Evolit: Week 8--Making the Transition

In psychology class, i recently learned about decision-making in the context of the court room. In a model of jury decision-making known as the 'story model,' the individual juror constructs a story to explain the pieces of information at hand using prior life experience, attitudes and viewpoints, and other such extraneous information. Regardless of whether or not the jurors are instructed to postpone interpretation, it is oftentimes the case that they do not come to conclusions only after hearing all the evidence. Inference and interpretation are both natural, automatic responses in the thought process and we construct stories to make sence of our surroundings each and every day, it is just a part of our cognition. So, although sontag is against interpretation, I feel as though her mention of the topic can be related to the judge telling jury members to hear all evidence before reaching a conclusion. We hear what she is saying and even understand its importance, but cant help but construct that story. It is good to understand this downside to interpretation and how, in english class, an art galery, a court room, or on the sidewalk, the way we process information is what allows us to make sense of what is around us. One particular drawback of story construction is that oftentimes we miss bits and pieces of information which our minds do not weave into the story. Maybe they seem insignificant at the time, but later on, it can be suprising how much we don't remember, or even misremember. Maybe this is why we reread stories. If we were completely non-interpretive, as Sontag suggests, than maybe lack of story-construction would lead to a less biased way of analyzing that which is before us. But interpretation and analysis seem to be just what allows us to understand. It seems that interpretation is closely linked with cognition. Would we actually remeber less at the end had we not constructed a story in our minds? because story construction allows us to deal with and later remember the information before us, maybe lack of interpretation would acutally have an inhibiting effect in the long run.

I do not enjoy reading Leaves of Grass because it is repetitive and switches from prose to poetry or rather sorta poetry.  His lack of education shows in his writing.  His use of ... at the end of many sentences could have been his own words instead of continually requesting the reader to fill in the blanks.  I wonder what he is trying to convey as I read.

When I began reading Whitman, my first reaction was confusion at the stilted, snapshot like images he presented to us. I couldn't figure out where he was taking me, what I was supposed to get out of this.

Then I remembered--I wasn't supposed to do that.

It seems that Sontag's argument to see art, in this case Whitman's poetry,  as an invitation to new outlooks on life, new ways of seeing things, fit together with Whitman's admonishment to stop being proud of our ability to understand the meaning of poems. 

He wasn't trying to make a point or teach us anything specific, but rather give us an outlet to reconsider the people he was passing on the street. Those brief snapshots let us reconsider how we see the world, and thus open up new and different choices for our lives.

Once I put two and two together, I really enjoyed reading Whitman's observations and have since rediscovered the joy of people watching on my way to class. 

From starting Leaves of Grass, I am very intrigued by this new style of writing we are reading. It is very different from the writing of Darwin and Dennett, who wrote in a more scientific way. Whitman writes poetically, every word meaning more than its surface interpretation. The part in the beginning that grabbed me was when Whitman writes, "The world does not so exist ...no parts palpable or impalpable so exist ...no result exists now without being from its long antecedent result, and that from its antecedent, and so backward without the farthest mentionable spot coming a bit nearer the beginning than any other spot... Whatever satisfies the soul is truth."  This has two big ideas -- the first being that every single thing in our universe comes from something before it. This goes back to our discussion on whether or not we are our pasts. I am sure this passage could be argued to aid both sides, but I really think Whitman is getting at the idea that we all come from something, and we are nothing without that something. Then, he tries to define truth, as whatever satisfies the soul. I find this reassuring. I think that people often spend too much time analyzing the world ( as we have been talking about in class), and even more than that, we spend too much time trying to figure out if there is an eternal Truth. I think all people need to realize that we each have our own Truths and it exists solely in our own happiness and self-fulfillment. Whitman gets at that idea often in the beginning of Leaves of Grass - he continually returns to what it is to be happy, or what a good life entails. He speaks of people thinking greatness is making money, and saving it, and living a "lawful life". He argues that true happiness is recognizing the world, seeing all humans as equal, honesty.

