Subject
Kurt Johnson response to Boyd on Comments on NY Times Review:
Nabokov'sButterflies
Nabokov'sButterflies
From
Date
Body
EDITORIAL NOTE. Kurt Johnson, lepidoperiest and co-author of NABOKOV's
BLUES, comments on Boyd's response to New Yourk Times review of NABOKOV's
BUTTERFLIES. Those interested in a more extended view of Vn and the
art/science issue should take a look at the discussion goining on the
Nabokov discussion list at NYTimes.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kurt Johnson" <belina@dellnet.com>
.
>
> ---------------- Message requiring your approval (132
lines) ------------------
> A short message can't really do justice to the breath of implications in
> Brian's comment. However, I wanted to mention that some people on
> NYTimes.com Nabokov discussion found Brian's comments very welcome and
> copied them over to that discussion. Historical perspective is always
> important. Someone asked me a question today about defining evolution and
I
> had to briefly take them briefly through the history of both its claims
and
> how those claims were made. Only in that context could they see that what
> "evolution" is has changed dramatically through historical stages
> (pre-Darwinism [no recognition that nature itself selects physical
> attributes just as does a human breeder of dogs, horses or orchids],
simple
> Darwinism [natural selection with no knowledge of genetics], Darwinism
plus
> knowledge of an individual's genetics [Darwin plus Mendel], Darwinsim plus
> population genetics [NeoDarwinism], NeoDarwnism plus vicariance, plus
> catastrophe, plus non-equilibrium thermodynamics etc. etc.
[PostDarwinism])
> and, as such, resists simple soundbites. One can go back to a time (to
wit
> almost like in the branching scientific diagrams of evolution where shared
> nodes before each branching are common ancestors) when the "difference"
> between art and science was rather slight. Not be resort to "no-brainers"
> here but, as examples, daVinci's drawings of war machines for his patrons,
> the degree or "art" or "science" in cave art, or Raphael's studies in
> perspective etc. "Teddy" at NYTimes.com suggested that art and science
are
> like sibling children borne of nature within man's creativity-- a nice
> metaphor; and each child grows and takes its own unique direction. Much
> can be learned by a study like Brian suggests that tries to take the
> divergence back to its roots. I don't know if their are similar
> studies....I imagine there may well be.....certainly there have been
amazing
> analyzes in sociology of the origins of phenomona, like the origin of
cities
> [Eliade], that reduce things to amazingly insightful basics. If its
> instructive at all, I have more than a feeling that the seed of Brian's
new
> venture [book] grew out of his pondering this art/science interface in
> Nabokov while at the same time delving into Karl Popper. Its seems odd to
> some modern thinkers that the revelations of Popper (about what science
was
> really doing all along-- the deductive method, not the inductive one) were
> so long in coming or really "revelations" at all. But, revelations often
> amount to sudden reversals-- like when Stephen Gould and Niles Eldridge
> suggested that the missing data in the fossil record, the "gaps", WAS, in
> fact, data, not lack of it [i.e. that stasis WAS information, not lack of
> it]. That changed everything (anyone notice that Nabokov said this in
> Father's Butterflies?) [I'm waiting to see if any smart biologist catches
on
> to that one]-- or the Manhattan Project suddenly changing from the
explosion
> to the implosion model for nuclear triggers in about day and a half! So,
> Teddy suggested that the material at the base of Brian's question is vast.
> Undoubtedly. The larger part of my question is, of course, not simply how
> science itself, or Nabokov's science, meaningfully eludicates his art, but
> whether there is something in his doing of the science (and perhaps even
the
> struggle amongst "folk" to recognize its "relevance") that says something
> about the sociology of the arts. Lately, I think you may know of this
> artist ["major minor"] who had a stroke which paralyzed one side of her
> brain; now she has become "minor major" (that's how it go into the press,
of
> course) and paints in some ways completely different than before (and
> evidently with incredible visual results). She says that now her left
hand
> is able to do things (totally extemporaneously) that no amount of
> calculation, and her right hand, allowed her to do before. Bring in the
> brain/mind people (of course, Nabokov also had that sensory,
> color/sound-related, brain condition, so there may be connections to that
as
> well re his "mental gynmastics"). Well enough. But thanks Brian for
> responding. We won't mention [I just did] the Nobel laureate who thanked
> his recurring dream of a brilliant red snake biting its tail, releasing,
> biting..... for the discovery of the benzine ring (and hence modern
> cyclo-chemistry). Art/science.
