precisely because of this ability - to find the incomprehensible in the seemingly completely ordinary, located at arm's length.
Thus, having examined creativity in art using the example of a famous person, we can say that a person who seeks to achieve recognition should consider his own activity from the point of view of invention, providing a new understanding of the obvious.
Science and art are as closely linked as the heart and lungs ...
L. Tolstoy
... I thought that the instinct of an artist is sometimes worth the brains of a scientist, that both have the same goals, the same nature, and that, perhaps, over time, with the perfection of methods, they are destined to merge together into a gigantic, monstrous force, which is now difficult to imagine myself ...
“Poetry is just nonsense,” Newton once answered when asked what he thought about poetry. Another great creator of differential and integral calculus, philosopher, physicist, inventor, lawyer, historian, linguist, diplomat and secret adviser to Peter I, Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), more restrainedly defined the value of poetry in relation to science as approximately 1: 7. Recall that Turgenev's Bazarov was more categorical in quantitative estimates: "A decent chemist," he declared, "twenty times more useful than any poet."
However, poets also often did not hesitate to express themselves about scientists. Thus, the English poet and artist William Blake (1757-1827) wrote:
Live, Voltaire! Go ahead, Russo! * Rush, paper thunderstorm! The sand will return in the wind, That you throw in our eyes. ........................
* (Here Voltaire (1694-1778) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) for Bleick, first of all, are not writers, but philosophers and scientists-encyclopedists, educators.)
Democritus invented the atom, Newton shattered the light ... The sandy whirlwind of Science sleeps, When we listen to the Testament.
The Englishman Blake was echoed by the Russian poet V.A.Zhukovsky (1783-1852), although the tone of his poems is calm and even sad:
Isn't imagination our best friend? And isn’t it a magic lantern Shows us a fatal ghost on the board of bliss? Oh my friend! The mind of all joys is an executioner! Only bitter juice is given by this rude doctor!
Of course, one should not think that at all times and all the ministers of science and art shared such harsh opinions. There were other opinions, as evidenced, for example, by the statements of our two great compatriots, which are epigraphs to our conversation. There were other times when science and art happily walked hand in hand to the heights of human culture.
And we again return to Ancient Greece ... Of all the peoples of antiquity, the Greeks had the most powerful influence on the development of European civilization. Probably, the source of the Greek genius lies in the fact that, entering into contacts with the great and more ancient Eastern civilizations, the Greeks were able not to reject, but to learn their lessons in order to extract from them the original culture, which became the basis and unsurpassed model for the further development of mankind. It is noteworthy that it was the Eastern Greeks who laid the foundation for philosophy (Thales from Miletus), mathematics (Pythagoras from the island of Samos) and lyric poetry (Sappho from the island of Lesbos). Greek civilization reaches its apogee in the 5th century BC. NS. At this time, the strategist Pericles erects the grandiose monuments of the Acropolis, the sculptors Phidias and Polycletus carve their immortal masterpieces, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides write tragedies, Herodotus and Thucydides compose a priceless chronicle of ancient history, philosophers and scientists Zeno, Democritus, Human Socrates glorify the triumph. Then Greece presents the world with RLIKE philosophers Plato and Aristotle, whose immortal ideas feed the philosophers of his world for the third millennium, the founder of geometry, the author of the famous "Principles" of Euclid, the greatest mathematician of the ancient world, Archimedes.
It is characteristic that science, art and craft at that happy time for human culture were not yet fenced off from each other by high walls. The scientist wrote philosophical treatises passionately and figuratively, like a poet, a poet was certainly a philosopher, and a craftsman was a true artist. Mathematics and astronomy were among the seven liberal arts, along with music and poetry. Aristotle believed that science and art should unite in universal wisdom, but the question of which side the possession of this wisdom lies on - the side of poets or scientists - is already ripe.
