Are art and science separated by an unbridgeable divide? Can they find common ground? In this
new book neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel whose remarkable scientific career and deep interest
in art give him a unique perspective demonstrates how science can inform the way we experience
a work of art and seek to understand its meaning. Kandel illustrates how reductionism--the
distillation of larger scientific or aesthetic concepts into smaller more tractable
components--has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths. He
draws on his Nobel Prize-winning work revealing the neurobiological underpinnings of learning
and memory in sea slugs to shed light on the complex workings of the mental processes of higher
animals.
