EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 1

EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 1 EX NIHILO: A STUDY OF CREATIVITY AND INTERDISCIPLINARY THOUGHT-SYMMETRY IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES By DAVID F. DAHLGREN Integrated Studies Project submitted to Dr. Patricia Hughes-Fuller in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts – Integrated Studies Athabasca, Alberta August, 2008 EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 2 Waterfall by M. C. Escher EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 3 Contents Page LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 4 INTRODUCTION 6 FORMS OF SIMILARITY 8 Surface Connections 9 Mechanistic or Syntagmatic Structure 9 Organic or Paradigmatic Structure 12 Melding Mechanical and Organic Structure 14 FORMS OF FEELING 16 Generative Idea 16 Traits 16 Background Control 17 Simulacrum Effect and Aura 18 The Science of Creativity 19 FORMS OF ART IN SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 21 Interdisciplinary Concept Similarities 21 Concept Glossary 23 Art as an Aid to Communicating Concepts 27 Interdisciplinary Concept Translation 30 Literature to Science 30 Music to Science 33 Art to Science 35 Reversing the Process 38 Thought Energy 39 FORMS OF THOUGHT ENERGY 41 Zero Point Energy 41 Schools of Fish – Flocks of Birds 41 Encapsulating Aura in Language 42 Encapsulating Aura in Art Forms 50 FORMS OF INNER SPACE 53 Shapes of Sound 53 Soundscapes 54 Musical Topography 57 Drawing Inner Space 58 Exploring Inner Space 66 SUMMARY 70 REFERENCES 71 APPENDICES 78 EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Fig. 1 - Hofstadter’s Lettering 8 Fig. 2 - Stravinsky by Picasso 9 Fig. 3 - Symphony No. 40 in G minor by Mozart 10 Fig. 4 - Bird Pattern – Alhambra palace 10 Fig. 5 - A Tree Graph of the Creative Process 11 Fig. 6 – Rhetoric Tree Graph 12 Fig. 7 - “Hierarchic Repetition” in Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 12 Fig. 8 - Sociology Graph 12 Fig. 9 - Harmonic Series as Background Control in Harmonic Modulation 17 Fig. 10 - Reindeer, in Font-de-Gaume Cave near Dordogne, France 19 Fig. 11 - Vermeer “Tile” Paintings 22 Fig. 12 – Music Augmentation by a Factor of Two 23 Fig. 13 – Function 24 Fig. 14A - Reciprocal (a), Tonal (b) and Exact “Real” (c) Inversions in Music 26 Fig. 14B - Inverted Perspective vs Regular Perspective 26 Fig. 15 - Rocket Science Momentum Equation 26 Fig. 16 - Feynman Diagram 27 Fig. 17 - Hypercube Projection 28 Fig. 18 – Projection 28 Fig. 19 - Hawking’s Newtonian Time Model 29 Fig. 20 - Möbius Strip by Escher 29 Fig. 21 - Dali’s Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) 30 Fig. 22 - Kepler’s Harmonices Mundi 33 Fig. 23 - Harmonic Series – Perspective Ratio Similarities 35 Fig. 24 – Parquet Tile Deformations 39 Fig.25 - Spectogram of “Bishop to Queen Knight Three” 43 Fig. 26 - Lexical Semantics 44 Fig. 27 - English/Arabic Words for “The House” 45 Fig. 28 - Zachary Speaking to His “Papa” in the Henderson Public Library 47 Fig. 29 - Zachary - Speech Levels in Negation 49 Fig. 30 – Visual Textures of Six Chopin Etudes 54 Fig 31A - Philips Pavilion for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair 56 Fig. 31B - Xenakis’ Mycenae – Alpha 57 Fig. 32 - The Cortex Recreates a 3D Image from a 2D Retinal Image 58 Fig 33 - Julian Hook’s Matrix 60 Fig. 34 - Tymoczko’s Matrix 61 Fig. 35 - Harmonic and Melodic Matrices 62 Fig. 36 - Galilean Space-Time Matrix 62 Fig. 37 - Poincaré Space-Time Matrix 63 Fig. 38 - Gollin Tonnetz 63 Fig. 39 - Harmonization of the First 6 Notes of Three Blind Mice 64 Fig. 40 - Assigning Chord Notes “Matrix Points” - Three Blind Mice 65 Fig. 41 - The Inner Space of the Music for Three Blind Mice 65 Fig. 42 - 3D Inner Space Recreated in 2D 66 Fig 43 – Al-Li-Cu Quasicrystal 68 Fig 44 - Crystallized Inner Space 68 EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 5 "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so…" (William Shakespeare – Hamlet) “…it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” (William Shakespeare - Macbeth) Note: The mathematics discussed is kept to a layman’s level because I am not a mathematician; however, since I am a composer the discussions alluding to music theory may need further explanation and any good theory text would suffice for reference. I tried to keep this paper at an approachable level by explaining appropriate theories in the context of my discussions; an interdisciplinary learning necessity. I hope I have succeeded. EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 6 INTRODUCTION This paper is a semiotic study of common concepts in the liberal arts and exact sciences. It examines thought-form similarities and cross-disciplinary concept “translations” that exist between these two seemingly opposed thought-worlds and delves successively deeper into different manifestations of a force many scholars agree is common to all cultural representations - creativity. My aim is to find new interdisciplinary passages and link them with a language of integration useful for exploring, connecting, and understanding the interplay of all thought-forms. Through a five-step process I consider: