Fifth International Conference

GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS: Protecting the Arts Against Interference by Science

This is the age of fantastic technological advance in the instrumentation and techniques of the cognitive sciences, especially neuroscience. Growing numbers of scientists and cognitive critical studies scholars have come to believe that by working together, we approach a Golden Age in which the arts can be fully measured and enlightened by the sciences. What unfortunately turns out to be at risk, however, is often nothing less than what have historically been, and must remain, the sacred and ineffable mysteries of the arts.

Harry Youtt, whose scholarly appreciation for scientific advances as they have impacted the arts over the past decade can hardly be gainsaid, will discuss the need for vigilance. We need now to explore the limitations of science and the risks to the arts that those limitations pose. Several examples, taken (as appropriate to the dual themes of this conference) from the realms of music theory will illustrate the nature of the risks and the often damaging absurdities that stem from scientific over-extension.

Science is fully capable of measuring quantity. To be sure, there are areas in which science can appropriately explore and enlighten aspects of the arts and thereby make valuable contributions. However, science is essentially incapable of measuring quality. Science can measure the overt, but ultimately, science abhors a mystery.

The arts, on the other hand, ultimately surrender to mystery and thrive on its elaboration and beautification. The goal of this presentation will be to define a rational fence that will be the dividing line between legitimate scientific exploration and damaging over-extension that would threaten the core of creative expression.