There was another era of a single rise of science and art - the Renaissance. Humanity again, after a thousand years, discovered for itself the forgotten treasures of ancient culture, asserted the ideals of humanism, revived a great love for the beauty of the world and an unyielding will to know this world. "This was the greatest progressive revolution of all humanity experienced up to that time, an era that needed titans and which gave birth to titans in the power of thought, passion and character, in versatility and learning" (F. Engels, vol. 20, p. 346) ...
The embodiment of the many-sided interests of the Renaissance man, a symbol of the fusion of science and art, is the brilliant figure of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, art theorist, mathematician, mechanic, hydraulic engineer, engineer, inventor, anatomist, biologist. Leonardo da Vinci is one of the mysteries in the history of mankind. His versatile genius of an unsurpassed artist, great scientist and tireless researcher in all ages plunged the human mind into confusion. For Leonardo da Vinci himself, science and art were fused together. Giving the palm to painting in the "dispute of the arts", Leonardo da Vinci considered it a universal language, a science that, like mathematics in formulas, displays in proportions and perspective all the diversity and the rational principle of nature. The about 7000 sheets of scientific notes and explanatory drawings left by Leonardo da Vinci are an unattainable example of the synthesis of science and art. For a long time these sheets wandered from hand to hand, remaining unpublished, and for the right to possess at least a few of them, fierce disputes have been fought over the centuries. This is why Leonardo's manuscripts are scattered throughout libraries and museums around the world. Together with Leonardo da Vinci and other titans of the Renaissance, perhaps not so universal, but no less brilliant, they erected immortal monuments of art and science: Michelangelo, Raphael, Durer, Shakespeare, Bacon, Montaigne, Copernicus, Galileo ...
Leonardo da Vinci. Drawing of a mechanism for rolling iron strips. Around 1490-1495. Pen drawing from Codex Atlantic
And yet, despite the creative union of science and art and the striving for "universal wisdom", often combined in the person of one genius, the art of antiquity and the Renaissance went ahead of science. In the first era, science was just emerging, and in the second, I was "reborn," throwing off the fetters of a long religious captivity. Science is much longer and more painful than art, it goes from birth to maturity. It took another century - the 17th century, which brought science the brilliant discoveries of Newton, Leibniz, Descartes, so that science could declare itself in full voice.
The next, XVIII century, was the century of the rapid development and triumph of science, the "age of reason", the era of boundless faith in the human mind - the era of the Enlightenment. In many ways, the enlighteners of the 18th "century - Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, D" Alambert, Schiller, Lessing, Kant, Locke, Swift, Tatishchev, Lomonosov, Novikov - are similar to the titans of the Renaissance: the universality of talent, the mighty force of life. But what distinguished the enlighteners was their belief in the triumph of reason, the cult of reason as a cure for all troubles, and disappointment in the power of moral ideals. The paths of science and art diverge, and in the 19th century a wall of misunderstanding and alienation grew between them:
In the light of enlightenment Poetry's childish dreams have disappeared, And generations are not worried about it, They are devoted to industrial concerns.
(E. Baratynsky)
Of course, there were people who tried to break through this wall of mutual rejection, but mainly among the artists reigned fear of "rational science" and the fear that the dominance of scientific consciousness would be disastrous for art. Some thinkers have tried to provide a philosophical basis for these fears. Hegel himself noted that the growth of theoretical knowledge is accompanied by the loss of a living perception of the world and, therefore, should ultimately lead to the death of art.
Leaving, the Age of Enlightenment gives the world its last "universal genius" - Johann Wolfgang ete (1749-1832), poet, philosopher, physicist, biologist, mineralogist, meteorologist. The genius of Goethe, like the created image of Faust, personifies the limitless possibilities of man, the eternal striving of mankind for truth, goodness and beauty, an indomitable thirst for knowledge of creativity. Goethe was convinced that science and art are equal sides in the process of cognition and creativity: both the scientist and the artist observe and study the real world in the name of the main goal - the comprehension of truth, goodness and beauty. Goethe brilliantly foresaw a problem that has become more urgent than ever today: in order for science to remain in the position of humanism, so that it brings people benefit and joy, and not harm and sorrow, it must strengthen its ties with art, the highest goal of which is to bring good to reason and beauty. Today, when mountains of deadly nuclear weapons have accumulated, when mankind is under the threat of star wars, when the fantastically powerful forces brought to life by science, two tragedies were brutally reminded: the death of the Challenger spacecraft crew and the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant - more acute than ever there is the problem of humanizing science. And in the struggle for peace, for the triumph of the ideals of humanism, along with political efforts, art plays a huge role, because art is understandable to everyone, it does not need translators.
