LASER June Art, Science and the Limits of Curiosity Roger Malina o Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence o Leonardo/ISAST/OLATS o IMERA: Institut Mediterraneen de Recherche Avancee

Motivators : o Curiosity o Doubt o Meaning o Engineering… Curiosity: o Necessity: All knowledge is conditioned by the structure of the knower (Varela) o Ethics: “the nature of the task of the “ought’ is the other- directedness of the “is” Sundar Sarukkai: Science and the Ethics of Curiosity. 2009

Outline My own experience in scientific collaboration Types of Art- Science Collaboration Ethics of Curiosity Limits to Curiosity Towards Ethics of Art-Science Collaboration

What is the universe made of ? Analysis of images like this tell us that 95% of the content of this image is “dark” Does not emit light of any kind. 30% ‘dark matter” that holds galaxies together 60% ‘dark energy” that is a pressure driving the expansion of the universe

Curiosity: D’ou venons nous ? Que Sommes Nous ? Ou Allons Nous ?

Three linked approaches within the scientific method that stop curiosity Exlanation through New Physical « Laws »: o Compact Descriptions of the World o Experiments on the world o Modified Gravity, Quintessence Simulations: o Virtual Worlds that mimic our World o Retrodiction vs Prediction Pattern Recognition: o « Petabyte » era, Massive Cataloguing, Virtual Observatories o Doing experiments on data about the world o Extrapolation vs Explanation…The End of Theory…

A satellite to study dark energy and dark matter Massive collection of data A international scientific collaboration Total End to End cost: 1 billion dollars Womb to Tomb schedule: ? 25 years… Ten different research labs and universities 80 person core collaboration already..hundreds

Some Challenges of a large scientific collaborations Defining Success: o Scientific vs Institutional o Individual vs Collective Reconciling differing cultures: o Physicists and Astronomers: Experiments vs Observations o Engineers and Scientists:  Fixed vs Evolving requirements, Convergent vs Divergent  Different Funding Agencies: decision methods, employment status o Ground Based vs Space Based: Risk aversion Partial Buy In: o Many collaborators will participate in only part of the project Trust: o Confidentiality during competive phases o Interlocking projects, Intellectual Property, Recognition mechanisms,

Some Modes of Art-Science and Art- Technology Collaboration Creative Friction: flow of ideas, metaphors Collaborative teams: Shared resources for common outcome o eg E.A.T, cf Special Effects/Animation/Games Consortia: o Shared resources for multiple outcomes o eg EMobilart as a consortium of collaborative teams Collectives: o Shared access to resources eg L Smarr, UCSD Supercomputing Center New Leonardos/ Renaissance Teams: o Explicit Art, Science, Innovation outcomes

When does one stop looking ? What is the limit of curiosity ? o Scientist: When one has a tested explanation that makes sense o Artist: When one has generated an experience that creates meaning/changes perception/realised self expression What kinds of explanations/meanings make sense ? o Scientist: When we are dealing with epistemologies/ontologies that are commensurate with ourcurrent science o Artist: When it is relevant to the human condition and experience. Individual and shared Is there an ethics of curiosity ? o See Science and the Ethics of Curiosity, Sundar Sarukkai, 2009 o Most Scientists would say: No o Most Artists would say: Yes

Scientific Curiosity Scientific curiosity is ‘pure’, driven by a child like desire to understand ourselves and the world around us o Pure Science vs Applied Science o Note: Fine Art vs Applied Art Curiosity does not accept authority, but relies on confrontation of hypotheses/meanings with experiments/experience. o No function of ‘science critic’ cf ‘art critic”

Ethos of Scientific Curiosity cf Bunge 2006, Morton Intellectual Honesty Integrity Epistemic Communism Organized skepticism Dis-interestedness Impersonality Universality

Towards an Ethics of Curiosity cf Sundar Sarukkai: Science and the Ethics of Curiosity 2009 Curiosity is embodied Curiosity is enacted Curiosity is cultural Curiosity is social Curiosity is collective The claimed distinction between “pure” and “applied” science is not sustainable In some cultures, eg India, doubt rather than curiosity is a dominant driver inquiry ( cf Descartes) “Beware of binary oppositions” !

Curiosity is embodied: Varela: All knowledge is conditioned by the structure of the knower Stelarc Char Davies

Curiosity is enactive eg Marcel.li Antunez Roca Richard Feynman: What I cannot create, I cannot understand

Curiosity is Social Marco Peljham and Makrolab

Curiosity is Cultural Saint Augustine: It was curiosity led me along the false trails before submitting to christian baptisms Francis Bacon: It is Charity that must motivate the knower, not curiosity Donna Cox Ruth West Weather Data Bases Protein Sequence Data

Curiosity is collective: Alan Lightman: Individual scientists are not emotionally detached from their work, it is through their collective activity that objectivity emerges Frank Malina/WAC corporal team: first man man object in space 1947

Limits to Curiosity 3 contingencies that drive what we will know in 50 years: What we WANT to know What we CAN know WHO we think we will become

What we CAN know Technological Conceptual Epistomology Language Intuition Methodological Evolution of the scientific method

What we WANT to know Myopias: Social Cultural Political

Who we think we will become Contingencies from who we are Time Scale Long, Short Physical Size Large, Small Nature of our beings Carbon based life 6 billion networked individuals

Living in New Scales cf Cheese Diagram Guardans, Czegledy SLOW FAST SMALL OUR SIZE LARGE

New Senses: Gravitational Wave Observatories LIGO in USA VIRGO in Italy

New senses: The Antares Neutrino Observatory under the Mediterranean

Limits of Curiosity in Collaboration Ethics: Values: o Fear of Misuse o Intellectual Property o Social Model o Trust  Who is funding Cost :( Time, Resources) Strategic Alliance Expertise o Training o Experience

Modern Science doesn’t make common sense New scientific knowledge comes through the use of instruments that have contact with a world that is not our world o Our languages, metaphors, descriptions are disconnected from these worlds o We are trained on the wrong data set for survival Einstein:” The universe of ideas is just as independent of the nature of our experience as clothes are of the form of the human body” Science has become a cargo cult

The Scientific Method as a Terrain for Art-Science Collaboration Forming intuition on mediated sensory data Designing/Interacting with simulated systems Making sense/meaning of dense data, petabyte era Making Science Intimate Peoples Science Micro Science New Ontologies, New Intuitions,New Sensuality

Mediated Sensuality Cezanne: Mont St Victoire Sabine Raaf: Translator II

“Moist” Curiosity: o Making explicit the ethical conditions and the limits to our curiosity Curiosity: o Necessity: All knowledge is conditioned by the structure of the knower (Varela) o Ethics: “the nature of the task of the “ought’ is the other- directedness of the “is” Sundar Sarukkai: Science and the Ethics of Curiosity