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Limits of Cognition: Artists and Scientists in the Dark Universe

Exploring the intersection of art and science in understanding the unknown nature of the universe and the need for new sensory apparatus and cognitive structures.

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Limits of Cognition: Artists and Scientists in the Dark Universe

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  1. Limits of Cognition:Artists and Scientists in the Dark UniverseTowards a new Sensualism ? Roger F. Malina Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille Chair Leonardo/ISAST http://www.leonardo.info

  2. Astronomer, Instrumentalist “Crisis” in Cosmology Extreme Environments: Where extrapolation begins to fail Where prior (cognitive) training is inadequate New perceptual, intuitive, linguistic frames Evolution of the Senses : Augmentation Extension New senses Artists and Scientists as Co Adventurers in the Dark Universe

  3. Dark Matter fills the Universe

  4. Conundrum < 3% of universe is «stuff like us »( baryonic) The rest is the « dark side of the universe » 70% dark energy of an unknown nature 25% dak matter of an unknown nature Most of the universe in inaccessible to our senses ( but it has gravity ?) Dan Boorstin : Epistemological Inversion

  5. The SuperNova Acceleration Probe Observational Cosmology Design new intruments to test theories Open new observational ‘niches’ Mysterious effectiveness of Robots Cf Wigner: Mysterious effectiveness of mathematics

  6. Outer Space as an Extreme Environment Differs from that that in which human species evolved Use of augmented, extended or new sensory apparatus De-reglement des Sens; Creative Disorientiation Depart from those of prior cognitive training

  7. Outer Space is not an extrapolation Phenomena that dont occur on human scales ( time, size, physics ) New causal interplays, ratios physical forces New terminologies, languages, descriptive systems Force new intuitive and perceptual frameworks

  8. Outside our scales of size and timecf Cheese Diagram Guardans, Czegledy SLOW........................................................................................................ FAST SMALL OUR SIZE LARGE

  9. A few issues New sensuality : «  All knowledge is conditioned by the structure of the knower »Maturana, Varela Manipulation: « Reality has to do with causation and our notions of reality arise from our abilities to change the world »Ian Hacking Simulation as Representation Retrodiction vs Prediction ( cf C Hayles) Results of experiments on simulations

  10. Commensurability: « Entities which we conjecture to be real should be able to exert a causal effect upon the prima facie real things; that is, upon material things of an ordinary size. Karl Popper Abstraction vs Immersion in Complex systems « Many experiments create phenomena that did not hitherto exist in a pure state in the universe »I Hacking

  11. Part II: Into Extreme Environments Evolution of the Senses Evolution of the scientific method Evolution of Cognition

  12. The Senses: AugmentationSight , Touch, Temporality ……………………………………

  13. Senses: Extensionseg X rays, Solar Wind

  14. New Senses:Antares Neutrino Observatory under the Mediterranean

  15. New Senses: Gravitational Wave Observatories; LIGO, VIRGO

  16. An instrumentalists perspective Inefficiency of the human senses Not designed to study or understand the universe Inadequacy of human cognition Training set on prior experience Language as pre condition to formulate hypotheses Poorly structured to model complex processes Distributed cognition ? How we are organised structures what we can know and how we can know it Inadequacy of functionalist argument

  17. « Uno-bservables » vs « Un-Knowables » in science Not observable/knowable with unaided human senses Not observable with existing technologies Augmented senses Extended Senses New senses Unobservable because of measurement choice Importance of phenomena being « commensurable » Theoretically unobservable ........................... Un-knowable ...................Un-Imaginable

  18. New Sensuality..New Cognitioncf « The Hidden Sense », Van Campen, 2007 Leonardo Book SYNESTHESIAS: « personally developed abilitities to perceive uncommon multisensory gestalts in the physical environment » SYN-ESTHESIAS:« stimulation of one sense that results in a multisensory perception » SYNCHRON-ESTHESIA» stimulation of multiple senses that ....«  TECHNE-ESTHESIA » technologically mediated sensation generating multisensory percepts or gestalts....»

  19. The way we have done science carries within it the seeds of its own failure INTIMATE SCIENCE: «  ownership of the data about ones own environment » AMATEUR SCIENCE: « public science » CROWDSOURCING :  » distributed science »

  20. New Corporality; Physical, VirtualStelarc Char Davies

  21. Immersion in Extreme EnvironmentsAntarctica..Deserts…Marco Peljam et Macrolab

  22. Artists and Scientists are co-adventurers in the dark universe The universe is an extreme environment that requires an intimate science Most of the universe is of an unknown nature that we are only just beginning to sense and will require new cognitive structues We have to redesign ourselves and the way our science is done

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