While reading The Blue Humanities, by John R. Gillis, I kept thinking about the relationship between art and science.

I believe that both art and science are ultimately trying to accomplish the same goal – albeit by taking different steps. To me, the goal of art is to spread awareness and an overall understanding of any specific issue or topic by creating something an audience can observe and explore with their imagination. Whether its a movie, song, painting, etc. it is my understanding that art is to be carefully crafted in order to raise a question in the viewers mind that they are supposed to answer for themselves. Science, seems to be the opposite. Where art aims to ask questions, science wants to provide an answer. Science produces theories that are meant to be tested and experimented with to get the greatest understanding of the subject as possible.

So where does the Ocean come in with all of this? Well, with the ocean being so vast and mysterious – it is no question why so many works of art have been produced with the ocean being the main character. It’s unpredictable and violent while also being calm and serene. It is the perfect canvas to paint upon the fears, desires, and wonders of the human mind. But how does writing a book affect the ocean? Making a movie? Writing a song? The biggest influence art has on the ocean is how we view this integral part of our world. Could it lead us to wanting to investigate it.

Where we observe the ocean through art, we could disrupt it with science. While we can learn a lot about the ocean through research, there’s a difference between observing it as it currently exists and observing it with a plethora of variables. Human beings have an impact on everything they decide to get themselves involved with. I am not against science in the slightest, but I do tend to associate the urge we have to “understand” the world around us with the tendancy to try and control it. I think that we cant fathom the perfectly chaotic synergy of the Natural World. We require structure in our lives to make the world go ’round, so we intend to implement that structure on a world that would be better off without it. The way I see it, we are product of the Natural World, but we are in no way a part of it. I dont think we can return to it, so ultimately this debate on whether understanding the world through art is better than doing so through science or vice versa is rather moot.

Sorry for the downer post, I’ve just been chasing this idea around in my head and reading The Blue Humanities somehow made the idea click into place.