Durer. Creates an ellipse as a conical section. Drawing from "Guide to Measurement". 1525. It is easy to see that Dürer's ellipse is ovoid. This mistake of the great artist is, apparently, due to the intuitive consideration that the ellipse should expand as the cone expands.
I exclaim: nature, nature! What could be more nature than Shakespeare's people!
J.W. Goethe
Fast forward to the second half of the 20th century, when the debate about science and art reached its peak. The main reason for the outbreak of such disputes is that under the conditions of the modern scientific and technological revolution, science has become a direct productive force that has embraced a significant part of society. In our country alone, the army of scientific workers exceeds one million people, which is almost twice the army of Napoleon in the Patriotic War of 1812. The mastery of the energy of the atom and the exploration of a new element by man - outer space - provided modern science with unprecedented prestige. There was a conviction that the main power of the human mind should be concentrated precisely in science, and above all in mathematics and physics - the pillars of the entire scientific and technological revolution.
Art was assigned the role of a stepdaughter, and the fact that this stepdaughter, contrary to forecasts a century ago, always got in the way, only provoked the technocrats.
So, the atmosphere was heated and all that remained was to strike a spark for an explosion to break out. This was done by Charles Snow, an English writer and physicist by training, giving a lecture "Two cultures and a scientific revolution" in Cambridge (USA) in May 1959. Snow's lecture excited the scientific and artistic community of the West: some became his staunch supporters, others - ardent opponents, and still others tried to find a middle ground. The main motive of the lecture is the mutual separation of science and art, which leads to the formation of two independent cultures - "scientific" and "artistic". Between these poles of the intellectual life of society, according to Snow, an abyss has opened up of mutual misunderstanding, and sometimes even hostility and hostility. Traditional culture, incapable of accepting the latest achievements of science, supposedly inevitably slides down the path of antiscientificism. On the other hand, a scientific and technical environment that ignores artistic values is threatened by emotional hunger and inhumanity. Snow believed that the reason for the disunity of the two cultures lies in the excessive specialization of education in the West, pointing to the Soviet Union, where the education system is more universal, which means that there is no problem of the relationship between science and art.
Here Snow was mistaken. Almost simultaneously, in September 1959, the famous dispute between "physicists" and "lyricists", as the representatives of science and art was conventionally named, broke out on the pages of our newspapers.
The discussion began with an article by the writer I. Ehrenburg. This was a response to a letter from a certain student, who told about her conflict with a certain engineer who, apart from physics, does not recognize anything else in life (and above all art). Seeing an urgent problem in a private letter, Ehrenburg posted an extensive answer in Komsomolskaya Pravda. The writer emphasized "that in the conditions of unprecedented progress in science, it is very clear that art should not lag behind science, that a place in society should be" the place of a prophet who burns the hearts of people with a verb, as Pushkin said, and not a place of a working scribe or an indifferent decorator. " understand, - wrote Ehrenburg, - that science helps to understand the world; much less known is the knowledge that art carries. Neither sociologists nor psychologists can give the artist's explanation of the human mental world. Science helps to learn the known laws, but art looks into the depths of the soul, where no X-rays can penetrate ... "
Ehrenburg's article caused a chain reaction of opinions. One article spawned several others, and together they crashed like an avalanche. Ehrenburg had allies, but there were also opponents. Among the latter, the engineer became famous. Poletaev, who wrote: "We live by the creativity of reason, not feelings, poetry of ideas, theory of experiments, construction. This is our era. It requires the whole person without a trace, and we have no time to exclaim: ah, Bach! Ah, Blok! Of course, they have become obsolete and not in size with our life. Whether we like it or not, they have become leisure, entertainment, and not life ... Whether we like it or not, but poets less and less possess our souls and teach us less and less. fairy tales present today science and technology, a bold and merciless mind. Not recognizing this means not seeing what is happening around. Art fades into the background - in rest, in leisure, and I regret it together with Ehrenburg. "
Indignant "lyricists" and sensible "physicists" persuaded Poletaev * in every way. There were also articles-shouts: "I am with you, engineer Poletaev!"