On of the many things that has struck me about Leaves of Grass so far is that it's not consistant. As someone who has spent the last week in another class on Blake, for whom consistancy is practically if not entirely a vice, this troubles me rather little, but does give me another new insight into my continuing look into what does differ between science and literature.

First, though, to reference briefly the type of inconsistancy I'm talking about, which in themselves are discussing the relationship between literature and science. Whitman reiterates his belief in their productive coexistance, stating on page 38 that "facts are useful and real...they are not my dwelling...I enter by them to an area of dwelling...I am less the reminder of property or qualities and more the reminder of life." While this statement supports the way different ways of approaching meaning, different "dwellings" aid each other, he earlier (page 15) declares that "as soon as histories are properly told there is not more need of romances." After what we have looked at this year, the idea that history is every "properly told" seemed stifling and simply wrong, particularly in the context of one who embraces different approaches to understanding in other passages.  

I noticed rmetha's comment above regarding how she feels "abstractly impaired" when she looks at abstract art. I suppose I feel that way too, but simultaneously, I would like to say to her: you are not abstractly impaired! I don't think there's anything wrong in not having any taste for abstract art. I'm a person who is deeply logical and prefers things with structure, and you might be too. If you don't see anything in abstract art then there just isn't anything there for you.

That said, I also generally feel the same way about unstructured poetry. I wouldn't go as far as that phrase by Robert Frost about free verse being like tennis without the net, but generally speaking, I don't think I can draw much from free verse poetry. However, there is something intriguing about Walt Whitman. Most of his phrases strike me as lacking in flow almost to a fault, but when his phrases do have flow, such as in the first three lines of Leaves of Grass, he is superb.

Furthermore, there is something beguilingly modern about Whitman. Nothing about his imagery suggests "mid nineteenth century" to me. In fact, when I was reading the first page and the line "The delight alone or in the rush of the streets" the image that came to my mind was that of modern New York city traffic. I didn't even remember that Walt Whitman didn't know what cars were until several pages later. What strikes me as most interesting about Whitman is his freshness, his modernity.

Our class has transitioned from the story of evolution to the evolution of stories.  I'm confused, just like I was at the beginning of this class.  I'm curious to find out how the second part of the class connects to the first part. Although I realize that there are two distinct parts of the class, it is still one class and I look forward to seeing how it fits together. I feel like figuring out what the class is about is one of the main things I will work to find out. This course reminds me of a novel because even if one knows the theme, one never really knows what will happen next or how it will end.  I guess I will just have to wait and see.

I’m still thinking about the “chair” and the “abstract” that Prof Grobstein drew on Thursday. Many people in class who liked the “abstract” more than the “chair” believed the “abstract” to be more imaginary, and one was able to make it out to be whatever they want because there were more possibilities since the drawing was not concrete. Many people in class who liked the “chair” saw the drawing as something comforting, non threatening, and a part of common knowledge. However I think the most interesting imagination would come out of the drawing of the “chair”. In the “abstract” drawing, and  depending on the viewer, the viewer is  forced to interpret but in the “chair” drawing, the viewer is given something concrete but he or she, if he or she chooses, can make something else out of it… Too bad, it made more sense in my head during class on Thursday.

 

However, I don’t see the problem with interpretation. I think limiting interpretation is equivalent to limiting people’s minds and imaginations. Granted, I don’t think everyone should be forced to find “the meaning” or “the truth” in every piece of literary or artistic work, and I don’t think one interpretation is more right than another. However, if one person looks at a Jackson Pollock and their immediate reaction is a view of a forest or a bird and another sees “something pretty” or just a blob, what’s wrong with that? I think the problem arises when people start asking, “What do you see in that?” as opposed to “What do you see?”.

 

As for science without method…I’m still a little lost. Even loopy science has a similar method to traditional science, so I don’t see how you can study science without some simple procedures.

