Blog #8
Overall, I thought this text went into a ton of detail in regards to the current issues surrounding neuroscience and modern physics and how the human mind interprets different ideas whether they’re simple or complicated. It took Lehrer quite a while to hit home on his main point that art should be incorporated into science, but he does a nice job at going in depth with the current issues around the brain and how they can be resolved. He starts off talking about art in a small piece when he discusses the Bohr model and the visual representation that it gives us. He then goes off discussing how there’s still much more to learn about the universe than we think and how our unknowns haven’t receded very much. He then notes that neuroscience has to develop an intimate understanding of higher order mental events which seemed confusing at first, but it made sense when he put the concepts of arts and science together later to elaborate how these unresolved problems can be solved. He states that art can teach us who we are and what everything surrounding us is which is something that you have to attain from both art and science.
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: Establishes a limit to the precision at which something such as particles can be known (Dictionary).
“The bridging principle” (You may have to look at the text itself, for this definition.): Used to connect one idea to another? (art vs. science).
Reductionism: The practice of describing a complex issue in terms of facts held to represent a more fundamental level (Dictionary).
Synapse: A junction between 2 cells which is composed of a minute gap across them in which impulses can pass via diffusion of a neurotransmitter (Dictionary).
Epiphenomenon: A secondary effect that can arise but not influence a certain process or experiment (Dictionary).
Holistic perspective: Different factors taken into account to help generate a picture of a certain culture as a whole (Study.com).
One thought on “Blog #8”
Good work. Revisit Lehrer’s essay for more on the bridging principle. Here’s a helpful passage from his essay: “Or look at neuroscience. Only a few decades ago, scientists were putting forth confident conjectures about “the bridging principle,” the neural event that would
explain how the activity of our brain cells creates the subjective experience of consciousness. All sorts of bridges were proposed, from 40 Hz oscillations in the cerebral cortex to quantum coherence in microtubules. These were the biological processes that supposedly
turned the water of the brain into the wine of the mind.
But scientists don’t talk about these kinds of bridging principles these days. While neuroscience continues to make astonishing progress in learning about the details
of the brain—we are a strange loop of kinase enzymes and synaptic chemistry—these details only highlight our enduring enigma, which is that we don’t experience these cellular details. It is ironic, but true: The one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will
ever know.”