What is scientific worldview?

[dystopian]

The golden ratio is a myth.

Lolwut? No, it isn't. Both its existence (easily demonstrated) and its extensive use in art has been exhaustively documented. I use it myself on a regular basis in graphics design. You may be confused with the older notion that the Golden Ratio was *the* secret to beauty; which is a view that is slightly less common today. However, it is an undeniable fact that the ratio is found throughout much of art.

 

[Juma]

However, it is an undeniable fact that the ratio is found throughout much of art.

To what approximation? "2/3 to 1/3" isnt the same as the golden ratio.

And besides: that is a symmetry aspekt. Art is so much more than symmetry.

 

[dystopian]

However, it is an undeniable fact that the ratio is found throughout much of art.

To what approximation? "2/3 to 1/3" isnt the same as the golden ratio.

1.618, obviously.

And besides: that is a symmetry aspekt. Art is so much more than symmetry.

The golden ratio in art isn't just found in the aspect ratio of the canvas compared to the subject. Nor did I imply that art is about symmetry. However; even assymetrical art still follows certain patterns and rules that can be described mathematically.

You seem to be trying to argue, like many do, that there is a certain "something" to art that can't be rationally/scientifically understood... but that is simplistic nonsense that isn't really in evidence. People don't *want* to believe that things like art (or love, and other such touchy-feely subjects) can be reduced to rational concepts and rules; but that does not negate the fact that they can be. That type of thinking is a fallacy based on how x "feels special" and therefore can't possibly be understood or reduced in such a fashion.

Art IS math, period. That fact does not mean art can't be enjoyed in non-rational ways; and it doesn't mean that feeling doesn't come into play in its creation. Although as an artistically inclined person, I should point out that the 'feelings' that artists use to create are really just a kind of pattern recognition in action. When I create, I tinker and mess around until it "feels" right. I don't consciously use math to create; but that 'feeling' I get when it's finally right, is just me recognizing the most aesthetically pleasing mathematically-reducable pattern.

You may not think that's 'romantic' enough; but I don't think art is robbed of its romanticism any by it.

 

[Juma]

To what approximation? "2/3 to 1/3" isnt the same as the golden ratio.

1.618, obviously.

And besides: that is a symmetry aspekt. Art is so much more than symmetry.

The golden ratio in art isn't just found in the aspect ratio of the canvas compared to the subject. Nor did I imply that art is about symmetry. However; even assymetrical art still follows certain patterns and rules that can be described mathematically.

You seem to be trying to argue, like many do, that there is a certain "something" to art that can't be rationally/scientifically understood... but that is simplistic nonsense that isn't really in evidence. People don't *want* to believe that things like art (or love, and other such touchy-feely subjects) can be reduced to rational concepts and rules; but that does not negate the fact that they can be. That type of thinking is a fallacy based on how x "feels special" and therefore can't possibly be understood or reduced in such a fashion.

Art IS math, period. That fact does not mean art can't be enjoyed in non-rational ways; and it doesn't mean that feeling doesn't come into play in its creation. Although as an artistically inclined person, I should point out that the 'feelings' that artists use to create are really just a kind of pattern recognition in action. When I create, I tinker and mess around until it "feels" right. I don't consciously use math to create; but that 'feeling' I get when it's finally right, is just me recognizing the most aesthetically pleasing mathematically-reducable pattern.

You may not think that's 'romantic' enough; but I don't think art is robbed of its romanticism any by it.

I just say that all art is not mathematical.

And even if the result is possible to describe in mathematical terms doesnt mean that the art is "mathematical".
And important: Not all art is meant to be aesthetically pleasing.

 

[PyramidHead]

Gotta agree with Juma here, art is way more than math, even if math can be used to explain specific ways of creating and enjoying art. I mean, math can be used to explain nearly anything, so in a trivial sense art is math (as is surfing, competitive pie-eating, advertising, and so on). Just not in any poignant way I can think of, as a lifelong artist and musician--not that such a qualifier is relevant, but there you have it anyway.

