Do you see two cultures on UCLA campus? Do they need each other to survive?
UCLA can be considered as one of the most culturally diverse campuses in the United States. The speakers at Freshmen Orientation and Welcome Week have repeatedly emphasized that our students come from more than ten different countries and have hundreds of different backgrounds. However, when I come to UCLA, I realized that these people can be separated into two different groups, those who are more fact-orientated and those who are more imagination-orientated.
As the stereotype goes, those who focused more on facts are more likely to be future scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. They based their researches on facts, previously proven laws, and valid claims. In most cases, a calculation can only have one correct answer, and there can only have one explanation for a natural phenomenon. Therefore, many people conclude that the studies of mathematics, sciences, and engineering s are very discreet, not much room for creativity. On the other hand, the other group of people focused on imagination.
I see them as people who can create million different products with very simple tools. Those who focused more on imagination are more likely to be the future artists in different forms. They create their masterpiece not necessary by following logics but by inspirations. As an artist see an ordinary automobile went by him. He can interpret that transportation as a representation of life, comes and goes. As a result, a number of people consider artists, such as poets and painters, as having boundless imagination ability.
Fortunately these two very different cultures are not as separated as general public may believe. In fact, the two need each other to survive. For example, a mathematician does not solve a problem only by looking at a list of mathematical laws and theorems. He or she thinks creatively similar to how an artist thinks. After the usual methods of problem solving fails, the mathematician must think outside his or her familiar realm. Without doing so, the problem cannot be solved. Likewise, artists cannot survive without the helps of people from the other group. The materials like brush, paint, and paper must be produced through the help of factories and technology. Without these aids, the artists can have the most original and the most wonderful idea in the world but cannot be shared through art works. A real life application of artists and scientists collaboration even outside UCLA is the making of computer games.
In order for a game to work, it must have its essential internal parts. Without the internal programming the game is nothing more than an idea. However, when players play the game, they would never see how the computer thinks and execute the game. The players will see the awesome characters, observe the beautiful background, and hear the realistic sound tracks. The painters and singers are those who are responsible for these gaming experiences. Even if a game contains the best idea in the world, no one would play them if the characters are stick figures and speaking computer language. It is clear that the two different people, artists and scientists are interconnected and neither can live if one of them does not exist.
Links:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/TwoCultures.html
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/
http://www.afes.org.uk/lectures/lecdec96.htm
http://space.mit.edu/~dd/ECON/two_cultures.html
http://newcriterion.com:81/archive/12/feb94/cultures.htm
