Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by alas44 858 days ago
“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.” Frank Herbert
1 comments

Feyman once spoke of how his arty friend thought that scientists miss out on the beauty of a flower when they try to understand its components. (To paraphrase, since I can't remember the exact words), He replied that a scientist can see the outer beauty of the flower as much as the poet - it's just that the scientist can see poetry on a larger scale (the ecosystem, the bees, the co-evolution) and smaller scale (the cellular biology, the biochemistry, the chemistry, the atoms themselves, and then further down into the subatomic particles, etc).

Just because you know how a car works doesn't mean that you can't enjoy a ride across the countryside.

yeah, it's like saying directors can't enjoy movies, since they know how they're made.

sure, some times it's more difficult to suspend disbelief, but on the other hand there is many more details that can be appreciated only by people who know how difficult they are to pull off, and are completely missed by people not in the know.