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Science in Literature: Reflections on the Social Constructs of Science in Society
Course: OEAS/ENMA 795/895 Advanced/Special Topics (three credits);
Course title: Science in literature: reflections on the social constructs of science in society;
Instructors: Dr. Hans-Peter Plag, Dr. Michelle Covi, Michelle Heart;
Term: Fall 2014.
Notes Week 10: Visual rhetoric; the power of metaphor
Discussion:
Opening with a discussion from week 9:
- Binswanger, H. C., 1998. The Challenge of Faust,
Main points: In Part II of his greatest play, Faust (1832), Goethe confronts the promises and pitfalls of the Industrial Revolution and the economic growth that it generated. As finance minister at the Court of Weimar he was well placed to comment on these developments, and his insights remain astonishingly relevant today.
The real danger is that Faust — modern man — will not acknowledge the need for careful planning to forestall such damage as he pushes on relentlessly, not seeing what is going on around him. Goethe symbolizes this blind irresponsibility by Faust's loss of eyesight. In other words, Faust is so obsessed with his plans to subdue nature that he loses sight of the realities that may require careful reflection and possibly a total rethinking of the project. Hence mankind compounds its natural limitations — its inability to fully understand nature's complexity—with a blindness induced by hubris.
self-justification of the blindness.
- Unger, Henry, 2014. Presentation and Representation in Escher's Lithographs: The Logic and Aesthetics of Pictorial Nonsense:
Main point: A pictorial paradox is possible for the senses to absorb although impossible for the mind to grasp.18 Therefore, we must define this as a two-stage process: first, we receive a perception that constitutes a fact; then, it is rejected for being impossible, or at least problematic. I conclude that Escher's pictures indeed present a thesis: they establish the fact that the mind is receptive to perceptions that lie beyond understanding. The borders of perception transcend the limits of cognition.
- Martinez-Conde, Susana, 2014. Dali Masterpieces Were Inspired by Scientific American. Illusion Chasers.
Main point: Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea, which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, is one of Dali's finest ambiguous illusions.
Dali painted this piece after he learned about the pioneering work of Leon D. Harmon published in the November 1973 issue of Scientific American magazine, entitled, “The Recognition of Faces.” In it, Harmon had taken an image of Abraham Lincoln from a $5 bill and produced “block averaging” renderings of it. Block averaging means that the image is broken down into blocks of a grid and each block is filled in with the average gray-scale value for that block; essentially a single tone per pixel.
Harmon (et al) found that the minimum number of blocks needed for facial recognition was 16 x 16 blocks (256 total). Considering that many of those blocks were the background, essentially, we can recognize faces from about 150 blocks of information!” Internet: Earth Rising (looking form a distance & perception paradigm change) Internet: The Hollow face illusion, why Charlie Chaplin still scares us- Visual: Convex & concave
- Discussion topics:
Gestalt: The whole is other (or bigger & more & unmeasurable) than the sum of its parts. Face Gestalt.
Fear of the unknown & unexplainable& ambiguity tied to Somerville, R. C., 2014. Is learning about climate change like having a colonoscopy? Choosing not to know because the perceived (and known) mind frame could change, creating a potentially negative new perception with an unknown future, discovery of illness, threat, danger one may not be able to accept. The phenomenon may be analogous to climate change denial.
Brain is setting up the models and forms of the world & virtual reality: Richard Dawkins video
Fear of ambiguity.
For the previous week's discussion, students were asked to come up with models and figures that show how society creates the model that justifies the wrong model, based on what we have discussed in week 9. There was no time to go through these models. The students were asked to send their models to HP Plag. The models will be discussed in session 11.
For the week's deliberation, the students were ask to come up with a visual metaphor that could help communicate aspects of climate change, its causes, and its potential impacts.
To see the picture in higher resolution, just click on the picture.
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