Recent human crash-landing on Sainte-Anneþ

Lee Berman · 10 Jan 2011, 10:06 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 05:06:01 -0500
Subject: (urth) =?iso-8859-1?q?Recent_human_crash-landing_on_Sainte-Anne?=
 =?iso-8859-1?q?=FE?=
Message-ID: <SNT123-W54B5DE8D98C6D0BBAE181FCF0E0 at phx.gbl>

>Antonio Pedro Marques: 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. 

>LB: Scientific principles are very useful in understanding the real world...less useful in understanding 
fiction

>Antonio: 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. 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.

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.

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