The evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson envisions bridging the gap between C. P. Snow’s two cultures—the sciences and the humanities—with a series of dialogues similar to the ones that took place earlier between physics and chemistry, and between those two fields and biology (Wilson 1977).
In the 1930s Linus Pauling demonstrated that the physical principles of quantum mechanics explain how atoms behave in chemical reactions. Stimulated in part by Pauling’s work, chemistry and biology began to converge in 1953 with the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick. Armed with this structure, molecular biology unified in a brilliant way the previously separate disciplines of biochemistry, genetics, immunology, development, cell biology, cancer biology, and, more recently, molecular neurobiology. This unification set a precedent for other scientific disciplines, and it may set a precedent for brain science and art as well.
Wilson argues that knowledge is gained and science progresses through a process of conflict and resolution. For every parent discipline, there is a more fundamental field, an antidiscipline that challenges its methods and claims (Wilson 1977; Kandel 1979). Typically, the parent discipline is larger in scope and deeper in content, and it ends up incorporating and benefiting from the antidiscipline. These are evolving relationships, as we can see with art and brain science. Art and art history are the parent disciplines, and brain science is their antidiscipline.
Dialogues are most likely to be successful when fields of study are naturally allied, as the new science of mind and the perception of art are, and when the goals of the dialogue are limited and benefit all of the fields that contribute to it. Such dialogues might take place today in the modern equivalent of the famous salons of Europe—that is, in the interdisciplinary centers at universities. The Max Planck Society in Germany has a new Institute on Art and Science, as do several American universities. It is unlikely that a unification of the new science of mind and aesthetics will occur in the foreseeable future, but a new dialogue is emerging between people interested in aspects of art, including abstract art, and people interested in aspects of the science of perception and emotion. In time, the conversation may have a cumulative effect.
The potential benefits of this dialogue for the new science of mind are obvious. One of the aspirations of this new science is to link the biology of the brain to the humanities. One of its goals is to understand how the brain responds to works of art, how we process unconscious and conscious perception, emotion, and empathy. But what is the potential usefulness of this dialogue for artists?
Since the beginning of modern experimental science in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, artists have been interested in science, as exemplified by Filippo Brunelleschi and Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer and Pieter Brueghel, the abstract painting of Schoenberg, and the works of Richard Serra and Damien Hirst. Much as da Vinci used his knowledge of human anatomy to depict the human form in a more compelling and accurate manner, contemporary artists may use our new understanding of the biology of perception and of emotional and empathic response to create new art forms and other expressions of creativity.
Indeed, some artists who are intrigued by the irrational workings of the mind, including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning as well as René Magritte and other Surrealists, have attempted this already, relying on introspection to infer what was happening in their own minds. Although introspection is helpful and necessary, it is not capable of providing a detailed understanding of the brain, its workings, and our perception of the outside world. Artists today can enhance traditional introspection with the knowledge of how some aspects of our mind work.
Since 1959, when Snow first talked about the two cultures, we have found that science and art (including abstract art) can interact and enrich each other. Each brings its particular perspectives to bear on essential questions about the human condition, and each uses reductionism as a means of doing so. Moreover, the new science of mind seems on the verge of bringing about a dialogue between brain science and art that could open up new dimensions in intellectual and cultural history.