<p>Yes, of course I value great literature as much as math/physics, PG. Great literature offers insights into the human spirit and the human condition that math and physics cannot touch. Great literature can also help us to gain some partial understanding of people whose life circumstances we do not share.</p>
<p>"think that art, music, architecture, and theater are extremely valuable to students when they approach them seriously. I think art, music, and theater are “entertainment” when they are not approached seriously. "</p>
<p>I don’t know. I get to travel and go to some pretty neat places, and I am the type of person who will learn about the history, culture, language, etc of an area I’m visiting - not to pretend I’m an expert, but more so than the person who shows up at the Louvre, looks at the Mona Lisa and says “pretty” and moves on. I may read historical fiction set in that country, maybe some poetry. I may brush up on the wars and the rulers before I go to a castle, and I avidly read all the guides. That, for me, is how I approach a lot of things - in my head. </p>
<p>But I have two thoughts-
- since I’m not becoming a world class scholar on these things, it really is still for my enjoyment - having the knowledge enhances my enjoyment but at the end of the day it’s still about enhancing my own “entertainment,”
- it’s not necessarily a good thing that I can’t turn my brain off and just enjoy the atmosphere, surroundings, etc. </p>
<p>You use the word “entertainment” which makes it sound like the intellectual equivalent of People magazine, but I think there may be other words that are better suited. Rejuvenation, inspiration come to mind. </p>
<p>Am I correct, then, that you value literature as much as math / physics, but not art / music / theater? I just want to make sure I’m not misrepresenting you. </p>
<p>How about history and politics? </p>
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<p>I am sure private studies at home means exactly the same thing in 1665 and 2020.</p>
<p>Don’t get stuck on the word entertainment when you mean recreation or other sorts of stimulating or refreshing activities or responses. I don’t see music practice as entertainment. For some it is restorative to go through the process and sensations, regardless of whether it leads to some particular goal. You may prefer to sit and listen (passive) while another prefers to engage more actively. Some are restored/refreshed by physical activities, others by different sorts of experiences than in their professional lives. We aren’t just busy bees, you know. It doesn’t always have to be tiered into work-related is vs intellectually stimulating vs personal pleasure. We could go back to the right brain-left brain concept. Or, in short, just say, ease up.</p>
<p>But I’d also want to know how you view the CC hours. Entertainment, some pursuit of knowledge, some relaxing hijinks, a place to let your hair down, whatever-? </p>
<p>"I am not saying that math is important because it excites me. In my opinion, it is important because of the things that it enables people to do. "</p>
<p>Are you a more important professor than your counterparts over in the English or history departments? </p>
<p>QM seems exceedingly well read to me. A scientist who quotes Cicero, in Latin, for goodness sakes! How many others reading along have that ability? Or interest? I get no sense whatsoever of not valuing English literature or history. I’m waiting on the follow up posts. I don’t understand any more about music than I do about math but do understand both can be very meaningful to others.</p>
<p>Also, in spite of my earlier post, it seems to me the internet enables some to put a lot of good out in the world. QM, JHS, Hanna and others seem to be offering extremely valuable volunteer counseling services for students reading on these boards. That’s very admirable imho. </p>
<p>I greatly appreciate anyone smart (and wise) who’s willing to spend the time to talk with me, on the internet or in real life. The majority of my friends are egg head intellectuals. Husband,too. I seek that out. I value it. That doesn’t mean I don’t value friends with very different qualities. Niceness matters a lot more than intellect to me. </p>
<p>adding: I originally posted on this board because another mom was lamenting the fact her son had a gay roommate. I posted for the gay roommate. I kept posting for the gay roommate and got sucked into other discussions. Most all those discussions relate back some way to the gay roomate.</p>
<p>PG, in response to #402, what I am trying to say is that when <em>I</em> approach music, it is purely for entertainment <em>for me</em>. That’s because I do not have the skill, knowledge, or perception to approach it in a better way. I think that great music is on par with great literature, or great physics, or great mathematics as an intellectual pursuit, which lifts the human spirit (for those who can appreciate any of the fields on the list). I do think that mathematics and physics have more practical applications (but see the next paragraph). On the other hand, I think that music and literature enhance us as human beings in ways that mathematics and physics really do not (sorry to my fellow academics in the latter fields). I feel similarly about art and theater–they are like music and literature.</p>
<p>I think it is possible to argue that the improvements in the culture from the Middle Ages, when there were some really horrifying practices, are due in part to developments in literature, art, music, and theater. For an example many years later, the work of Charles Dickens had an impact on society in Victorian England, for the good. So these are in a sense “practical applications,” though they are different in nature from the practical applications of math and physics.</p>
<p>I guess I didn’t think of “entertainment” as a pejorative word. My entertainment is mostly “middle-brow.” I haven’t read People magazine in many, many years. I do have one copy of the magazine, from the marriage of Charles and Diana; it was purchased by my mother-in-law. I’m saving it as a piece of history.</p>
<p>I am looking at Ken Burns’ series on the Roosevelts this week. Although I am learning a thing or two from it, I view it as entertainment–for me–also. </p>
<p>PG, in response to #405, I am staggeringly important, as a professor. :)</p>
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QuantMech, I nominate the Enlightenment philosophers. All of them. Trying to prioritize Newton without the other champions of scientific enquiry makes little sense.</p>
<p>Although, thinking about it, I suppose I’d say Martin Luther deserves credit as well. Had the Catholic church been in full control of Europe, thinkers wouldn’t have had the freedom to reject the old order. Without the Reformation, there would not have been an Enlightenment. </p>