>
> Kurt Johnson
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: D. Barton Johnson <chtodel@gte.net>
> To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Monday, May 22, 2000 7:58 AM
> Subject: Fw: Boyd on Comments on NY Times Review: Nabokov'sButterflies
>
>
> > ----------
> > > From: Brian Boyd <b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
> > >
> > > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (39 lines)
> > ------------------
> > > From Brian Boyd:
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Kurt Johnson" <belina@dellnet.com>
> > > >That leads me to ask, honestly, does
> > > > anyone have a suggestion about what Nabokov's enterprise in science
> > > > meaningfully elucidates about the arts? I think that would be an
> > > > interesting question to explore.
> > >
> > > May I just say in response to Kurt Johnson's and Wayne Daniels's
> > comments,
> > > that I try my hardest to answer the question of the relationship
between
> > > Nabokov's science and his art in my introduction to _Nabokov's
> > Butterflies_,
> > > and in the quite different introduction to "Father's Butterflies" in
the
> > April
> > > issue of The Atlantic, not of course that there isn't much more to be
> > said. I
> > > don't think Nabokov's art explains anything much in his science
(except
> > > perhaps that the dedication, the intelligence, the memory, the
> curiosity,
> > and
> > > the eye for detail and pattern evident in his art explain why someone
> who
> > > devoted the equivalent of only about three years of research time to
> > > butterflies could have also made innovative and durable contributions
to
> > this
> > > field), but his science does explain certain unique features of his
art,
> > as I
> > > have tried to show at some length.
> > >
> > > I have also asked in more general terms the question of the
relationship
> > > between literary and scientific discovery, with some reference to VN
(as
> > well
> > > as to graffiti and Shakespeare) in "Literature and Discovery" in
> > _Philosophy
> > > and Literature_ 23 (1999), 274-94, and am working on a book that
> > considers the
> > > origins of art in the light of (evolutionary) science, and the role of
> > art in
> > > the origins of science and of science in the development of art.
> > >
> > > Frankly I find it puzzling that reviewers and readers can be intensely
> > > interested in one of the two most amazing achievements of the human
> > creative
> > > imagination (art) and not in the other (science), or in the creativity
> of
> > > nature that gave rise to them both. And that some readers find nothing
> > > revealing in the range and development and local aptness of Nabokov's
> use
> > of
> > > Lepidoptera in his fiction. Believe me, the revelations are there, and
I
> > hope
> > > my introductions help point to some of the ways they can be reached.
> > >
> > > Brian Boyd
>
BLUES, comments on Boyd's response to New Yourk Times review of NABOKOV's
BUTTERFLIES. Those interested in a more extended view of Vn and the
art/science issue should take a look at the discussion goining on the
Nabokov discussion list at NYTimes.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kurt Johnson" <belina@dellnet.com>
.
>
> ---------------- Message requiring your approval (132
lines) ------------------
> A short message can't really do justice to the breath of implications in
> Brian's comment. However, I wanted to mention that some people on
> NYTimes.com Nabokov discussion found Brian's comments very welcome and
> copied them over to that discussion. Historical perspective is always
> important. Someone asked me a question today about defining evolution and
I
> had to briefly take them briefly through the history of both its claims
and
> how those claims were made. Only in that context could they see that what
> "evolution" is has changed dramatically through historical stages
> (pre-Darwinism [no recognition that nature itself selects physical
> attributes just as does a human breeder of dogs, horses or orchids],
simple
> Darwinism [natural selection with no knowledge of genetics], Darwinism
plus
> knowledge of an individual's genetics [Darwin plus Mendel], Darwinsim plus
> population genetics [NeoDarwinism], NeoDarwnism plus vicariance, plus
> catastrophe, plus non-equilibrium thermodynamics etc. etc.