I've been thinking a lot, recently, about the links between science (or, in our case, evolution) and literature. I don't see the two as very far apart. In order to communicate an idea or a theory, we as humans have to use language and, more often than not, in writing. 

But there seems to be this insane notion out there that all science in literature has to be dry, dull, by-the-book lab write-ups that causes a lot of self-implemented concussions and screams of fury.

Why can't science writing be interesting? And why is it so hard to integrate science and literature? I guess I want to know what YOU all think "science writing" includes: textbooks, lab reports, articles from the newspaper and science magazines, etc.

Also, try reading "Stiff" or "Spook" by Mary Roach. Maybe that'll change your view of science writing.

During Thursday's discussion, we laid out the questions that the rest of the course would attempt to answer: how to do science without method, and how to do art without interpretation? The latter seems reasonable enough; however, we are all stumped on what the former would even mean, let alone how to accomplish it. It seemed to me that the fundamental drive of science is to know how the world works the way it does, which seems to imply that it is representational at the core. Art, of course, can be generative and otherwise non-representational; it seeks to create and celebrate beauty, to re-arrange what is physically present, to find meaning behind and within what is physically present, or to generate meaning beyond what is physically present. But isn't science all about seeking to accurately describe nature/ the universe to become privy to its laws and orders, making models to accurately represent this?

 

However, as I thought about it, science does perhaps also use what is there for something different - engineering allows us to take raw products from nature and transform them into things such as machines that can manipulate the laws of aerodynamics for our use. Science frequently exapts materials that serve one purpose in nature for entirely different human purposes. It uses what it knows to conceive of what might be. For example, with the atom bomb, we thought from certain theories in physics that something crazy might happen if we force two atoms together. When we did, we created something the likes of which had not existed before, based on purely speculative scientific theory. As Dan pointed out, it could be said that we created a really bad star, but nonetheless we created something new under the sun from science. In this way, it is just as generative as art.

Our discussion on Thursday really got me thinking about the two examples Paul put up on the board.  It was interesting to me that I preferred the drawing that we ended up deciding was abstract because I generally don't find myself like abstract art over representative art.  But this got me thinking about representative art... I think that representative art is "mimetic" as we were saying but that it also attempts to go beyond that.  As someone mentioned during our discussion, the chair could also have been interpreted as a waterfall and I think that this is what still makes representative art interesting, that it goes beyond the surface mimetic image.  Art is about imbuing those things that it represents with feelings or emotions or other associations.

I agree with Susan Sontag and her essay "Against Interpretation." I think Sontag's main goal in the essay is to get people to look at art with a completely non-interpretive eye. Basically, she shuns us from finding any meaning in art. I don't know if it's possible to completely shut off the interpretive eye, but I think it is worth trying. But why shut off the interpretive eye? what's the harm in finding meaning in something? Sontag argues that it ruins the experience and feeling one gets when they interact with art. In her essay she states that "in place of hermenuetics we need an erotics of art." I agree with Sontag here, if it's possible to turn off the interpretive eye than we should try to experience art as cathartic rather than insert meanings and interpretations. Interpreting art also cuts out a large portion of other views toward the art. For example, if someone expresses that they see a tree in an abstract work of art another person with them will probably see the tree as well and never had the opportunity to interpret it themselves. So in a way interpretation cuts out a lot of conversation that could have come out of the piece. Sontag's essay reminded me of this Billy Collins poem...

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

I still think that Sontag's main purpose of telling us not to interpret was to take an extreme stance on something in order for us to see the "light" in not interpreting a piece of art, text, etc. It seemingly reduces the possiblity of a different story to come out it exponentially. As soon as someone mentioned that they saw a bird in one painting it was hard to shake that image from the painting and immeadiately it seemed that the image was a bird and nothing else. The interpretation was made and all other possibilties of what it could be were seemingly inhibitied, at least in my case.

