Occams Hatchet and Is Materialism "Special"

[Whateverist]

-as an addendum to the above.  When an artist studies art theory or art history, formally or informally, what are they doing other than engaging in science as it applies to art?  I do, btw, understand the sentiments of separation, I really do.  I don't concern myself much about science when I appreciate a painting...but I do realize that some people do, that it can be and has been done.  That the pursuit is valuable and informative, even if not to me or my immediate appreciation of the medium....though some behaviorist out there will tell you that this, too, is an empty statement.  It is important to me, I just don't know why or how.

There's more than just "me like painting, me no like painting" going on, and in this context it's hard to see why science would be an improper or unreliable tool...even for that thing we put on the pedestal called "art".  Just google "why do we like pop music" for a demonstration.  You'll be buried in links to research papers very much into the science, of art.

I harbor the romantic notion that the practice of art comes down to precisely what I highlighted in regard to whatever art form we may be drawn to create.  Some artists may take a more rationalist approach to the work they are making - being able to spell out precisely what their intention had been and what role each element included was intended to play.  But I'm pretty sure many more artists are engaged in art making as a kind of voyage of discovery, uncovering what the piece means as they go.  Most artwork is capable of conveying different meanings to different viewers, and of course if those meanings don't align with the artist's own that hardly makes the divergent viewers 'wrong'.  There are places in the world for woo and art is one of them.  My claim is that science could never exhaustively replace the place the arts hold in the world of ideas.  Science is a great tool for understanding the empirical world .. full stop .. nada mas.  Even after science has told us as much as it can about how the brain works, those of us who actually have one will go on experiencing a wide variety of things which no calipers can measure.  There would be no reason to try.

In his "Six non lectures" e e cummings wrote my sentiment more eloquently:

"So long as you and I have lips and voices which are for kissing and to sing with,
who cares if some one eyed son of bitch invents an instrument to measure spring with."*

*As best I can remember.