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What is the difference between "Arts" and "Science"?

Apr 7, 2020

In an online friend bureau activity recently, a friend from elementary school in liberal arts expressed his confusion. She felt that liberal arts was unrealistic, and she should have learned more about science when she was a child. During this period of time, some advertisements for software learning often appeared on the Internet, which made her very anxious after reading it.

Another person who happened to be present was a programmer. His view was: Science is a tool, and tools are only to assist in solving problems. There are also many parts that need to use liberal arts skills when making products, such as copywriting and the like: he I think the arts are equally important.

In high school, I especially hated liberal arts courses, and I slept a lot during class. Because the liberal arts has a lot of things that need to be memorized by rote, and my memory is particularly bad. The premise of me being able to remember things is “understanding”, but a lot of the contents of the liberal arts feel unintelligible. Once I can’t figure it out, I can’t remember it, so for a long time, I was very repulsive to the liberal arts. Fortunately, later After the liberal arts class, I went to the science class.

When I really discovered the charm of the liberal arts was actually in college. Undergraduate, I chose an engineering major, "Communication Engineering". I originally thought that my love for science and engineering would continue to university, but after I went to university, I completely lost interest in the courses I studied. At the same time, what makes people unexpected is that more of my time is spent reading some idle books.

Later, when I reflected on it, I realized that what I really hated was not the liberal arts or the sciences. Every subject is very interesting, and there is a lot of knowledge in careful study. The third is the learning environment as a whole.

A classroom shot when I first entered the school

Although, I don't agree with the rough classification of all subjects, such as "geography", in fact, it is difficult for you to simply classify it as a liberal arts or a science, even though it belongs to the liberal arts at the stage of my schooling.

However, since the division of arts and sciences is a fact of the past, after coming into contact with a large number of liberal arts and sciences, I also have a deeper understanding of the two disciplines, and it seems that I can now describe more clearly what they are, and What do they do to the individual.

There used to be a very famous saying, "Learn mathematics, physics and chemistry, and you will not be afraid to travel all over the world". In my opinion, the foundation of "science" is "mathematics", and the characteristic is "pragmatic". Science emphasizes looking at the world from a mathematically rational perspective, and then using knowledge to realize some ideas in the real world.

Whether it is physics, chemistry, or the development of software and hardware, they are all based on mathematics, combined with a lot of natural knowledge and experiments, and then make imaginary results.

In contrast, liberal arts have a lot of "retreat", such as literature, spirit, feelings... Unlike science, it is difficult for you to give them a clear definition. In my opinion, if we have to make a summary and induction of these humanities, I think the foundation of the liberal arts is "perspective" and "narrative".

For the liberal arts, "perspective" is a very important core: some people describe the whole country as a subject object, some people describe it as an individual object; some people see the world as materialistic, others see The world is ideal; some see everything with a historical eye, some see things with a developmental eye...

After seeing, the next step is to express.

Therefore, "storytelling" is a very important means in the liberal arts (not the only means, but also discussion and explanation). Through the narrative of the story, the audience can participate in the perspective of the sharer, and then gradually form a spiritual consensus and Unity, politics class, history class are all narratives based on a specific perspective.

Liberal Arts - Narrative / Science - Doing Things

The liberal arts and sciences are not mutually exclusive or intersecting. They are actually just two different ways of understanding the world, or two different stages of interacting with the world. Based on this understanding, science, as a perspective, can also be classified as a broader category of liberal arts; in the same way, when liberal arts begin to become a reality from an illusory field, it is bound to have a relationship with science. intersection.

What is the use of arts and sciences?

I think this analogy can be used to explain the role of liberal arts and sciences: for individuals, many people often fall into confusion. When a person is in a state of confusion, it is like being at a loss in the darkness. In this state, the function of the liberal arts is to draw a blueprint and guide the direction, so that people can look up to the stars and yearn for it; and the function of the science is to make you stay down-to -earth and take every step in the process of moving forward in this direction.

For groups, the role of liberal arts is to create an imaginary consensus, whether it is "law", "power", "nation", "time" or "money"... …they are not things that originally existed in the objective world, they are concepts made up by human beings, but by creating these concepts and disseminating them through narratives, unrelated groups of people form an imaginary community: a group of people without People who are related by blood begin to live orderly lives based on the same idea or story.

The role of science for groups is at the level of practicality. It provides a very clear standard and specific implementation plan, so that different people can achieve the same effect in another time and space through repeated behavior, so that group cooperation can be realized in reality. possible in.

In addition to the arts and sciences, I would also like to mention a little extra "art".

If the arts and sciences are classified into a more unified category of "rationality", then a corresponding irrational mysterious area is art, which is more related to "sensation".

What is the role of art? Going back to the above metaphor of finding a direction and moving forward in confusion, the role of art in this process is to emphasize that you should pay attention to what kind of feelings you will have when you are moving in a certain direction.

The world is originally a complete object, whether it is liberal arts, science, or art, the advantage of their existence is that they allow us to have an easier way of understanding the world, but such classification also has corresponding defects , which limits the space in which we can perceive and interact with the world.

No matter what we learn, in the final analysis, it is to have more effective interaction with the world and to realize ourselves in the process.

For this reason, breaking the boundaries of disciplines will eventually become a choice that everyone who has more needs to explore the world will definitely try.

In the process of disciplinary coherence, we also finally have the opportunity to see a more real world.

Other references:

what is "philosophy"

what is "art"

What is "Cognitive Upgrade"

What is "self"?

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