[artfulhippo]

This thread, and the author's blog which I've but skimmed, are to me a microcosm of the clash between 2 archetypes that roughly correspond to Science and the Liberal Arts; let's call them Type 1 and Type 2.

Type 1 aims to formally represent the world in patterns of symbols, with maximal simplicity. Type 2 aims to explore the complexity of the world, with maximal nuance. Type 1 finds value in constructing reductive models that are wrong but maybe useful to influence life in the world. Type 2 seeks freedom from models that reduce life into forms that can be easily influenced. To Type 1, the discovery of a computational model or equation or diagram that explains art or mysticism is a Holy Grail to pursue at all cost. To Type 2, art and mysticism are effectively defined as that which is inherently beyond the grasp of a formal model.

With such a gap in outlook and purpose, it's hard to communicate, to convey information that can be integrated across perspectives. Indeed, the gap is so large that the meanings and connotations of words like "reductive" and "wrong" are only worth quoting from a particular frame of reference.

[bbreier]

I really enjoy the chicken-and-egg-esque meta implications of this comment, that you are of the Type 1 persuasion and therefore find value in this reductive model of human thought. I instinctually grasp for nuance away from these two modes, which ironically seems to put me squarely in Type 2 (even though I often find value in reductive models). Trying to dig deeper into this just feels like zooming in on a fractal.

[marginalia_nu]

The two outlooks can hardly be said to be mutually exclusive. You can absolutely cultivate both sides of yourself, learn to appreciate both logic and poetry. Doing so leaves you a much more well rounded person than either Spock or Bones.

[eecc]

Yup, the moment you squint hard enough it's turtles all the way down. And it's beautiful like that.

[xattt]

There is still some mysticism that exists embedded in a type 1 world. Nursing literature sometimes refers to nurses’ intuition, which is an indescribable feeling that something is wrong with a patient but you can’t quite describe what it is.

Otherwise, nursing is very much a type 1 world of models that describe how nurses interact with the world around them.

[plasticchris]

Alan Watts called them "Prickles and Goo" if I recall, but went on to say the world is actually prickly goo and gooey prickles :)

[123pie123]

Am I type 1 and 2 if I like to see the artistic merit and design in science/ computers and math(s) and how it affects people?

[notriddle]

There's a stereotype that art is the domain of the anti-reductionist, but I don't think that's a historical constant. Would anyone say that mathematically-accurate linear perspective had no artistic merit when it was invented? How about techniques like the rule of thirds? What would you call abstract art, if not an attempt to reduce art to its true fundamentals?

[gjygj]

There is also Type 3, which is both Type 1 and Type 2, alternatively, or at the same time.

[sebow]

I would say this "divide" in thought started a couple of centuries ago(at it was very noticeable in recorded history).Even among "type 1", let's take an example: math: you had the so-called fundamentalists that believed in power of measurements and the other who believed in the power of abstract,imaginary,etc.

This also applies to computing later (and still to this day) and pretty much everything else under the sun, including arts/liberal arts, for example: people who believed in the fundamental of beauty, complexity, hand-made craft, and some who would believe in the abstract notions, conveyed messages,etc.(you definitely see this throughout "modern art")

To me,making this distinction seems like the wrong approach.It's good and healthy for this divide to exist (because it's the premise of making something better, advancing a thought, otherwise you stagnate in one worldview) but it's wrong to assume one is better than the other, therefore everyone should adhere to this framework and abandon criticism).Moreover than that, people seem to be afraid to say: "I don't believe that, i think i can do better" when it comes to certain frameworks of thought.You definitely see stagnation on this kind in physics for example.

[recuter]

ta-ta-ta-Taaa!