[PostDarwinism])
> and, as such, resists simple soundbites. One can go back to a time (to
wit
> almost like in the branching scientific diagrams of evolution where shared
> nodes before each branching are common ancestors) when the "difference"
> between art and science was rather slight. Not be resort to "no-brainers"
> here but, as examples, daVinci's drawings of war machines for his patrons,
> the degree or "art" or "science" in cave art, or Raphael's studies in
> perspective etc. "Teddy" at NYTimes.com suggested that art and science
are
> like sibling children borne of nature within man's creativity-- a nice
> metaphor; and each child grows and takes its own unique direction. Much
> can be learned by a study like Brian suggests that tries to take the
> divergence back to its roots. I don't know if their are similar
> studies....I imagine there may well be.....certainly there have been
amazing
> analyzes in sociology of the origins of phenomona, like the origin of
cities
> [Eliade], that reduce things to amazingly insightful basics. If its
> instructive at all, I have more than a feeling that the seed of Brian's
new
> venture [book] grew out of his pondering this art/science interface in
> Nabokov while at the same time delving into Karl Popper. Its seems odd to
> some modern thinkers that the revelations of Popper (about what science
was
> really doing all along-- the deductive method, not the inductive one) were
> so long in coming or really "revelations" at all. But, revelations often
> amount to sudden reversals-- like when Stephen Gould and Niles Eldridge
> suggested that the missing data in the fossil record, the "gaps", WAS, in
> fact, data, not lack of it [i.e. that stasis WAS information, not lack of
> it]. That changed everything (anyone notice that Nabokov said this in
> Father's Butterflies?) [I'm waiting to see if any smart biologist catches
on
> to that one]-- or the Manhattan Project suddenly changing from the
explosion
> to the implosion model for nuclear triggers in about day and a half! So,
> Teddy suggested that the material at the base of Brian's question is vast.
> Undoubtedly. The larger part of my question is, of course, not simply how
> science itself, or Nabokov's science, meaningfully eludicates his art, but
> whether there is something in his doing of the science (and perhaps even
the
> struggle amongst "folk" to recognize its "relevance") that says something
> about the sociology of the arts. Lately, I think you may know of this
> artist ["major minor"] who had a stroke which paralyzed one side of her
> brain; now she has become "minor major" (that's how it go into the press,
of
> course) and paints in some ways completely different than before (and
> evidently with incredible visual results). She says that now her left
hand
> is able to do things (totally extemporaneously) that no amount of
> calculation, and her right hand, allowed her to do before. Bring in the
> brain/mind people (of course, Nabokov also had that sensory,
> color/sound-related, brain condition, so there may be connections to that
as
> well re his "mental gynmastics"). Well enough. But thanks Brian for
> responding. We won't mention [I just did] the Nobel laureate who thanked
> his recurring dream of a brilliant red snake biting its tail, releasing,
> biting..... for the discovery of the benzine ring (and hence modern
> cyclo-chemistry). Art/science.
>
> Kurt Johnson
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: D. Barton Johnson <chtodel@gte.net>
> To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Monday, May 22, 2000 7:58 AM
> Subject: Fw: Boyd on Comments on NY Times Review: Nabokov'sButterflies
>
>
> > ----------
> > > From: Brian Boyd <b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz>
> > >
> > > ----------------- Message requiring your approval (39 lines)
> > ------------------
> > > From Brian Boyd:
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Kurt Johnson" <belina@dellnet.com>
> > > >That leads me to ask, honestly, does
> > > > anyone have a suggestion about what Nabokov's enterprise in science
> > > > meaningfully elucidates about the arts? I think that would be an
> > > > interesting question to explore.
> > >
> > > May I just say in response to Kurt Johnson's and Wayne Daniels's
> > comments,
> > > that I try my hardest to answer the question of the relationship
between
> > > Nabokov's science and his art in my introduction to _Nabokov's
> > Butterflies_,
> > > and in the quite different introduction to "Father's Butterflies" in
the
> > April
> > > issue of The Atlantic, not of course that there isn't much more to be
> > said. I
> > > don't think Nabokov's art explains anything much in his science
(except
> > > perhaps that the dedication, the intelligence, the memory, the
> curiosity,
> > and
> > > the eye for detail and pattern evident in his art explain why someone
> who
> > > devoted the equivalent of only about three years of research time to
> > > butterflies could have also made innovative and durable contributions
to
> > this
> > > field), but his science does explain certain unique features of his
art,
> > as I
> > > have tried to show at some length.
> > >
> > > I have also asked in more general terms the question of the
relationship
> > > between literary and scientific discovery, with some reference to VN
(as
> > well
> > > as to graffiti and Shakespeare) in "Literature and Discovery" in
> > _Philosophy
> > > and Literature_ 23 (1999), 274-94, and am working on a book that
> > considers the
> > > origins of art in the light of (evolutionary) science, and the role of
> > art in
> > > the origins of science and of science in the development of art.
> > >
> > > Frankly I find it puzzling that reviewers and readers can be intensely
> > > interested in one of the two most amazing achievements of the human
> > creative
> > > imagination (art) and not in the other (science), or in the creativity
> of
> > > nature that gave rise to them both. And that some readers find nothing
> > > revealing in the range and development and local aptness of Nabokov's
> use
> > of
> > > Lepidoptera in his fiction. Believe me, the revelations are there, and
I
> > hope
> > > my introductions help point to some of the ways they can be reached.
> > >
> > > Brian Boyd
>