* (As it became known later, "engineer Poletaev" turned out to be a fictional character. It was invented by the poet M. Svetlov and deliberately put it on the most extreme positions to exacerbate the polemic. M. Svetlov's hoax turned out to be successful.)
Something physics held in high esteem, Something lyrics in the pen. It's not a dry calculation, It's a world law. It means that We did not reveal something that we should have! Means, weak wings - Our sweet iambas ...
(B. Slutsky)
Physicists at that time were really held in high esteem: both the splitting of the atom and the exploration of space were the work of the hands (more precisely, the heads!) Of physicists and mathematicians.
Disputes between "physicists" and "lyricists" raged on the pages of newspapers for several years. Both sides were clearly tired, but they never came to any decision. However, these disputes continue today. True, they were transferred from newspaper pages to the pages of scientific journals such as Voprosy literatury and Voprosy filosofii. The problem, the relationship between science and art has long been recognized as a philosophical problem, and it is solved not at the level of emotions and newspaper cries, but at a "round table" in an atmosphere of mutual respect and goodwill.
What brings together and what separates science and art? First of all, science and art are two facets of the same process - creativity. Science and art are roads, and often steep, untrodden paths to the heights of human culture. Thus, the goal of both science and art is the same - the triumph of human culture, although it is achieved in different ways. “Both in science and in literature, creativity is not just a joy surrendered at risk, it is a cruel necessity,” says Mitchel Wilson (1913-1973), an American physicist and writer. grew, eventually find their calling, as if under the influence of the same force that makes the sunflower turn towards the sun. "
The task of scientific creativity is to find objective laws of nature, which, of course, do not depend on the individual scientist. Therefore, the creator of science seeks not to self-expression, but to establish truths independent of him, the scientist turns to reason, and not to emotions. Moreover, the scientist understands that his works are of a transitory nature and after a while will be superseded by new theories. Einstein said well about this: "The best lot of physical theory is to serve as a basis for a more general theory, while remaining in it the limiting case."
Nobody, except people studying the history of science, reads the works of scientists in the originals. Yes, and it is very difficult today to understand, say, Newton's "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", although Newton's laws are known to everyone. The fact is that the language of science is changing very quickly and becomes incomprehensible for new generations. Thus, only objective laws discovered by scientists, but not the subjective means of expressing them, remain in science.
In art, the opposite is true. The task of artistic creation is to comprehend the world based on the subjective thoughts and experiences of the creator. A work of art is always individual, so it is more understandable than a scientific work. True masterpieces of art live forever - Homer, Beethoven and Pushkin will continue to sound as long as humanity exists, they will not become obsolete and are not supplanted by new works of art.
True, scientists have their own advantage. A scientist can test the truth of his theories in practice, he is calm and confident that his creations are building blocks in a huge building of science. It is a different matter for an artist who has no objective criteria for verifying the truth of his works, except for his inner intuitive conviction. Even when the artist is sure that he is right, he is gnawed by a worm of doubt about the chosen form and its embodiment. Therefore, even when a work is created, "the artist is forced to fight for his recognition, to constantly declare himself. It is no coincidence that Horace, Derzhavin, and Pushkin do not skimp on words in evaluating their work:
I created a monument, cast bronze is stronger ... I erected a wonderful, eternal monument to myself ... I erected a monument not made by hands ...
