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[Phys-L] Re: Fields etc



understanding depth and perspective that people [i.e. everybody] began
to perceive reality correctly. That is, we needed artists to learn how,
then show the world how, to perceive reality correctly.

----------

I think it is interesting that the public has generally looked to
science to discern what is real and what is not. But recently I am
hearing English professors and Art professors tell me how to discern
reality while, at the same time, I am hearing scientists telling me that
what some scientists call real is not real. It's an interesting world.

-------------


That's not all, check in w/ some of the political scientists -
especially those who are art crits.

Get one of John Berger's books, not a play or novel, but say, Ways of
Seeing or About Looking.




bc, whose copy of Ways of Seeing is a gift from the Chair of an Art Dept.


p.s. if I remember correctly, it was the invention of the camera lucida
that stimulated the "discovery" of perspective. vide: Hockney and
anamorphic art.



Michael Edmiston wrote:

I wouldn't mind taking a step backward to look at the broader picture or
real versus concept. Let me describe a few different things, which I
shall set apart and label.

* * * Ideas from English Class * * *

It is not uncommon for my beginning students to ask me what I think
about what their English professors are telling them. When the
first-year English professors try to convince students of the importance
of words and writing, they tell students that objects don't exist until
we have named them. There is no such thing as a tree until we have
identified a label for it. Putting labels on personal experiences, then
communicating those things with others in a way that others understand
what we are trying to communicate, is what makes things real. Prior to
being observed, named, described, and communicated, the objects don't
exist.

I mostly get this second hand, and have not spend too much time talking
to my English professor friends about this, so I hope I have not
incorrectly summarized the position. I am not totally sure whether they
literally believe this, or if it is a teaching technique to get a rise
from the students.

* * * Ideas from Art * * *

I have always had an artistic side, but I am gaining new respect for art
and design since two things have happened. (1) My daughter has entered
a well-known design school. (2) At my university the Art Department has
been given the go-ahead to begin a design program. I was asked to be on
the team to help develop the design program, and over the last couple
weeks I have been interviewing candidates for a faculty position in
design.

Listening to my daughter, and especially listening to the design faculty
candidates, have taught me a lot about how artists view the world. They
have statements similar to the English statements. "If I have never
drawn a tree, a tree does not exist." Some are more modest, Camille
Pissarro (famous for his drawings and paintings of trees and other
things in nature) apparently said something like, "I don't know what a
tree is until I have drawn one."

Early artists did not understand the concept of vanishing points and
drew "flat pictures" that showed no appreciation of depth. I have heard
quite a few artists talk about this in the past weeks, and they say
similar things... it wasn't until a few perceptive artists began
understanding depth and perspective that people [i.e. everybody] began
to perceive reality correctly. That is, we needed artists to learn how,
then show the world how, to perceive reality correctly.

This may be somewhat arrogant on their part, but as I have watched
faculty candidates teach demonstration drawing classes, and I have
participated in some of the exercises, I have gained new insight on
viewing things. For example, a nice exercise is to do "blind contour
drawings" in which you look at an object and draw its "main essence" on
paper without ever looking at the paper. You never look at the paper,
you never lift your pencil from the paper, you never retrace or
"revisit" portions completed. You slowly scan the object with your eye
and allow your hand to follow your eye. The exercise is much more than
developing eye-hand coordination; the main emphasis is on "learning to
see" and "getting to know" the object... learning to see and understand
reality.

Goodness... isn't that what we scientists say we are doing? Scientists
have similar lab exercises in which we ask students to observe something
and write down observations. I am used to that. But I was not as
accustomed to observing and drawing. Additionally, artists spend
considerable time trying to understand reality then communicate through
color and shading.

My daughter has been doing exercise after exercise in drawing shapes,
shading them, coloring them, with a whole host of objectives for each
exercise, all aimed at seeing things, then communicating what is seen to
others. In the process, one persistent idea is to communicate some sort
of reality from one person to another, by visual means rather than
written or vocal means.

* * * Ideas in science and Conclusion * * *

What is charge? What is a field? What is a particle? What is a wave?
Are any of these more than concepts? Why do some think it is
inappropriate to reify things that others view as real? I can see
rationale for two extreme views... (1) Since everything we "know" is a
mental concept, nothing is real. We should not reify anything. (2)
Since we observe things and have learned to communicate these things to
others, and they observe them also, and they measure similar data, and
we all can draw predictive conclusions that we all observe to be born
out... everything that fits this pattern is reality.

Both views can have errors. In view (1), concepts that fit what we seem
to observe are useful whereas concepts that don't fit are erroneous
themselves, or the framework within which we are trying to place them is
erroneous. With respect to (1), some might prefer useful and non-useful
rather than correct and erroneous. In view (2) we can have beliefs
about reality that later get proven false. That might make us appear
pretty stupid when something we thought was real is later proven not
real. An example, phlogiston, was previously mentioned. Does the fact
that we sometimes have been in error about reality mean we should never
believe that any of our concepts describe reality?

I think it is interesting that the public has generally looked to
science to discern what is real and what is not. But recently I am
hearing English professors and Art professors tell me how to discern
reality while, at the same time, I am hearing scientists telling me that
what some scientists call real is not real. It's an interesting world.

Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu

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