(urth) Recent human crash-landing on Sainte-Anneþ

[António Pedro Marques]

Lee Berman wrote (10-01-2011 10:06):
> Antonio Pedro Marques:
>> LB:
>>> Antonio:
>>>> I think I've asked more than once whether or not you understand
>>>> the concept of falsifiability and its importance, but I don't
>>>> recall getting an answer.
>>>
>>> Scientific principles are very useful in understanding the real
>>> world...less useful in understanding fiction
>>
>> But the fact remains that a work of art, and fiction, is part of the
>> real world.
>
> Superficially this is true but I'll try to explain why this misses the
> essence of what art is.

Well, first of all, let me say that it's nice that we're talking now, kind 
of at least.

> It comes down to something like Cartesian dualism or the "mind-body"
> problem if you will. We understand the outside world through sensory
> perceptions and scientific principles. But when we do self-analysis, when
> we try to understand our own mind, we use different processes. We can't
> see, hear or objectively measure our own mind and thoughts.
>
> I am suggesting that the process of art appreciation, especially
> literature, is closer to an internal perception than an external
> perception. Yes, we see dots on a page or screen. But in the process, we
> are trying to understand the thoughts of someone else in the way we
> understand our own thoughts.
>
> If you wanted to test a Wolfe book scientifically, you would measure its
> volume and mass and determine its density. You would perform chemical
> and spectrographic analysis on the paper and ink and record your results.
>  That is *falsifiable* evidence. Other scientists can repeat your
> experiments and achieve either the same or different results.

I think you forgot to say somewhere that you're still operating on the realm 
of metaphor. Because of course what you're describing is falsifiability 
applied to physical and chemical analysis, but there's nothing about 
falsifiability that is tied to physical phenomena.

Falsifiability is simply the corollary of predictiveness. Where you have a 
theory, you have prediction; and prediction can be tested. If you have a 
Inire-is-evil theory, then you sort of have a prediction that somewhere 
there should be evidence of a sinister side to him. And said evidence indeed 
pops up, what with his stories with little girls who no one understands very 
well. Of course, that evidence is also consistent with other hypotheses. 
Ultimately the worth of an interpretation is in the *-est it can be while 
making the most correct predictions and the least incorrect ones. Depending 
on what adjective is superlativised in *-est, you may have a number of best 
interpretations. But that's not because you threw out falsifiability.

With no regard to falsifiability you allow theories which make no [testable] 
predictions at all - and how can one evaluate those? - or that make all 
sorts of incorrect predictions - and how can one still think those have 
really anything to do with what GW wrote? But from what you write, it sounds 
as if what you're thinking of is rather different - the way the work rings 
inside you and paints for you this or that kind of scenery, which may be 
even completely at odds with what the work apparently says, but is 
nonetheless a product of the work on the collection of stuff that you call 
your mind.

In that regard, what can you counter to Gerry's Daleks except for the 
impression that Gerry doesn't believe them one bit?

I suppose that all this time you've been clamoring for the right to freely 
*appreciate* but calling it *understanding*. Well, those are different. 
Suddenly all your complaints make a lot of sense if what you're calling for 
is appreciation, but I don't think that's what's generally discussed here. 
(I'd call *understanding* the move toward a greater comprehension of the 
meaning the work supports and the way the author made it so, versus 
*appreciation* the move toward greater personal yield of the work, and 
obviously they aren't necessarily incompatible, but may need to be kept 
distinct.)

In short, don't call it 'theory', stick to 'vision' or something like that, 
and try not to mix it with the antics of proper theory, otherwise one won't 
be able to make heads or tails of it. (Or keep doing it the same way, but in 
that case expect continued misunderstading.)

> You and Gerry seem to be arguing that if we all read the same book, that
> is scientific analysis. It is not. We all read the same books but
> interpret the thoughts of the author in different ways, because our minds
> differ. Gerry reads the theories of other people and runs the evidence
> through *his* mind and, VOILA, He gets different results than the
> theorist. Thus he thinks he has falsified the person's theory. (every
> theory but his own, it seems)
>
> What he has done is falsified the theory in his own mind. Perhaps he has
> falsified the theory in some other people's minds also. If that's what
> you and Gerry are saying, then I have no argument. But you two are
> arguing that Gerry sifting the fictional evidence through his own mind
> constitutes some sort of logical, universal truth I'm afraid we have a
> disagreement. As long as we are not Shadow Children and operating with
> some sort of Group Mind, there is no universal truth when it comes to
> understanding art. Our minds belong to each of us, individually.

There is no [universal] truth when it comes to appreciate art, or pretty 
much anything else. But in what regards understanding, as the word is used, 
there are objective criteria to rank different understandings in one or more 
regards. For instance, it may be that the most poetical understanding is not 
the one that has more evidence for it. Or it may be that the richest one is 
not the most poetical. Or it may be that one's own preferred isn't the most 
generally interesting.