<p>Alh, oddly enough, Steven Pinker published a book recently advancing the theory that human life is more peaceful now than it has ever been. The weapons of the 17th century were sufficient to cause misery.</p>
<p>There are some really fascinating books of counter-factual history, although a lot of historians will not have anything to do with them. Whether there could not have been an Enlightenment without Martin Luther seems doubtful to me. I’d argue (at least semi-seriously) that the key fact about Luther was that he wasn’t burned at the stake, unlike Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, and Hugh Latimer, just for example.</p>
<p>To add to the list of martyrs: Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague. I believe that I have head that Luther was aware of Hus’s fate, and expected to meet the same. Nothing I have written is intended to downplay Martin Luther’s bravery.</p>
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Whenever we have these discussions about the fabulous gifts of math and science, I can’t help remembering that they also give us things that are designed to go boom, as well as poison gas, electric chairs, plastic handguns, etc., etc., etc. There are evil philosophies, too, and the worst happens when an evil philosophy gets control of high-tech tools. One reason I want scientists and engineers to have liberal arts educations is that I don’t want them to have the attitude spoofed in the Tom Lehrer song:
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<p>I think Thomas Jefferson was pretty influential.</p>
<p>QuantMech, I wonder if the difference between us might not lie in a different perception of, oh, call it “the heroic individual.” Yes, there are/have been/will be remarkable scientists, thinkers, artists. On the other hand, the setting for their work makes an enormous difference, in my opinion. We study the Bloomsbury group, the Italian Renaissance, the Transcendentalists, the Algonquin Round Table, the Manhattan Project… The emergence of such groups depends, IMO, on the particular mix of people present at that place and time. </p>
<p>Would there be a Harvard without Pinker? Yup. Can there be an MIT without that one super smart kid? Yup. Will roundedness bring down a U or our world? Nope.
So, is this thread now morphing? </p>
<p>There’s an old saying which I think is pertinent here, “The cemeteries are lined with indispensable men.” The world likely won’t collapse if one person is displaced.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is the criterion by which the significance of admissions policies should be measured.</p>
<p>I didn’t read QM’s comments about appreciating music for its entertainment value dismissive of musicians in any way. </p>
<p>Also, I do think there are those for whom music can lead to a “spiritual experience.” And I’m quite sure I know many for whom sports IS a religion. No doubt some clever neuropsych student is examining the brain activity of such “fanatics” even as we speak.</p>
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<p>I can only speak for myself, but I attended every single class because I’d calculated its retail value and that was just a lot of money to me to throw away. My much more sophisticated (and better educated!) classmates, OTOH, never concerned themselves with such irrelevant calculations. Hell, THEY weren’t paying for it, after all!</p>
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<p>I have. And it leaves me breathless. Even if it’s only the “wisdom of an 18-year-old.” </p>
<p>Wisdom is so much more than “knowledge.” It’s applied knowledge if you will (“the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise”). Was Solomon’s gift that he knew the Law, or that he knew how to apply it justly? </p>
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<p>I bet he’s paid more . . . because “the market” says mathematics is more “valuable”! But that’s a debate for another day. :)</p>
<p>So back to Pinker! This from a review of his latest book, The Sense of Style:</p>
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<p><a href=“The Sense of Style review – Steven Pinker’s comedy of linguistic bad manners | Reference and languages books | The Guardian”>http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/15/sense-of-style-review-steven-pinker-linguistics</a></p>
<p>I may not be smart enough to get into Harvard, but if I were among those privileged enough to be admitted, I would never cut one of Pinker’s classes! :)</p>
<p>I like collegealum’s post #415, for the most part.</p>
<p>I don’t think that Newton was indispensable, nor Einstein. One of the groups of scientists that I used to hang out with joked about the “Einstein Award of Order n,” where n was the number of years it would have taken for someone else to come up with the same idea. Lorentz was pretty far along toward special relativity, for example, when Einstein enunciated it. The group also had the “Lysenko Award of Order n,” for work that set the field back by n years. However, with our current understanding of epigenetics, I suspect that Lysenko’s underlying idea might need to be re-assessed (though perhaps not his work itself) and the award re-named.</p>
<p>Some of the “indispensable men” made things a lot better for the people around them, though. There are some towns in America where the resident entrepreneur/industrialist spent a lot of money to improve the infrastructure of the community, as well as some of the super-structure. I was the beneficiary of a really superb public library in a small town, due to just such an industrialist. While technically not “indispensable,” he did make life better for other people, in a way that his current successors have not.</p>
<p>Some of the other “indispensable” men probably made things worse, rather than better, for the people around them.</p>
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<p>It’s not just the right mix of people that’s important. It is also the culture and the value system that can cause these positive outcomes to emerge. There’s no reason the Renaissance had more talented people than during the Dark Ages–there are cultural forces at work. </p>
<p>And I think that is what we are arguing about here–what sort of culture would translate to excellence in different fields (science, arts, business, politics, etc.)</p>
<p>“I can only speak for myself, but I attended every single class because I’d calculated its retail value and that was just a lot of money to me to throw away.” </p>
<p>I did, too, until spring of senior year and even then, only missed class due to some minor surgery. I don’t “advocate” skipping classes as a matter of course, but there are times when it might be worthwhile in the bigger picture - just like it may be worth putting down my work to comfort a friend in need. </p>