Week 1: Two Cultures

            Growing up, the separation of arts and sciences was natural to me. The divide was clear, people in the arts ponder the intangible while the sciences are grounded in reality. These ideas were further cemented by the education I received as I grew up. Separate classes and teaching styles coupled with differences in what each teacher required in homework assignments helped to define these two fields as separate from each other. C.P. Snow acknowledges the divide and termed it the “two cultures”. He asserts that the educational systems are, in part, to blame for this divide that exists. Having come to UCLA and majoring in neuroscience, the “north” and “south” campuses are evidence of educational systems helping to define the “two cultures”. The environments and attitudes of people you meet on each half of the campus continue to delineate the stereotypes commonly associated with each culture. “North campus” may feel more relaxed as people sit in Murphy Sculpture Garden while in “south campus” almost no one sits in the Court of Sciences and people are constantly in a rush.

Murphy Sculpture Garden
(http://www.tft.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/sculpture-garden.jpg)

However, attempts to reconcile the two cultures resulted in a “third culture” which, as Kelly characterizes, focuses more on creation of tools rather than theory, innovation, and generation of new experiences rather than adhering purely to rational truth. I have seen this in the field of neuroscience myself as more and more research are focused into producing a physically functioning brain, through organic means or digital means (particularly A.I.), rather than sticking purely to observation of the human brain.

Cubes with different lighting conditions used in neuroscience to study how quickly people react to differences in lighting.
(https://media.nature.com/lw926/nature-assets/nature/journal/v434/n7031/images/434301a-f4.2.jpg)

My time at UCLA exposed to me the culture of art and made me realize that there is no need for boundaries between science and art. There is already tentative communication between the two disciplines with art contributing to the research of lighting and how the brain perceives images and science producing mesmerizing images of the natural world which some consider to be art. I hope that I will become more well versed in the arts as it offers a unique perspective on issues which a scientific viewpoint may not consider. I had dabbled in the musical field having played the trumpet for nearly 7 years. However, after coming to college, I focused only on the sciences. As someone re-discovering the arts, I hope to gain new perspectives which aid in how I view the world.

This "brainbow" is an image of a hippocampal slice with individual neurons labeled with a different color. Although scientific initially, it may be considered artistic as well.
(http://www.cell.com/pb/assets/raw/products/pictureshow/brainbow/image001.png)

References

Cavanagh, P. (2005). The Artist as Neuroscientist. Nature, 434(7031), 301-307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/434301a

Kelly, K. (1998). ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY:The Third Culture. Science, 279(5353), 992-993. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.279.5353.992

Lightman, A. (2005). A Tale of Two Loves. Nature, 434(7031), 299-300. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/434299a

Snow, C. (1959). Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (pp. 1-58). London: Cambridge University Press.

Vesna, V. (2001). Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between. Leonardo, 34(2), 121-125. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/002409401750184672