To untermensche's point, artistic concerns are not always scientific concerns, but neither are they always distinct. And science has enabled great art by simply improving the technology by which it is created. But at the end of the day, the scientific approach to describing the life of Nikolai Tesla would strive for as much accuracy as possible, while his awesome portrayal by David Bowie in The Prestige was motivated by the writer's and director's interest in theatricality, drama, and narrative. Science has no interest in those things, and they are usually considered pollutants when they come up in scientific discourse. On the other hand, some of the best works of fiction are enhanced by period-perfect attention to detail of the kind that can only be obtained by applying the scientific method. I will hesitantly agree with untermensche that the scientific worldview itself is different from the impulses that give rise to art, but that's not really important since they harmonize so well in practice.

 

[untermensche]

The scientific worldview has its place.

But it isn't the worldview that gives us art or music or literature.

Good point.

The Nazis inspired art (and movies and music and...).

The communists inspired art (and movies and music and...).

Therefore, fascism and communism are more valid worldviews than science, at least in certain areas.

The Nazi's did good science too.

 

[dystopian]

And even if the result is possible to describe in mathematical terms doesnt mean that the art is "mathematical".

Of course it does. If you can reduce art to its barest components and concepts by using math... which we can... then it's mathematical in nature. The fact that it is not pure mathematics does not change this. And it doesn't matter if the artist or the viewer has any special feelings or emotions that allowed them to create/enjoy the art; especially not when we have every reason to think that those feelings only occur because we subconsciously recognize and are drawn to the underlying math. Indeed, in order for that to not be the case, you need to produce some other explanation for how we understand the world around us, an explanation that does not involve our brains utilizing subconscious math... which is effectively impossible without appealing to magic.

The problem is that the disagreement here is ultimately reducable to the question of whether we have free will. You need to have free will in order for your version of art to be true; but free will is either an illusionary artifact of the way our brain works, or essentially none of our modern scientific understanding in that regard is valid: if you make decisions because your brain is subconsciously running a complex series of algorithms/checklists in order to decide what to do, then free will is an illusion (and everything you do or think is math)... however, if this is not the case, then free will is entirely arbitrary; just a random stab in the dark... which we know can't be true because if it were our behavior wouldn't be as predictable as it is (and indeed, we'd be as likely to random walk off a cliff as we are not to); which leaves the free will advocates with the unfortunate necessity of inventing a type of free will that falls outside a logical and naturalistic reality.

If we have that kind of magical free will, then yes, you can claim there's something more to art than math.

If we do not have that magical kind of free will, then the creation of art, and our enjoyment therefore, is ultimately a mathematical process.

And important: Not all art is meant to be aesthetically pleasing.

Yes, and generally the only people who consider that kind of 'art' to be art are the artists themselves and the art critics who want to feel relevant.

 

[Juma]

Of course it does. If you can reduce art to its barest components and concepts by using math... which we can... then it's mathematical in nature. The fact that it is not pure mathematics does not change this. And it doesn't matter if the artist or the viewer has any special feelings or emotions that allowed them to create/enjoy the art; especially not when we have every reason to think that those feelings only occur because we subconsciously recognize and are drawn to the underlying math. Indeed, in order for that to not be the case, you need to produce some other explanation for how we understand the world around us, an explanation that does not involve our brains utilizing subconscious math... which is effectively impossible without appealing to magic.

The problem is that the disagreement here is ultimately reducable to the question of whether we have free will. You need to have free will in order for your version of art to be true; but free will is either an illusionary artifact of the way our brain works, or essentially none of our modern scientific understanding in that regard is valid: if you make decisions because your brain is subconsciously running a complex series of algorithms/checklists in order to decide what to do, then free will is an illusion (and everything you do or think is math)... however, if this is not the case, then free will is entirely arbitrary; just a random stab in the dark... which we know can't be true because if it were our behavior wouldn't be as predictable as it is (and indeed, we'd be as likely to random walk off a cliff as we are not to); which leaves the free will advocates with the unfortunate necessity of inventing a type of free will that falls outside a logical and naturalistic reality.

If we have that kind of magical free will, then yes, you can claim there's something more to art than math.

If we do not have that magical kind of free will, then the creation of art, and our enjoyment therefore, is ultimately a mathematical process.