Einstein's self-esteem is a different matter, who was much less worried about the problem of his future creativity: "Perhaps one or two good thoughts came into my head." As Feinberg noted, it is difficult "to imagine that Bohr, even shyly, said:" All the same, with my works I erected a monument not made by hands. "
The deep commonality of science and art is also determined by the fact that both of these creative processes lead to the knowledge of truth. The desire for knowledge is genetically inherent in a person. There are two known methods of cognition: the first is based on identifying common features of a cognized object with features of other objects; the second - on the determination of the individual differences of the cognized object from other objects. The first way of knowing is peculiar to science, the second - to art.
Science and art are two wings that lift you up to God.
M. X. A. Behaullah
We have already noted in Chapter 1 the cognitive function of art. But it is important to emphasize that scientific and artistic knowledge of the world, as it were, complement each other, but cannot be reduced to one another or derived from one another. Apparently, this explains the fact that Hegel's gloomy forecast about the fate of art in the era of the triumph of reason did not come true. In the age of the scientific and technological revolution, art not only retains its high positions in human culture, but also acquires an even higher prestige in some way. After all, science with its unequivocal answers cannot fill the human soul to the end, leaving room for free fantasies of art. "The reason why art can enrich us," wrote Nie lier Bohr, "lies in its ability to remind us of harmonies that are inaccessible to systematic analysis ..."
“For me personally,” said Einstein, “the feeling of supreme happiness is given by works of art, in them I draw such spiritual bliss as in no other field.
The only thing that gives me pleasure, apart from my work, my violin and my yacht, is the approval of my comrades.
A. Einstein
Professor! - I exclaimed. - Your words will amaze me as a real revelation! Not that I, yes, ever doubted your receptivity to art: I too often saw how the sounds of good music affect you and with what enthusiasm you yourself play the violin. But even at these moments, when you, as if detached from the world, completely surrendered yourself to the artistic impression, I told myself: in Einstein's life this is just a wonderful arabesque, and I would never have thought that this decoration of life is a source of highest happiness for you.
At the moment I was thinking mainly of poetry.
About poetry in general? Or about a particular poet?
I meant poetry in general. But if you ask me who is of greatest interest to me now, then I will answer: Dostoevsky!
These words of Einstein, spoken by him in a conversation with the German publicist of the early 20th century A. Moshkovsky, have been stirring the minds of both scientists and artists for more than half a century. Hundreds of articles comment on a few words of the great physicist, put forward various hypotheses and interpretations, draw parallels between Dostoevsky's dream of social and moral harmony and the search for universal harmony of the universe, to which Einstein devoted his life, but all agree on one thing: modern science cannot develop without the ability of scientists to figurative thinking. Creative thinking is brought up by art. The topic "Einstein and Dostoevsky" became the personification of the problem of interaction between science and art, and those who are interested in it can read an excellent article by Professor BG Kuznetsov under the same title (Science and Life, 1965, no. 6).
Without belief that it is possible to embrace reality with our theoretical constructions, without belief in the inner harmony of our world, there could be no science. This belief is and will always remain the main motive of all scientific creativity.
A. Einstein
Beauty and truth are one and the same, for beauty must be true in itself. But it is equally true that the true is different from the beautiful.
G.W.F. Hegel
There is one more reason explaining the heightened interest of scientists of the 20th century in art. The fact is that modern science has crossed the line of its own involvement. Before Einstein, Newtonian mechanics seemed to be omnipotent and unshakable. Joseph Lagrange (1736-1813) - "the majestic pyramid of mathematical sciences", as Napoleon said about him, envied Newton: "Newton was the happiest of mortals, there is only one Universe and Newton discovered its laws." But then Einstein came and built a new mechanics, in which Newton's mechanics turned out to be an extreme case.
