The difference between an art and a science?

[LetThereBe]

I am of the opinion that every art is but an immature science. Any emotion that can be expressed through art can be distilled to sensory inputs, and can be theoretically improved upon by taking an analytical and systematic approach.

Is there anything "more" to art that cannot be objectively defined? Is there a "soul" that a scientific method could never capture or reproduce?

[lsbskins1]

Yes.

[minorwork]

What's an emotion?

[LetThereBe]

Yes.

Ha... care to elaborate?

What would be an example of something "art" has done that could not be reproduced (or improved upon) via a more empirical approach?

[Charlatan]

I agree with There. There is no art that cannot be defined by science. Even art has a mathmematical value, if you read the topic it is under. It is under that topic because there are angles that make the art more beautiful. The stone work of a church, for example, is 'mathematically perfect', as it lends from the formulas of the great artists and thier theories that too have become science. Music? The same. Language? The same. Culture even has a science behind it. Just because someone hasn't discovered it yet doesn't mean it is false.

Since beauty has science, and beauty reflects all things percieved in life, and every culture is based on emotional complaince or something, there is a science to every art.

[Charlatan]

To elaborate, a culture may have more rules or less rules as to what makes people listen to you, based on emotions, based on senses, and senses see and hear the same thing. So, if they hear and see the same thing then there is a right and wrong thing to see as something or other. Right and wrong cultures? Yes.

Cutures are based on what the relay to them has been. Relays come from parents and elders handing them down to the 'youth,' then they become accepted. To be accepted they need to appeal to the 'youth.' If there is a way to say that killing is good, it is through relays or cultures. Many people inside the culture actually reject it, leading to revolutions in the culture, where change takes place. When it is rejected, it no longer appeals to the emotions, that get their info from the senses, that get their information from the others in the culture. So, a culture changes when it is rejected, and, a culture becomes a culture when it is appealing.

To be appealing means that the emotions find it comforting, so, if the comfort afforded to people by their senses goes down well, then it will become a culture. Every culture is appealing to someone or other, so, how can it change from culture to culture?

Where they are, they are always becoming more liberal. The longer a culture is around for, the more it becomes liberal to the point where it changes. That is why people have different cultures, can you see cave men stoning someone, something that used to happen in the middle east? Then you can see how they all have the same starting point, and are at different levels with liberty. Sometimes they keep some things over and then it stays in the culture, based on emotions based on what is going on around them, all starting at different points.

[LetThereBe]

I say "every art is an immature science" not only hypothetically that art could be improved methodically... but also with the expectation that it eventually will.

The example that immediately comes to mind is musical instruments. I do not understand how we came to the specific shape of an instrument. We probably learned quite quickly that a greater length made a lower pitch, that a given material was more resonate than another... but what was the goal? Why is it a violin sounds sorrowful and another instrument bright or energetic?
Some of it is probably a feedback loop where we learn to attribute emotions to a particular sound because that is where we hear it used, but I also expect at least some of it is hard wired in our brain. Perhaps it is some biological drive and the particular resonance of one may share similarities with a crying child, and another with the snap of a twig or sign of danger.
Whatever the case, I believe we could isolate whatever that frequency is in the brain that triggers "sorrowful" in a sound and make a near perfect synthetic reproduction that would be far more effective than the approximations musical instruments have given us this far. The same could be true of actual harmonies, chords, and rhythmic patterns.

Extending this, I think it could be true of all art. Color, shape, light, texture... every sensory input that art provides which "triggers" something in our brain to recognize beauty or emotion... if that could be isolated it could be improved upon. It could be perfected.

[lsbskins1]

Ha... care to elaborate?

What would be an example of something "art" has done that could not be reproduced (or improved upon) via a more empirical approach?

The Doors - Peace Frog - YouTube

Sorry...the funk of this song can not be scientifically measured. The exactly right length of the pause at about 1:58. The emotional content of the reference to time specific political disturbances. It all depends on things that can not be specifically quantified. It is art because it has to be felt, it is art because it defies being deconstructed.

[minorwork]

I say "every art is an immature science" not only hypothetically that art could be improved methodically... but also with the expectation that it eventually will.