obvious similarities in art forms, forms of feeling or thought energy, how the sciences have borrowed liberal arts concepts, the idea that cultural representations act like capacitors holding the energy that shaped them in inner spaces formed by their various nomenclatures and that these inner spaces can be mapped and explored. Although this paper is rather speculative in nature, I have tried to “ground” it in accepted scholarly treatises as much as possible. For example, I am aware that Roger Penrose’s area of expertise is not “consciousness” per se; however, I feel that sound reasoning underlies his foray into the nature of thought. Thought is, after all, common to all disciplines. Since I am a composer, a composition component is an integral part of my final project. The work, Three Unended Waltzes, consists of three “unfinished” waltzes forming three movements within the whole. A tone row forms the basic harmonic and melodic structure of the waltzes but I was careful to engineer a row that would sound like late nineteenth and early twentieth century music. The row manifests itself as harmonic EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 7 material in the first waltz, formatting and structuring in the second, and melody in the third. I included a composition because linguistic codes give the impression that we think verbally; music is in direct opposition to that precept because it is non-verbal, yet communicates feeling. The stylistic similarities to waltzes by Ravel (1), Brahms (2) and Poulenc (3) are intentional. As you listen, be reminded that music is a secret code full of multidimensional worlds. The music was recorded in the Lorne Watson Auditorium at the Brandon University School of Music; the pianist is Claudette Caron. Click the icon to listen Ravel Brahms Poulenc EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 8 FORMS OF SIMILARITY Forms of literature, music, and art are rife with similarities in formal structure. Some are superficial, some deep; some are intuitive, some require analysis; however, they all seem to have common underpinnings. This chapter discusses this phenomenon in some detail and tries to discover its origins, explain why it exists, and explore how it might have ramifications beyond art forms. My ideas on creative thought-form in literature, music, and art are based on conclusions made from what may seem rather simplistic - even naïve and superficial - observations like noticing resemblances in the feeling and form between Hofstadter’s lettering-art hobby and Picasso’s drawing of Stravinsky. (Fig.’s 1 and 2) Fig. 1 - Hofstadter’s Lettering (Hofstadter, 1985, p. xxix) EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 9 Fig. 2 - Stravinsky by Picasso (Edwards, 1979, p. 52) Such surface connections may confirm deeper conceptual similarities and give rise to new insights and methods of examining yet unseen things even though they are, and have always been, in plain sight; a trait of postmodernism (Bonnycastle, 1997, pp. 231 - 241). My investigation is a five-step process that considers: obvious similarities in art forms, forms of feeling or thought energy, how the sciences have borrowed liberal arts concepts, the idea that cultural representations act like capacitors holding the energy that shaped them in inner spaces formed by their various nomenclatures (Ogden, 1949, p. 42); and finally, that transcribing and mapping these inner spaces is both possible and necessary for furthering scientia – all knowledge. Exploring these ethereal places would be an investigation of the mercurial thing that spawned them – creative thought (Penrose, 1989, pp. 405 - 449). Surface Connections Mechanistic or Syntagmatic Structure Mechanistic or syntagmatic structures are the skeletal forms that mold works of literature, music, or art. Linear in nature, they use sequencing and more complex rules of EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 10 operation like sonnet form in literature, sonata form in music, or cubist form in art, to provide a framework to contain organic material, the ideas that fill the mechanistic framework – discussed in detail below. Sequencing Lidov discusses a form of poetic sequencing Bartha called Quaternary Stanza Structure (QSS) dealing with sets of fours used in both literature and music (Lidov, 2005, p. 31) (Fig. 7); Livio gives an example of sequencing thematic material in the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G Minor (Fig. 3) as well as an example of shape sequencing in art - the repeated bird pattern on the walls of the Alhambra palace in Granada that may have inspired Escher (Livio, 2005, pp. 16 - 18). (Fig. 4) . Fig. 3 - Symphony No. 40 in G minor by Mozart Fig. 4 - Bird Pattern – Alhambra palace Interrupted sequences use interspersed recurring elements: ABAC, etc; a story like The Three Little Pigs closely resembles rondo form in music or a painting of telephone poles. The interspersed “asides” or “catalytic materials” manifest as divergent events in a story, EX NIHILO – Dahlgren 11 contrasting melodies in a piece of music, or different material between the telephone poles in art.

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