Science, Dreams and Poetry

Lronardo, Vol. 12, pp. 316-320. Pergamon Press 1979. Printed in Great Britain. SCIENCE, DREAMS AND POETRY* Marcel Bessis** I do not know the nameof the scholar who defined science as ‘merelythat which is measurable’.Whoever he was, his definition is impreciseand too restrictive. Measurements are indeed necessary for scientific research and, as a consequence, people who measure things for a livingare a byproduct of science. Under the direction of entrepreneurs ,multitudesof measurersmeasureeverythingthat can be measured. The scientificliterature is filledwith the measurements of scientists who work solely on the techniques of measurement (with isotopes, with electrophoresis , with chromatography, with enzymes, with antibodies). We all know that the vast expansion in the numbers of research workers and in the amount of money expended has not been accompanied by commensurate increases in discoveries. Today many young researchers working solelyin the realm of measurement techniques perform an almost mechanical task, merely adding details to that which isalreadyestablished. Assuredly, scientificresearch needs good measurements, but what science crucially needs is a perceptive insight of what to measure. Those who have this perceptiveness are the creators, the artists of science. Artistic creation and scientificcreation, I believe, have as their bases precisely the same mechanisms. Ultimately, however, with development, a difference becomes evident : a work of art needs not to be proven and cannot be measured by any objectivecriteria. It needsonly to please; to please a certain audience, placed within a certain social and cultural setting. There can be no assurance of its persistence and, unlike a natural law, its very nature is ephemeral. A work of science.in contrast, is universaland sublime;it has as itsbasis reproducibility and thus, once it is enunciated, it can be turned over to those who measure to add detail and refinement. Among scientists, there are neither ‘pure’ measurers, nor ‘pure’creators. Scientistsare, in fact, both. Nevertheless , the trend today is toward encouraging mensuration and discouraging creativity. The social destinies of the measurers and the creators are quite different. Nothing threatens the measurer. His career is assured; he will always be needed to provide his latest set of figures and society will acknowledge the virtue of his numbers and provide him with security. He will never be confronted with a problem that he cannot solve, for there is nothing that cannot be measured. Thecareer of the creator, on the other hand, is profoundly uncertain. He can never fulfill the expectations of everyone, and often he does not even know exactlywhat he wants to know or the preciseway in whichto attain it. He remains, ofnecessity,in a miasmaof uncertainty. He makes errors, falls into traps, takes enormous risks and may produce nothing definitive for months or years on end, his intellectual talents may dignify him as an enlightened man, and yet, finally, he must contend with the feelingsof guilt associated with his unproductive effort when he is judged by the measurers, the administrators and the contractors of research. My late friend Eric Ponder, author of a splendid but little known book, included in the preface this quote from Apollinaire: ‘Pity us, who fight always at the frontiers/Of the unlimited future/Pity for our errors, Pity for our sins ....’. While the measurer presents problems for science, he has no personal problems,and the survivalof hisspeciesis assured. For this reason I shall speak only about the creators-r of that part within each of us which is concerned with the creativeact. As I have said, many of us are at once a mixture of creator and measurer. Many, having once been creative, end up in the more comfortable position of a measurer or in the more seductive position of an administrator or of an entrepreneur. For the administrators and the entrepreneurs who more and more direct the course of contemporary scientific research , and also for the young scientists, who stray into mensuration, I should like to analyze some aspects of the . creativeprocess.The starting point of my analysisisin the dream. The Dream-Time The dictionary defines dreams in many ways. Dreams may occur while sleeping, they may be the delirium of fever, they may be irrational or vague thoughts or distractions. They may represent thoughts seen as in dreams or the passionate desire...