Here, I say to myself when I see a rainbow, is something worth knowing about and yet I do not understand it at all. The wonder is the fuel that leads to curiosity, which leads to knowledge.
If you look at the context of the quote, the magician’s previous line is:
“People come to my show because they want a sense of wonder. They want to experience something that they can’t explain.” (emphasis added)
That doesn’t seem to be the same sentiment as the one you’re describing.
The mindset in which something only has wonder when you think it’s unexplainable (not just unexplained) is not a rational or scientific one.
I’m quite uncomfortable with these sorts of statements. Rationalism and science are ways of approaching and analysing the world, not modes of aesthetic appreciation. This smacks a little to me of the idea that the scientifically aware realise that there is ‘more beauty’ in nature than in art.
If I met someone who was clear-minded, analytical and empirical I wouldn’t call them irrational and unscientific just because they experience wonder at unexplained magic tricks rather than great scientific theories, or because they found the poetry of Eliot more beautiful than the structure of the universe (I know you haven’t claimed the latter, just addressing a more widespread ‘scientific people appreciate X’ claim).
I didn’t think this would fit into the top level of the quotes thread, but in this context it might actually serve pretty well:
The perception of truth is almost as simple a feeling as the perception of beauty, and the genius of Newton, of Shakespeare, of Michelangelo, and of Handel are not very remote in character from each other. Imagination, as well as the reason, is necessary to perfection in the philosophic mind. A rapidity of combination, a power of perceiving analogies, and of comparing them by facts, is the creative source of discovery.
I guess the question is whether this is perception of truth or ‘truthiness’. On the one hand, people can have a deep sense that something is inevitably true that then turns out to be false. On the other, some individuals, such as Einstein, seem to be good at recognising the sort of aesthetic elegance that suggests a true theory
On the whole, I’m sceptical about the ‘direct perception of truth’ idea: it tends to suggest that all we need to do is clear away a certain level of obvious biases and then we can trust our gut. And that others who demand evidence for things we consider obvious are nit-pickers and nay-sayers. Not sure that’s very good for rationality.
Fair points, but rather different from what I took home from that quote. I saw Davy as saying more that the wonder inherent in hypothesis-generation is closely identified with the aesthetic wonder of art of music—and presumably of unexplained magic tricks. I wouldn’t be too terribly surprised to discover that they all engage the same reward pathways on a biological level.
We do need filters, but that’s where the imagination/reason distinction comes in. However wonderful it is to generate ideas, it’s only by checking them that we free up space for the next wonderful idea.
It can certainly be read that way: and I’d agree that this is often the ‘creative source of discovery’. My problem is the line about ‘perception of truth’, which I think appeals to a too-common idea that we have a natural ‘truth-sensing’ apparatus and we just need to clear stuff out of the way. It’s dangerous for science and other human discovery if we assume that the first satisfaying, consistent explanation of something is true.
If you look at the context of the quote, the magician’s previous line is:
“People come to my show because they want a sense of wonder. They want to experience something that they can’t explain.” (emphasis added)
That doesn’t seem to be the same sentiment as the one you’re describing.
The mindset in which something only has wonder when you think it’s unexplainable (not just unexplained) is not a rational or scientific one.
I’m quite uncomfortable with these sorts of statements. Rationalism and science are ways of approaching and analysing the world, not modes of aesthetic appreciation. This smacks a little to me of the idea that the scientifically aware realise that there is ‘more beauty’ in nature than in art.
If I met someone who was clear-minded, analytical and empirical I wouldn’t call them irrational and unscientific just because they experience wonder at unexplained magic tricks rather than great scientific theories, or because they found the poetry of Eliot more beautiful than the structure of the universe (I know you haven’t claimed the latter, just addressing a more widespread ‘scientific people appreciate X’ claim).
I didn’t think this would fit into the top level of the quotes thread, but in this context it might actually serve pretty well:
-- Humphry Davy
I guess the question is whether this is perception of truth or ‘truthiness’. On the one hand, people can have a deep sense that something is inevitably true that then turns out to be false. On the other, some individuals, such as Einstein, seem to be good at recognising the sort of aesthetic elegance that suggests a true theory
On the whole, I’m sceptical about the ‘direct perception of truth’ idea: it tends to suggest that all we need to do is clear away a certain level of obvious biases and then we can trust our gut. And that others who demand evidence for things we consider obvious are nit-pickers and nay-sayers. Not sure that’s very good for rationality.
Fair points, but rather different from what I took home from that quote. I saw Davy as saying more that the wonder inherent in hypothesis-generation is closely identified with the aesthetic wonder of art of music—and presumably of unexplained magic tricks. I wouldn’t be too terribly surprised to discover that they all engage the same reward pathways on a biological level.
We do need filters, but that’s where the imagination/reason distinction comes in. However wonderful it is to generate ideas, it’s only by checking them that we free up space for the next wonderful idea.
It can certainly be read that way: and I’d agree that this is often the ‘creative source of discovery’. My problem is the line about ‘perception of truth’, which I think appeals to a too-common idea that we have a natural ‘truth-sensing’ apparatus and we just need to clear stuff out of the way. It’s dangerous for science and other human discovery if we assume that the first satisfaying, consistent explanation of something is true.