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\Title{
Art and Science
} 
\author{\includegraphics[height=0.67in,angle=0]{yin_yang.eps}\\[18pt]
 by {\large\sl Jess H.~Brewer }}
\date{25 Oct 2021}
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There seems to be an ancient struggle in human 
conceptual evolution between what might be called the 
{\it yin\/} and {\it yang\/} of epistemology 
(the study of learning and knowing): 
on the {\it yin\/} (receptive, peaceful) 
side is what I would call {\sl knowledge of the Particular}, 
or the primitive, intimate knowledge of an instant's 
experience of reality, without words or explanations or 
internal dialogue.  There are many names (ironically) for 
this form of knowing, some popular today, such as ``Being 
Here Now,'' or ``Surrender to the {\it Tao\/},'' 
and others familiar to neuroscientists and philosophers, 
such as ``qualia.''   
%% There is no denying 
%% that a wise person seeks this form of knowledge.  
The other, {\it yang\/} (creative, aggressive) side of 
knowing I call {\sl knowledge of the Abstract}, 
which is intrinsically verbal --- the passion for 
{\sl naming\/} is one that sets humans apart 
(for better or worse) 
from other reasonably intelligent animals.  
And it is the answer to ``What's in a name?'' --- namely, 
everything we know {\sl that can be communicated\/} 
about the thing named.  This side has numerous hazards 
for us, but it is essential for the existence of 
communication or the improvement of ``comprehension.''  

Here is an example of the distinction between these 
two forms of knowing: suppose you are walking in the woods 
and come upon a tiny flower growing in the shade of a 
large tree; suppose you have never seen a flower like 
this one before.  On the one hand, your {\sl experience\/} 
of {\sl this particular flower\/} can be deepened and 
explored: smell the flower, study it from all sides, 
touch it, lie down in the pine needles and look up through 
the branches to get the flower's viewpoint on things, {\it etc}.  
In all this you are best served by a {\sl lack of words\/} 
and a receptive spirit.  On the other hand, you can tell 
by the structure of the stamen, {\it etc}., that this is an 
{\sl orchid\/} and probably (since it is on a red stem with no leaves) 
a specied of ``coralroot'' --- perhaps a new variety of 
{\it Corallorhiza maculata}.   And so on.  
There is real satisfaction in finding a verbal ``box'' to 
put this experience in for classification, categorization, 
filing and retrieval.  If we were dealing with a brightly 
coloured {\sl snake}, rather than a flower, the practical 
value of the {\it yang\/} form of knowing would perhaps 
be more obvious.  

Physics, like most philosophy, 
is devoted to knowledge of the Abstract.  
This is not to say that physicists are disinterested in 
knowledge of the Particular, either in their personal lives 
or in the laboratory; but I believe they agree almost unanimously 
upon the {\it yang\/} principle as the {\ae}sthetic basis for 
their work.  All sciences are not necessarily so devoted 
to Abstraction; a more {\sl empirical\/} science 
will attach more significance to Particular information, 
and this is neither good nor bad --- it is merely in 
{\ae}sthetic discord with the ``spirit'' of Physics.  

Such conflict can grow more acute at the ill-defined 
interface between ``science'' ({\ae}sthetically yang-based pursuits) 
and ``art'' ({\ae}sthetically yin-based pursuits), 
and this sometimes leads to unpleasant misunderstandings 
in which an insecure scientist will label all artists 
as ignorant buffoons or an insecure artist will lash out 
at all scientists as callous androids.  (Brilliant 
members of both species rarely need to elevate their 
own importance by downgrading others.)  
From the silly coffee-room dispute between ``pure'' 
and ``applied'' physicists over what constitutes 
valid or ``legitimate'' science to the total alienation 
of a culture from the technology on which it depends 
for survival, all such conflicts are pitiful stupidity.  
To be human involves an integration of both ways of 
knowing, and neither a poet nor a physicist can 
perform competently without this integration.  

