Week 1: Two Cultures
It is true that in the modern world natural
science and humanities are viewed as two separate cultures, as both Vesna and Snow
noted. For example, on UCLA campus, all humanities and arts buildings are in
the north campus and buildings for sciences in the south campus.
However, as Vesna argued in “Toward a
Third Culture: Being in between,” building a bridge between the two cultures is
possible. To illustrate, I see psychology, my major, as a potential field where
the two cultures interact to inspire new advances. Before I took this class, I never
thought about the many connections between various subjects in psychological
research. When analyzing how infants develop speech in early ages,
psychologists often take advantage of linguistics, statistics, and neuroscience
to get the full story.
The ideas of the separation between the
two cultures and the possible bridges between them have inspired me to take on perspectives
from both cultures when viewing scientific and artistic works. Science may have
beauty of symmetry and rhythm and artworks can display the same level of
rigidity as scientific research.
A model illustrating reversals of the
magnetic field of the Earth
To make interpretations of cultural
products more complicated, according to Kelly, technology has emerged as a
third culture. Technology can combine with art like how 3D technology is
benefiting the film industry.
A simulation of how a 3D
movie looks like to audiences
Technology can also accelerate
scientific exploration such as how fMRI (a technology of scanning human brains)
promotes the development of neuroscience. As an independent third culture, technology
also defines an important part of the modern culture where all of us are surrounded
by numerous technological products. Keeping these three cultures in mind, I will
have a more comprehensive and in-depth interpretation of all products of human
cultures.
An
image of a human brain obtained through
fMRI
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2097734-thousands-of-fmri-brain-studies-in-doubt-due-to-software-flaws/
Works
Cited
Gissinger,
Christophe. Pole shift happens. N.d. The Art of Science.
Web. 9 Apr. 2017.
How sound are
fMRI brain studies? N.d. Science Photo Library. Thousands
of fMRI brain studies in doubt due to software flaws. Web. 9 Apr. 2017.
Kelly, Kevin.
"The Third Culture." Science. American Association for
the Advancement of Science, 13 Feb. 1998. Web. 9 Apr. 2017.
Snow, C. P. The
two cultures and the scientific revolution. London: The Syndics of the
Cambridge U Press, 1961. PDF.
Unknown. N.d. 3D
FILMS : THE FUTURE OF MOVIES OR JUST A GIMMICK? Web. 9 Apr. 2017.
Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a
Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo, vol. 34, no. 2, 2001,
pp. 121–125., www.jstor.org/stable/1577014.
To add to your blog: while technology is improving research with neuroscience, it's also working the other way around. In my opinion, the most interesting technological advancements right now are integrating the disciplines of neuroscience/cognitive science with CS! For example, machine learning is modeled after our nervous system with the usage of "neurons" to give more weight/attention to certain data it takes it more than others. Many great achievements have yet to come with these type of integration of disciplines!
ReplyDelete