Richard Feynman - Ode on a Flower

More clips from the Interview @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/progr...
Richard Feynman on the appreciation of nature. Video is from 1981 BBC Interview. The interview is also the subject of Feynman's book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.

I have a friend who's an artist and he's some times taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say, "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree, I think. And he says, "you see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you as a scientist, oh, take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing." And I think he's kind of nutty.

First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me, too, I believe, although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is. But I can appreciate the beauty of a flower.

At the same time, I see much more about the flower that he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also have a beauty. I mean, it's not just beauty at this dimension of one centimeter: there is also beauty at a smaller dimension, the inner structure...also the processes.

The fact that the colors in the flower are evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting -- it means that insects can see the color.

It adds a question -- does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms that are...why is it aesthetic, all kinds of interesting questions which a science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and the awe of a flower.

It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.

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[Dyonethekiller]

I really like what he says in this because a lot of people say science takes the beauty out of things but I think science makes it even more beautiful

[mikeroephonics]

You're 100% correct!

As far as I'm concerned, and basing this off of personal experience, the idea that science takes the beauty out of things is a defense mechanism created by those who don't want to and/or can't grasp it.

Science is wonderful! If it weren't for science, we would not have computers, YouTube, blah, blah, etc. I feel like a fool having to type this out, but some people are really dense. :\

[darklanky]

yh man it makes sense, if people really dont understand something just for being incredibly thick, you can see how they wouldnt find it beautiful. But ur right, its absolutely a defence mechanism

[reiwell del]

the beauty they find in the flower is merely the sense of "awe" and mystery that surrounds it. once we gain enough knowledge of something, it becomes less interesting. because there's nothing else there to know, so why should we waste time contemplating on it, or we can look at it in a new light and appreciate its workings and existence. its just 2 ways of looking at things.

[tinybrainwave]

I've rarely ever heard a better statement than this one.

[Joseph Allison]

I'm doing a creative writing course so we kind of have to be a jack of all trades and study both language and literature and art and the process of writing and because its always arty types who want to become a writer they always complain when they do the empirical side of language like verb construction and noun categorising and I always get really annoyed at them because they have a chance to workout how the trick works and realise that things like poetry aren't some magic thing at all.

[Joseph Allison]

More scientists need to use the phrase "Kinda' Nutty"

For example "people who believe in the power of homoeopathic medicine outside the initial placebo effect are kinda' nutty".

[flamingemu]

Man, Feynman's friend must have been a pretty cruddy artist. 

[Hamsammich111]

You'll never appreciate how everything we've known and built up until this point, from the computer you sit at, to the medical knowledge that will save your life ( once, twice maybe three times or more over the course of your existence) started as mysterious uncharted land, to be explored by some of the greatest pioneers of their time, and how mysteries of an even greater caliber exist today, to be uncovered and understood by generations to come.

[Hamsammich111]

It pains me to know that you'll never never fully realise that you're a part of an incomprehensibly vast and expanding universe, instead of simply being 'in' the universe, as well as being the amalgamation of trillions of cells, molecules, bacteriums and chemicals that come together to define almost everything there is about you.

[Hamsammich111]

It makes me sad that you'll never experience the world beyond its face value. It makes me sad that you'll never understand the meanings behind those gray numbers and letters. You'll never see the beauty in how gravity keeps the earth orbitting the Sun in a perpetual loop of motion and how this orbit determines the seasons we experience on earth; seasons which paint the background of every memory, happy or sad, that you've ever had.