Erwin Schrodinger, science & poetry...

Finished the Schrodinger book (Nature and the Greeks ; and, Science and humanism). This physicist makes an unlikely ally for the artist, in that he maintains a strict sense of the limits of science. He emphasizes (in reflections on early Greek science & its legacy) how the scientific model of objectivity is just that - a model : insofar as consciousness - the consciousness of the observer - is detached from the agreed-upon common worldview which develops along with the development of science. Schrodinger's philosophic attitude maintains an awareness of both dimensions, without confusing them. He reiterates that science has not answered (and cannot) the most basic question : "Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?" (and all the subjective, personal, spiritual experience that consciousness and identity entail). In this he seems to stand in opposition to much current scientific thinking (brain science, biological determinism). His thinking is dense, sophisticated, & deeply informed in philosophy, history of science, & scientific practice per se (he was, remember, one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century). & a pleasure to read - though so subtle & complex (as when he gets into old issues of free will & determinism) I sometimes have trouble following... Want to find his book Mind & Matter now.

Since I was a teenager I've had this bent toward cosmology, metaphysics... & have tended to think of poetry as a different way of being & thinking - in rivalry, that is, with scientific positivism & determinism... but not necessarily irreconcilable (same with religion & science)...