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ttruong's picture

Sciences permeating the Humanities

On Thursday in prof Gorbstein's group we talked about the differences between the sciences and humanities. I described the sciences as external inquiries and the humanities as internal inquiries Then Prof Grobstein said that the study of the brain is enabling science to extend into the humanities. This got me thinking..... For me the sciences explores and endeavors to explain the the causes of events that happens in the external logical world, a world divested of human emotions. On the other hand the humanities tries to make sense of humans' reactions to those extrnal events. Now that science is unveiling more and more of the brain's mysteriously intricate processes the line between the two may soon be breached. perhaps when we are able to trace the finest pathways of one brain and compared them to that of another brain after theyve both read a similar poem or view a painting, then we can pinpoint where the different intepretations are produced from.

Response to the book: One particular thing that I piqued my interest for reasons even unbeknownst to me was the book's example about the orgins of the giraffe. the book said "take another example, giraffes originated in the mid-tertiary times about 30 million years ago. It would upset all our beliefs and calculations if suddenly a fossil giraffe was found from the Palleocene 60 millions years ago, But, of course, no such fossil has ever been found." (pg 18) This made me think about the strategy that science uses. Science often holds a fact to be true simply because it cannot be disproved at the moment. We should always i think allow that something presupposedly impossible could be possible in our examination of different candidates of explanation. I have heard that most productive scientists make their great discoveries in the earlier years of their careers when they have not had so much extensive knowledge. This lack of knowledge ironically precludes them from limiting them their attempts at unconventional experiments that are assumed to be implausible by the older more knowledgable ones. Perhaps there are no true closet scientist who lacks former education now as there were before but there may certainly be novice ones who possess the foundations of science.

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