So a sufficiently powerful science will be able to teach a pig to sing or oink jazz such that it beats waterboarding as an effective interrogation technique?

The example that immediately comes to mind is musical instruments. I do not understand how we came to the specific shape of an instrument. We probably learned quite quickly that a greater length made a lower pitch, that a given material was more resonate than another... but what was the goal? Why is it a violin sounds sorrowful and another instrument bright or energetic?

Why does Slim Whitman sound different than Tiny Tim? Then there's the fav tune of a poster to this thread, but I don't understand their reaction to it. Is it a gut feeling or more that the song's lyrics so dramatically fail that there can be little intellectual support for any positive gut reaction to the tonal quality?

Some of it is probably a feedback loop where we learn to attribute emotions to a particular sound because that is where we hear it used, but I also expect at least some of it is hard wired in our brain. Perhaps it is some biological drive and the particular resonance of one may share similarities with a crying child, and another with the snap of a twig or sign of danger.

For being so scientifically analyzable your theories are short on evidenced studies and full of probabilities, I don't understands, and expectations.

Whatever the case, I believe we could isolate whatever that frequency is in the brain that triggers "sorrowful" in a sound and make a near perfect synthetic reproduction that would be far more effective than the approximations musical instruments have given us this far. The same could be true of actual harmonies, chords, and rhythmic patterns.

Extending this, I think it could be true of all art. Color, shape, light, texture... every sensory input that art provides which "triggers" something in our brain to recognize beauty or emotion... if that could be isolated it could be improved upon. It could be perfected.

Perfected as far as your senses and abilitities are concerned. But what of the works that register for you as "sorrowful" but for another group be described as "irritating?" Are you going to enforce feelings responses?

The gut feelings connote beauty. Architectural form might have part gut feeling and part intellectual appreciation as responses to the work, but go for whatever flips your skirt. There is no accounting for taste. Eh, Isbskins1?

[lsbskins1]

There is no accounting for taste. Eh, Isbskins1?

Ah! No, no accounting for tastes but there is accounting for being wise enough to pick an example likely to be hotly debated...hence driving home the point. The point, by the way, that you are essentially making. I have a sister that feels much like you do concerning the Doors. I love 'em, she hates 'em. She has, on the other hand, what I consider to be an unexplainable affinity for Todd Rundgren. Yuck! Art, in all it's forms, is about creating an emotional reaction and emotional reactions are subject to variables that the scientific method can never control for.

I'm also very amused by the fact that you posted my least favorite song, by my least favorite country artist. There is no accounting for taste.

[LetThereBe]

Haha, well I suppose part of the question here is what makes art preferential?

For example, I find the cello to be the most beautiful instrument. When I hear it invokes the idea of... "sorrowful strength", I suppose. Mournful, yet deep and powerful. A trumpet on the other hand, is piercing and celebratory.
I think almost everyone can agrree to some degree that certain instruments have these kind of characteristics. Thus a trumpet makes an objectively better instrument for a fanfare, and a cello is objectively better for other roles.
This doesn't mean you personally like fanfares, or you like the orchestral pieces of a cello. You may prefer the emotional response of something else... but the emotional response itself is what we have mostly in common.

To use another example, someone seeing Picasso's Guernica naturally sees "chaotic", "pain", and the like. The work of most impressionists on the other hand could be described as "peaceful" or "soft". This doesn't mean you PREFER one style over the other, but the fact that an overwhelming majority of humans can have a similar emotional response is what makes art feasible to begin with. It is because we share these views in common that the communication of emotion through art is possible.

Thus when I say we could "perfect" some small aspect of art I do not mean we would make it the most enjoyable art for all people. I mean we can find the perfect way to communicate sorrow with an audio wave form, or the perfect way to communicate confusion with a set lines and a colors.

The way I see it there are really only two possibilities: there is some supernatural element to art that cannot be reproduced or improved upon, or all art boils down to sensory inputs and chemical/electrical responses within the brain.
If the latter is true, even if no one shared anything in common regarding emotional response, it would still be hypothetically possible to create "perfect" art on the individual level.

[Jack]

Art can be whimsical, science is methodical.