And important: Not all art is meant to be aesthetically pleasing.

Yes, and generally the only people who consider that kind of 'art' to be art are the artists themselves and the art critics who want to feel relevant.

? What planet do you come from?
Banksy isnt art?

 

[dystopian]

? What planet do you come from?
Banksy isnt art?

I would question what planet *you're* from if you think Banksy's art isn't meant to be aesthetically pleasing. Just because there's a social commentary angle to much of his work which often is seen as taking precedence, doesn't mean his work doesn't follow certain basic rules of aestheticism. It's very different from someone who literally just upturns a trashcan onto a table with no care for composition whatsoever, takes a picture, and declares it art on the vague justification that it's trying for some sort of insight into the wastefulness of modern life.

 

[Juma]

? What planet do you come from?
Banksy isnt art?

I would question what planet *you're* from if you think Banksy's art isn't meant to be aesthetically pleasing. Just because there's a social commentary angle to much of his work which often is seen as taking precedence, doesn't mean his work doesn't follow certain basic rules of aestheticism. It's very different from someone who literally just upturns a trashcan onto a table with no care for composition whatsoever, takes a picture, and declares it art on the vague justification that it's trying for some sort of insight into the wastefulness of modern life.

Would you say that anything that can be modelled by mathematics is based on mathematics?

If a composition is pleasing to the eye then that depends on how humans function, our history and context.

That some of these aspects can be modelled by mathematics doesnt mean that it is based in mathematics.

 

[bigfield]

Nah. It may be rather true about music, but not really art as a whole.

You couldn't be more wrong. The things humans find aesthetically/artistically pleasing follow mathematical rules. It is no coincidence that the golden ratio is commonly found in paintings, for example. Other examples include tesselation, which has been used in art since antiquity. Math is also integral in determining proper perspective for any art that incorporates it; and of course sacred geometry is also common throughout the history of art. Fractals have been considered art as well.

All art is math. Even abstract and seemingly random splotches of paint on a canvas will; if we consider these canvases to be artistically pleasing; follow distributions and ratios that can be understood mathematically. Art that we consider to be bad, is art that does not follow one of the various mathematical rulesets governing aesthetics.

Art is just as subject to math as music is; but because the way we describe music already incorporates obvious math (in its notation), whereas art does not, we tend to think of one as mathematical but not the other.

 

[fromderinside]

Gee Whiz. Nobody contested on this:

Yes, a model is an emergent property of the scientific method; it turns out that if you seek the hypothesis that most accurately fits your observations, the hypotheses become more global as they become more accurate at predicting the next observation. Local hypotheses (eg what goes up must come down) give way to more general hypotheses (eg Newton's universal gravitation), which in turn give way to even more general hypotheses (Einstein's relativity); each improved hypothesis explains more observations than the last.

The scientific method is about explanation. Since there is no good reductionist argument that supports emergence I see no reason why one should claim abstraction of understanding as emergent. Both final theories bilby talks about do not include making something from nothing so it should remain the sum is equal to the sum of its parts. Don't imply intervening variables are being created or necessary. Humans because they think are not making new stuff they are just interpreting what they discover by putting it into a model.

For instance water is not emergent from the combining of oxygen and hydrogen. It is a fully explainable by the properties of oxygen and hydrogen as a product of that combining. Neither is a more complete theory based on more complete knowledge emergent.

 

[Perspicuo]

Any worldview based on science is going to be both reductionistic and dated. Because a worldview is a summary, and summaries leave out information. Plus, science is vast and mastering it all to achieve such a summary is pretty much impossible. And since science is a work in progress, it changes from day to day.

Everything we believe in is necessarily simplistic, outdated and wrong.



(But it's much better than hoodoo and legend.)

 

[bilby]

Gee Whiz. Nobody contested on this:

Yes, a model is an emergent property of the scientific method; it turns out that if you seek the hypothesis that most accurately fits your observations, the hypotheses become more global as they become more accurate at predicting the next observation. Local hypotheses (eg what goes up must come down) give way to more general hypotheses (eg Newton's universal gravitation), which in turn give way to even more general hypotheses (Einstein's relativity); each improved hypothesis explains more observations than the last.