This interdependence is nowhere as obvious as in 
the {\sl tools\/} used by physicists and poets.  
How, for instance, does either devise a means for 
expressing a truly new idea?  (For surely the goal of 
poetry is to say what has never before been said 
in quite the same way --- {\it i.e.} to create a new 
idea/feeling for the reader/listener.)  
One seemingly logical answer is that there {\sl is\/} no way; 
that language includes a finite number of ideas and images 
which can be expressed by a finite number of words or 
combinations of words, and that this large but finite 
space of old ideas can never be escaped through language.  
This notion is the source of the pessimistic aphorism 
``There's nothing new under the sun.''  It is patently absurd, 
inasmuch as all languages were once nonexistent and 
were built up gradually --- are still in the process 
of being created today, mostly by poets and their 
close relatives.  
This process is called {\sl Emergence\/} by 
Michael Polanyi, my favorite modern philosopher, 
who used to be a physical chemist.  As he carefully 
points out, the same is true of Physics, 
the poetry of nature: new ideas are always Emerging 
as older ideas become familiar and ``tacit.''  

To return to the original question, how does this happen?  
What is the essential mechanism for Emergence in 
both science and art?  The answer, I believe, is 
that {\sl metaphor\/} 
and its less ambitious ally, {\sl simile\/}  
are the vehicles for all Emergence of ideas and feelings, 
whether we are explicitly aware of it or not.  
Half the descriptive idioms in our language involve 
explicitly metaphorical images (``leaf'' through a book?) 
which vividly convey the desired idea and at the same 
time add to the connotative richness of the individual words; 
these images were originally created by poets 
(for my purposes a ``poet'' is defined as anyone who 
creates new language through such images).  
Similarly, in Physics we speak of ``isospin'' 
as a particle property, even though it certainly has 
nothing to do with rotation in normal space, because 
this esoteric quantity seems to have transformation 
properties analogous to those of angular momentum.  
The metaphor is a little more explicit and a little 
less tangible to everyday experience than ``leafing,'' 
but the same process is at work.  

Thus today's Physics rests, like today's language, 
on a monumental pyramid of metaphors and similes, 
leading back to our most primitive notions of space and 
time and force, which are ultimately indefinable.  
 
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\begin{table}[htb]
\caption[]{ ~ The Great False Dichotomy } 
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|ccc|}
\hline &&\\
{\large\bf KNOWLEDGE OF } & & {\large\bf KNOWLEDGE OF } \\
	& {\Large\it vs.} & \\
{\large\bf THE PARTICULAR } & & {\large\bf THE ABSTRACT } \\
&&\\ \hline &&\\ 
{\large\it YIN} & $\leftarrow$ {\bf THEME} $\rightarrow$ & {\large\it YANG}\\ 
the Receptive && the Creative \\
&&\\ 
Perceptual & {\bf QUALITIES} & Analytical \\ 
Private & {\bf and} & Extrovert \\ 
Intimate & {\bf ACTIVITIES} & Impersonal \\ 
Wordless & & Communicative \\ 
Accepting & & Cataloguing \\ 
Wondering & & Naming \\ 
Intuitive & & Logical \\ 
&&\\ 
Calm & & Impatient \\ 
Peaceful & {\bf EFFECTS} & Agressive \\ 
Integrated & & Alienated \\
Mystical & & Egotistical \\ 
&&\\ 
Vast but & & Circumscribed \\ 
Unreliable & {\bf POWERS} & but Reliable \\ 
\& Inconsistent & & \& Predictable \\ 
&&\\ 
Aristotle & {\bf Classical} & Plato, Galileo \\ 
(details = essence) & {\bf Protagonists} & (ideal = essence) \\ 
&&\\ 
 & {\bf MODERN} & \\ 
{\Large ART \&} & {\bf POLITICAL} & {\Large SCIENCE \&} \\ 
{\Large MAGIC} & {\bf DIVISION} & {\Large TECHNOLOGY} \\ 
&&\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{table}

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Ever since ``science'' was invented, there has always been 
some animosity between what C.P.~Snow called 
``{\it The Two Cultures\/}''.  
Scientists can be obnoxiously dismissive of ``woo-woo stuff'' 
but poets in particular get downright nasty sometimes\dots 
and they usually have the advantage in descriptive language.  

~

\begin{center}
Fragment of a poem by American poet John Ciardi 
in {\it Saturday Review}, April 30, 1966: 

~

{\sl 
To the laboratory then I went. \\
What little right men they were exactly! \\
Magicians of the microsecond precisely wired \\
to what they cared to ask no questions of \\
but such as their computers clicked and hummed.  \\
It was a white-smocked, glass, and lightened Hell. \\
And there Saint Particle the Septic sat \\
lost in his horn-rimmed thoughts. \\
A gentlest pose. \\
But in the frame of one lens as I passed \\
I saw an ogre's eye leap from his face.
}

~

%% {\bf Well, screw you too, John.  }
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I will not respond in kind.  
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