2007-06-20
Art, Science & Technology. Part I: Causality by Design
In this first panel of a triptych of articles, I have defined Art, Science & Technology.
These words are pointers to a gestalt world of knowing. Art is codified knowledge conveying meaning from one human mind to another.
Some Codes are alphabetic, some aural, some visual, some kinetic but always sender and receiver must share and understand the Code if a work is to work. 15 Technology is tooled knowledge, i.e., knowledge fixed in Matter/Energy as function. The subject of both Art & Technology is the Natural Person. Their work is the result of Design, of human purpose, of formal and final causes. Codified and tooled knowledge, however, have no meaning or function without the intermediation of a Natural Person.
These words are pointers to a gestalt world of knowing. Art is codified knowledge conveying meaning from one human mind to another.
Some Codes are alphabetic, some aural, some visual, some kinetic but always sender and receiver must share and understand the Code if a work is to work. 15 Technology is tooled knowledge, i.e., knowledge fixed in Matter/Energy as function. The subject of both Art & Technology is the Natural Person. Their work is the result of Design, of human purpose, of formal and final causes. Codified and tooled knowledge, however, have no meaning or function without the intermediation of a Natural Person.
Science, on the other hand, is both codified and tooled knowledge. It began as an abstract mental exercise of reducing things through logic in the ancient and medieval worlds. It became, with the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, committed to the design, construction and operation of instruments to force Nature to reveal Her Secrets. She did. The subject of Science, however, is Nature; reductionism based on controlled experimental conditions is its primary methodology. Invariants are established; one change (cause) is allowed and its effect metered. Material and efficient causes are sufficient. Nonetheless, modern Science too is the product of Design of
tacitly integrating subsidiary (controlled or invariant conditions) and focal awareness (effect or affordances) into gestalt knowing.
Reductionism, however, is inappropriate in the world of human-made things of Art & Technology - where the sciences of the artificial rule (Herbert Simon quoted in Layton 1988, 91). Similarly, Michael Polanyi recognized the artificial nature of Technology when he observed a machine can be smashed but the laws of physics continue to operate in the parts. He concluded that: physics and chemistry cannot reveal the practical principles of design or co-ordination which are the structure of the machine (M. Polanyi 1970). This is, of course, also true of a work of aesthetic intelligence.
Reductionism is also insufficient in biology where today we can design living things with human purpose, i.e., biotechnology. In effect, we can now combine human with natural purpose. One implication is that biology can, for the first time, join physics and chemistry as a technoscience (Grene & Depew 2004, 345). Our visit to the Garden of Eden must, however, await Part II: Epistemes of Art, Science & Technology.
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tacitly integrating subsidiary (controlled or invariant conditions) and focal awareness (effect or affordances) into gestalt knowing.
Reductionism, however, is inappropriate in the world of human-made things of Art & Technology - where the sciences of the artificial rule (Herbert Simon quoted in Layton 1988, 91). Similarly, Michael Polanyi recognized the artificial nature of Technology when he observed a machine can be smashed but the laws of physics continue to operate in the parts. He concluded that: physics and chemistry cannot reveal the practical principles of design or co-ordination which are the structure of the machine (M. Polanyi 1970). This is, of course, also true of a work of aesthetic intelligence.
Reductionism is also insufficient in biology where today we can design living things with human purpose, i.e., biotechnology. In effect, we can now combine human with natural purpose. One implication is that biology can, for the first time, join physics and chemistry as a technoscience (Grene & Depew 2004, 345). Our visit to the Garden of Eden must, however, await Part II: Epistemes of Art, Science & Technology.
Download: http://www.culturaleconomics.atfreeweb.com
An article by Harry Hillman Chartrand, Cultural Economist, University of Saskatchewan
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