The scientific method is about explanation. Since there is no good reductionist argument that supports emergence I see no reason why one should claim abstraction of understanding as emergent. Both final theories bilby talks about do not include making something from nothing so it should remain the sum is equal to the sum of its parts. Don't imply intervening variables are being created or necessary. Humans because they think are not making new stuff they are just interpreting what they discover by putting it into a model.

For instance water is not emergent from the combining of oxygen and hydrogen. It is a fully explainable by the properties of oxygen and hydrogen as a product of that combining. Neither is a more complete theory based on more complete knowledge emergent.

Nobody picked up on it, presumably because they read it in context, and so understood what I was talking about.

Your objection strips my comment from its context, and addresses it as though it stands alone with no other data or knowledge structure to support it; by doing so, it neatly illustrates exactly what I was saying.

Not only is your criticism misguided; it is illustrative of the very phenomenon you are attempting to dismiss.

 

[dystopian]

Would you say that anything that can be modelled by mathematics is based on mathematics?

This depends on what you mean by 'based'. If you say that 'based on' means: 'created as a direct result of', then no. Since; for example, just writing down a series of coordinates doesn't result in the image those coordinates describe becoming real. Nonetheless, that doesn't change the fact that when you create an image, you're not actually doing anything fundamentally different from establishing a series of coordinates.

If a composition is pleasing to the eye then that depends on how humans function, our history and context.

That some of these aspects can be modelled by mathematics doesnt mean that it is based in mathematics.

You're missing the point.

We are drawn to certain patterns of composition because our brains are essentially pattern recognition machines. The images we judge to be pleasing follow certain sets of compositional rules (there's different sets to work with); which in turn leads to create art according to those same rules (whether we're conscious of it or not). Just because you're not intentionally and consciously modelling your art according to those rules, doens't mean the final product doesn't fall in line (assuming your art is actually any good). All art follows rules (even that which is all about breaking rules); but you're just not aware of these rules.

To take a simplified example, if you take a white field and place a line of text right alongside the edge, it might not look good. If you move it further away from the edge even by just a few milimeters, it might suddenly look ok. Why do you think that is? The same applies to the letters in the text itself in relation to each other. If they're too close together or apart it will look bad. Why? It doesn't have anything to do with readability, since (depending on the font) it'd still be perfectly legible. It's because there are certain rules of aesthetics; rules that are ultimately (at their most fundamental) mathematical in nature.

Does it matter if the robot is programmed to think that the patterns it creates on a canvas are entirely its own artistic creation, based on its creative feelings and a certain 'something indefinable'? It's still just a robot just following a set of rules to create its art.

Are humans and their art fundamentally different? Maybe... but you'd need to engage in some pretty special pleading to make that argument.

 

[Juma]

It's because there are certain rules of aesthetics; rules that are ultimately (at their most fundamental) mathematical in nature.

What that supposed to mean other than that some aestetic rules can be modelled mathematically?

 

[fromderinside]

Gee whiz. Nobody contested on this:

Originally Posted by bilby
Yes, a model is an emergent property of the scientific method; it turns out that if you seek the hypothesis that most accurately fits your observations, the hypotheses become more global as they become more accurate at predicting the next observation. Local hypotheses (eg what goes up must come down) give way to more general hypotheses ..

The scientific method is about explanation. Since there is no good reductionist argument that supports emergence I see no reason why one should claim abstraction of understanding as emergent. Both final theories bilby talks about do not include making something from nothing so it should remain the sum is equal to the sum of its parts. Don't imply intervening variables are being created or necessary. Humans because they think are not making new stuff they are just interpreting what they discover by putting it into a model.

For instance water is not emergent from the combining of oxygen and hydrogen. It is a fully explainable by the properties of oxygen and hydrogen as a product of that combining. Neither is a more complete theory based on more complete knowledge emergent.

Nobody picked up on it, presumably because they read it in context, and so understood what I was talking about.

