Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures

Can science and art find common ground? Are scientific and artistic quests mutually exclusive? In this new book, neuroscientist Eric Kandel, whose interests span the fields of science and art, explores how reductionism—the distillation of larger scientific or aesthetic concepts into smaller, more tractable ideas—has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths. Their common use of reductionist strategies demonstrates how science can inform the way we experience a w…