The main argument that Jonah Lehrer is arguing in his article, “The Future of Science…Is Art” is that science cannot advance further without the incorporation of art. That the one notable time in history when the two went hand in hand was a huge scientific achievement! Throughout the article, Lehrer gives us countless examples of when artists used science in their novels and that it was the reason these novelists were huge successes. No scientist wants to admit that they’ll need art in the future because the two simply should not go together. It’s hard to envision the two going hand in hand; but Lehrer makes a great argument about us being stuck scientifically. When you really think about it, we are in fact stuck. It’s become so hard to see the bigger picture in all of science; and that’s what art aims to do. So, it’s very simple. Science needs art. The future of science incorporates art, I wouldn’t go as far to say that science will eventually be art. Art will always have its major differences and it’s own personality. Science will always be objectively based, looking at what’s in front of you. Artists have used that point to their benefit. This includes painters and novelists. Bohr was the only scientist that really used art to aid him in his hunt for a new electron model. Something needs to change, and if it worked for artists to use science to make their works more interesting and relatable; then science needs to do the same to step it up.

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle – states that there is a fundamental limit to how well you can know position and momentum of a particle at the exact same time.

“The bridging principle” – the neural event that would explain the experience of consciousness through the activity of our brain cells. Making connections between two separate things.

Reductionism – to describe a complex phenomena using phenomena that are more simply in terms of language and understanding, especially when this is said to be a sufficient explanation of something. Dumbing down big words with smaller words essentially.

Synapse – the junction between two nerve cells which consists of a minute gap when an impulse is released via neurotransmitter

Epiphenomenon – is a secondary effect from a process but does not effect their causally. A thought by which arose from a system but doesn’t effect your stance on the system.

Holistic perspective – to see the body as a whole and making sure the person is viewed as multi-dimensional. You’re not just looking at the spot that hurts, you’re looking at everything to narrow it all down.

Metaphor – a figure of speech where a word or phrase is applied to someone or something but is not directly applicable. The world is your oyster. The world is not my oyster to eat, it’s mine to dominate and take control of my own life.

Lepidopterist – a person who study’s butterfly’s

Paradigm – a pattern of something

Qualia – the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions from stimulation of a sense

Zeitgeist – what the mood of a specific period of time was like for the people living in it showed thought the ideas and beliefs of that time period.

I choose to look up James Joyce as an artist, an Irish Novelist to be exact. He is credited as the most influential writer of the 20th century. His role in Lehrer’s article is using his book, Ulysses, as a work to show science in a work of art. Joyce aims to not just tell a story using an omniscient point of view, but through his characters. He tells the story through them, by letting us, the reader, “…eavesdrop on their internal soliloquies” (Lehrer 3). There was a literal stream of consciousness from the characters. A story wasn’t really ever told this way. This was a new spin on story telling, and it emerged from the fact that we need to think outside the box, which is what scientists think. While they’re overall goal may be minute, to get there they have to take the unusual route. There’s always a different way for us to convey things, not just one way we all have to follow.

I also choose to look up Richard Feynman as a scientist, a theoretical physicist actually. Feynman was integral in the creation of the formula for quantum mechanics and various other experimental successes. His role in Lehrer’s article is to help us get at the idea that our understanding of physics now is beyond what we can grasp through scientific eyes. He is used as evidence to support the fact that we, as humans, simply cannot truly understand string theory or parallel universes because in reality, we are simple beings. Art, however, can help to open our eyes to the bigger picture and maybe not let us look with such a small objective.