Your objection strips my comment from its context, and addresses it as though it stands alone with no other data or knowledge structure to support it; by doing so, it neatly illustrates exactly what I was saying.

Not only is your criticism misguided; it is illustrative of the very phenomenon you are attempting to dismiss.

Hopefully our discussion will be instructive to some others who are coming down the pike in research, especially psychological research.

Re your critique, I think not. Not only is emergence a false presumption about theory, in fact a false notion in science, your construction of theory building itself is wrong. Theory building is about being more inclusive of the data and theory at hand. It is not just about accurate about what one has observed. Better is not just more accurate, but more inclusive of the data and theory at hand. If one theory has advantage over another in accuracy on a subset of data (one's observations) it may not include other data. On the other hand if theory is more inclusive, fits better with associated theory, and is more predictive of data excluded in the more accurate local theory, it is a better theory.

You get to where theory needs to go to be better, but, you emphasize the wrong attributes of decision making about theory value when you use accuracy in the wrong context.

What you wrote suggests there exists emergence. You also suggest that accuracy of hypothesis concerning one's observations produces theory that explains more which, I argue, are both patently false.

Finally I agree my post neatly illustrates the phenomenon I intended. Your post is informative, but, informative using the wrong elements trying to get to pretty good conclusions. Keep small with small and large with large And we'll never have this kind of thing come up again.

 

[Kharakov]

Gotta agree with Juma here, art is way more than math, even if math can be used to explain specific ways of creating and enjoying art. I mean, math can be used to explain nearly anything, so in a trivial sense art is math (as is surfing, competitive pie-eating, advertising, and so on).

Math doesn't explain qualia. It doesn't explain a warm apple pie, or hot chocolate on a brisk fall day.

It can describe certain aspects of them: the heat dissipation from the pie or hot chocolate, the ~ number of molecules interacting with taste buds, various specific quantities. However, the complete synthesis of experience is not an absolutely defined quantity of apple pieeness.

Seems that some people confuse the natural tendency of what exists to follow patterns with mathematical principles guiding what exists. It's not this at all: instead simple basic properties are easily represented by mathematics. You don't experience a blue sky and feel 1243.214888821 if you're feeling 999123.6181339.

 

[fromderinside]

Gotta agree with Juma here, art is way more than math, even if math can be used to explain specific ways of creating and enjoying art. I mean, math can be used to explain nearly anything, so in a trivial sense art is math (as is surfing, competitive pie-eating, advertising, and so on).

Math doesn't explain qualia. It doesn't explain a warm apple pie, or hot chocolate on a brisk fall day.

It can describe certain aspects of them: the heat dissipation from the pie or hot chocolate, the ~ number of molecules interacting with taste buds, various specific quantities. However, the complete synthesis of experience is not an absolutely defined quantity of apple pieeness.

Seems that some people confuse the natural tendency of what exists to follow patterns with mathematical principles guiding what exists. It's not this at all: instead simple basic properties are easily represented by mathematics. You don't experience a blue sky and feel 1243.214888821 if you're feeling 999123.6181339.

From nonexistent mind come nonexistent quale. Nice.

 

[Kharakov]

Gotta agree with Juma here, art is way more than math, even if math can be used to explain specific ways of creating and enjoying art. I mean, math can be used to explain nearly anything, so in a trivial sense art is math (as is surfing, competitive pie-eating, advertising, and so on).

Math doesn't explain qualia. It doesn't explain a warm apple pie, or hot chocolate on a brisk fall day.

It can describe certain aspects of them: the heat dissipation from the pie or hot chocolate, the ~ number of molecules interacting with taste buds, various specific quantities. However, the complete synthesis of experience is not an absolutely defined quantity of apple pieeness.

Seems that some people confuse the natural tendency of what exists to follow patterns with mathematical principles guiding what exists. It's not this at all: instead simple basic properties are easily represented by mathematics. You don't experience a blue sky and feel 1243.214888821 if you're feeling 999123.6181339.

From nonexistent mind come nonexistent quale. Nice.

Quail are hilarious. Never really knew what they were until recently, which is funny considering the amount of trivial knowledge I've accumulated over the years....

How do you quantify humor? 17?