{"id":59844,"date":"2018-06-29T05:06:18","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T05:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=59844"},"modified":"2018-06-29T05:06:18","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T05:06:18","slug":"arts-sciences-models-illustrations-buddhas-within-mandalas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=59844","title":{"rendered":"Arts & Sciences, models & illustrations, Buddhas within mandalas"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — on the illustration, visualization and modeling of supposed reality — note: I am no scientist, no artist, in fact an aphantasic ]
\n.<\/p>\n

A telling caption to an image<\/a> in New Scientist<\/strong> gave rather more of the game away than was maybe intended. <\/p>\n

The image:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The caption:<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have no pictures of the real thing, so enjoy this one instead. Oliver Burston\/Alamy<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

It’s a nice image, and could be used to represent Lise Meitner<\/strong>‘s discovery of nuclear fission, or some new feature of Kepler’s Supernova<\/strong>, or even, Lord knows, to sell collectible gold coin<\/strong> or diamonds<\/strong>.. And it brings up in acute form an issue I’ve long had with science <\/strong>— in the context of education <\/strong>and the last century’s growing indifference to the arts and humanities<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

How much of what passes for science in the pop science press is in fact art, and specifically photography? And as a sub-question, how much of the impact a particular piece of scientific work receives is dependent on the various qualities of the illustrations used to accompany and promote it — which all too often fit the description in the caption above:<\/p>\n

We have no pictures of the real thing, so enjoy this one instead. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or alternatively, shooting for something a little more frank, but not too terribly impolite:<\/p>\n

We have no pictures of the real thing, so enjoy this bullshit instead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

We hardly ever have a picture of the real thing — which occurs at nano-scale, or outside the visible spectrum, or —<\/p>\n

Well, some while back, we discussed<\/a> (ignorantly, rest assured, De Docta Ignorantia<\/a>, qv) a mathematical object of interest to physicists known as The Amplituhedron<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Amplituhedron can alternatively be illustrated thus<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s a donut for anyone who can imagine what can possibly merit both illustrations!<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

On our way to an understanding of the Amplituhedron<\/strong>, we pass by diagrams such as this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— immediately followed by these words:<\/p>\n

Although it is hard to draw the complete four-dimensional polytope, its four three-dimensional faces each define square-pyramidal regions of G(2, 4)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— as, for instance, this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

Oh, c’mon, it’s not that hard, just visualize it! <\/p>\n

Tibetan monks can visualize things like this 3-D palace replete with Vases, Wish-granting Trees, Bodhisattvas, Tathagatas and Shaktis, all surrounding the deity Kalachakra<\/strong> and his Consort, Vishvamata<\/strong> —<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the vajrayanist Tibetan practitioners, yes, manage this just by PhD and postdoc level visualization practice, with diagrammatic assists like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— and a blueprint like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— always bearing in mind that, eh, “Kalachakra is a black skinned, four-faced god with twelve arms and twenty-four hands, in passionate embrace with his consort”:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kalachakra and Vishvamata, from the Rubin Museum of Art<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

Ah, but that’s arts and humanities > comparative religion > Tibetan meditation<\/strong>, not sciences > physics > mathematical physics<\/strong>, eh?<\/p>\n

In all this, I intend to defend both science<\/strong>, properly so understood, as practiced bt qualified practitioners within its various subdisciplines, and arts and humanities<\/strong>, properly so understood, as practiced bt qualified practitioners within their various subdisciplines — while making clear the overwhelmingly important distinction that illustrations are all too often not science but STEM-propaganda, glossy \/ shiny objects passing for science while in fact falling under the categories of illustration or photography.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

This isn’t, for instance, in any scientific sense, the Horseshoe Nebula<\/strong> —<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s, as its title suggests, a reproduction of a compositie color image of the Horseshoe Nebula<\/strong><\/p>\n

— and to be honest, it may bear as much resemblance to a horse’s head as this reoroductionf of a color image of a seahorse does:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

Just let’s keep the arts’ contribution to science illustration filed under arts (illustration), and math diagrams filed under math (diagrams) — I’ve included some of both above — and maybe the arts and humanities will get to siphon off some of the excitement and funding currently pouring into the coffers of (poor little) science.<\/p>\n

Tibetan Buddhists FTW!<\/strong><\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Ooh-wah! <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Art or science?<\/p>\n

Gravitational lens RX J1131-1231 galaxy with the lens galaxy at the center and four lensed background quasars<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That, at least, is what they tell me<\/a>..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron — on the illustration, visualization and modeling of supposed reality — note: I am no scientist, no artist, in fact an aphantasic ] . A telling caption to an image in New Scientist gave rather more of the game away than was maybe intended. The image: The caption: We have no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[384,1574,701,649,526,655,852,377,1162,32,699,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-astronomy","category-buddhism","category-buddhist","category-charles-cameron","category-mathematics","category-meditation","category-physics","category-real","category-science","category-tibet","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59844"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59873,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59844\/revisions\/59873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}