Also, at the conclusion of class on Thursday alluded to the notion that literature's purpose, like science, was to broaden the number of stories available. I understand that we need a myriad of stories in order to have the ability to excersise free-will and choose the one that best fits our beliefs, etc. but I still am not embracing the idea that there is no "purpose" or end goal in sight for any of these subjects.  Its extremely disconcerting to think that Professor Grobstein doesn't think that there are any "right" answers. I just don't think that belief system would be conducive to a very comfortable living if one was constantly calling into question even the most basic of things.

It was interesting to learn during my visit to the current "Cézanne and Beyond" exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that Paul Cézanne claimed that he painted without concern for art critics. I thought that this emphasis on artistic motivation tied in with Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation." Sontag might have thought that the comparisons between other artists, such as Ellsworth Kelly, and Cézanne were an example of defending art. Although Kelly is a well-known artist, his abstract works may be challenging to interpret and he might benefit from an association with Cézanne's established paintings. Maybe Kelly is an example of Sontag's "overcooperative author"? 

I think I am abstractly impaired.  It is not that I don’t like looking at abstract art such as those Pollock pieces we examined in class, but my negativity stems from extremely frustrated confusion.  When looking at abstract art I feel like I’m back in sixth grade, nodding along with the crowd when someone would finally figure out what picture you were supposed to be able to see in those Magic Eye books.  I thought if I crossed my eyes or turned my head a certain way I would see what everyone else was seeing. Sadly, I still only saw blobs.  Just as in this scenario, looking at abstract art makes me frustrated because I have this fear that my analysis will be incorrect; that by looking too deep to find something anew in the painting is not what the painter actually intended for the viewer to see.  Here in lies what I believe Sontag was saying in her critique on interpretation.  Each of us brings our own evolved stories to the front when we confront a painting.  Because of this, what we initially see is consciously different and rooted in different previously experienced histories.  So, in this sense, is our divergent evolution detrimental to our ability to interpret? If so, Sontag is correct is saying we should not rely “so much on questions about what elements in a work of art mean”.  However, I also see her argument of looking at functionality prone to personal interpretation.  How we perceive the elements in a work of art functioning seems to me to be another form of analysis and interpretation. Our experiences dictate our initial reactions and how we perceive the world around us; our personal evolution dictates our analytical abilities.  I don’t think we can ever escape our evolution when approaching interpretation. If this is “true”, can science never escape art and can art never escape science?

The first question that thought was Am I predictable?  If I knew everything about myself, my genes, cultural influences, etc. could I figure out my next move?  I don't think I could because with every discussion I have some choices.  Even knowing my background I could suddenly decide that I want to change and instead choose a different path than the one I have been following.

Then Thursday we began our discussion about the articles that we read.  That in order to truly take in the goal or meaning of something you don't try to find a representation.  Although I now feel like I have to break another of the rules that was taught to me in school.  Beginning in art class, the teacher will tell us look at a painting, listen to music, tell me what it represents, and tell me the story.  Now I can't even try to find a story within a picture.  Right when Professor Dalke showed us the painting by Pollock I immediately tried to find some picture.  I have done this many times when going through an art museum, I want to make the picture interesting, and I want to find my own thoughts about it, my own representations.  It is like when I lay out on the grass in the summer, look up at the sky and point out the different shapes of the clouds, seeing bunnies, dragons, etc.  For art really I couldn't care why the artist painted it, or try to take in the whole painting without representations.   I just want to enjoy the painting make it my own game of guess the blobs.  Maybe that's why I like science, it's a game to me, a quest in trying to figure out the unfamiliar blobs and make sense out of them.  It doesn't matter why something was created but just if I can't understand it, I can enjoy the wonders of the world and the things I can explore.  I'm still keeping my mind open to figuring out how to do interpretation without representation and science without method along with the connection with Whitman's writings.