Mathematics remained the last bastion of "infallible and eternal" truths in science. “Among all sciences,” Einstein wrote, “mathematics enjoys special respect; the reason for this is the only circumstance that its positions are absolutely correct and indisputable, while the positions of other sciences are to a certain extent controversial, and there is always a danger of their refutation by new discoveries ". However, the discoveries of the 20th century forced mathematicians to realize that both mathematics itself and mathematical laws in other sciences are not absolute truths. In 1931, mathematics was struck by a shock of terrifying force: the 25-year-old Austrian logician Kurt Gödel proved the famous theorem, according to which, within the framework of any system of axioms, there are unsolvable statements, which cannot be proved or refuted. Gödel's theorem caused confusion. The question of the foundations of mathematics led to such difficulties that its largest representative Hermann Weil (1885-1955) grimly stated: the answer to it ".
Of course, the catastrophe did not happen and science did not stop. On the contrary, scientists were once again convinced that science is in constant motion, that the ultimate goal of knowledge - "absolute truth" - is unattainable. And how the scientist would like his beloved brainchild to live forever!
So scholars turn to art as a treasure trove of eternal and timeless values. In art it is not the same as in science: a true work of art is a complete and inviolable product of the artist's work. The scientific law exists outside the theory and outside the scientist, while the law of a work of art is born together with the work itself. At first, the artist freely dictates his will to the work, but as the work is completed, the "brainchild" gains power over the creator. The work begins to torment the creator, and he painfully searches for that single final touch, which only a great master can find. With this stroke, the artist's power over his creation is cut off, he is already powerless to change anything in it, and it sets off on an independent path through time.
This unrealizable ideal of eternal perfection, attainable for scientific knowledge, is the magnet that constantly attracts a scientist to art.
But science also attracts art. This is expressed only in the emergence of new "technical" types of arts, such as cinema and television, not only in the fact that the scientist is increasingly becoming the object of the artist's attention, but also in the change in the artist's worldview. The remarkable Russian poet scientist Valery Bryusov (1873-1924) can be called the ancestor of "scientific poetry". In the preface to his collection of poems "Dali" Bryusov wrote: on the other hand, motives about love and nature, on the other - civic themes. Everything that interests and worries a modern person has the right to be reflected in poetry. " Bryusov's poem "The World of N Dimensions" we would like to cite here in full:
Height, breadth, depth. Only three coordinates. Where is the way past them? The deadbolt is closed. With Pythagoras listen to the spheres of the sonata, Atoms count like Democritus. Path by numbers? - He will lead us to Rome (All paths of the mind lead there!). The same in the new - Lobachevsky, Riemann, The same narrow bridle in the teeth! But they live, live in N dimensions Whirlwinds of will, cyclones of thoughts, those Who are ridiculous with our children's eyesight, With our step along the same line! Our suns, stars, everything in space, All boundlessness, where the light was wingless, - Only festoon in that festive decoration, Than their world hid its proud appearance. Our time is a blueprint for them on the plan. Looking as we glide in the darkness, the Gods mark the vanity of earthly desires condescendingly in their minds.
It seems that in the scientific poetry of Bryusov, Goethe's prophecy is coming true: "They forgot that science developed from poetry: they did not take into account the consideration that in the course of time, both can perfectly meet again for mutual benefit at a higher level."
So, the relationship between science and art is a complex and difficult process. In science, where intelligence is required, imagination is also needed, otherwise science becomes dry and degenerates into scholasticism. In art, where imagination is required, intelligence is also needed, for without systematic knowledge of professional skill, real art is impossible. Science and art go from undivided unity (antiquity and the Renaissance) through the opposition of opposites (the era of the Enlightenment) to a higher synthesis, the contours of which are only visible today.
Today the words of the writer Gorky are coming true: "Science, becoming an ever more wonderful and powerful force, itself, in all its volume, is becoming an ever more majestic and victorious poetry of cognition."
And I want to believe that the words of the scientist M. Volkenstein will come true: "The unity of science and art is the most important guarantee of the subsequent development of culture. It is necessary to seek and cultivate that which unites science and art, and does not separate them. A new era should follow the scientific and technological revolution. Renaissance ".
