EYE ON CONVERGENCE

“We are the technology.”

“Those who recognized chaos in the early days agonized over how to shape their thoughts and findings into publishable form. Work fell between disciplines—for example, too abstract for physicists yet too experimental for mathematicians. To some the difficulty of communicating the new ideas and the ferocious resistance from traditional quarters showed how revolutionary the new science was. Shallow ideas can be assimilated; ideas that require people to reorganize their picture of the world provoke hostility.”

“Besides structural connectedness, imaginative divergence is also needed for science and art to achieve creative realism. To be considered a creative success, a scientific theory must do more than simply provide some alternative account of a set of findings; it must also provide a meaningful, enlightening interpretation of those findings that inspires the imagination. The theory of relativity, the theory of evolution, and the quantum theory are all imaginatively divergent. The theory of evolution, for example, has had implications far beyond the original patterns explained by Darwin; it has given us an understanding of how bacteriological strains become resistant to antibiotics, it has made psychologists consider the evolution of behavior, and it has given sociologists ideas about how cultures thrive and disappear. In the arts imaginative divergence is also essential; the works that are best remembered are those that not only are interesting compositions, but also inspire the imagination. Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon” was not just a fascinating painting; it also inspired others (such as Braque and Léger) to use Cubism and other methods to abstract and decompose shapes in paintings. The Celtic romance Tristan and Isolde was more than a marvellous play; it inspired countless other dramas of forbidden and tragic young love, such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the modern musical West Side Story. To be successful, creative endeavors in science and art must strive for creative realism.”