Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1996 - 16

To have a TV that equaled the brain's capacity,
we would need to completely cover the faces of one of the
World Trade Center towers with TV screens.
tbe.)'follo/l' tbeir intuition instead of
equations. /n otber Lcords. Ll'ben tbe.r
bebaue tbe least "scientifical()I. '"
Scientists understand that their intllitive
discoveries are based on aesthetic principles
which some think are innate, part of our genetic make-up, but in any case, reflect the laws
governing nature. Scientists search for harmony, continuity and simplicity.; Artists today
look at social behavior and find dissonance
and dysfunction. Scientists seek the universal
by looking outward at nature. Artists now look
inward to report on the personal and idios)llcratic. The word "beauty," while still used in
science, is seldom used in descriptions of contemporary art. In art, the key word is "relevance." According to artist and sometimes
opera designer, David Hockney, "At CalArts
they might not take beauty seriously, but at
CalTech they do..,"
I look for reasons why contemporary aI1ists are so self-involved and dismissive of extel~
nal nature. Going beyond the maIlY social,
political and economic factors which have
been blanled for the selfishness and egoism of
our times, lets entertain a wild off-the-waU
theory: Leonard Shlain hypothesizes that revolutions in thinking are seen first in the arts and
then in science.- As perspective preceded the
linear formulae of Newton, and Picasso's multiple views of the same object came before
Einstein's description of what we would see if
we were traveling near the speed of light,
could it be that our self referential artists are
paving the way for the next great scientific
break through? Could it be that the next lewton or Einstein wiU show us how and why our
brains work?
John Horgan, a senior \\Titer for Scientific American. thinks not. In his new book,
Tbe End of Science-Facing tbe Limits of
Knowledge in tbe Tu'iligbt of tbe SCientific
Age. Horgan argues that we know almost everything we are likely to learn about particle
physics, cosmology and even the relatively new
neurosciences 8 While it may be wishful thinking on my part, I hope Horgan is wrong. Pal~
14

TD&T

ticularly in neuroscience, scientists are only
beginning to unravel the mysteries of the
brain. Surely, no scientific information can be
more important for artists than a greater understanding of how we tllink, understand and
perceive the external world.
In the past, philosophers and psychologists asked what it meant to be conscious, to
be self-conscious, the difference between
mind and brain, the duality of body and soul
and what is meant by free \\~ll. Some posited
the existence of a little person, a homunculus,
inside our heads who processed aU external
information and told us what to think or see.
The problem, of course, was that the honllll1culus needed a homunculus, continuing tlus
process until infinity. More recently, laymen
have thought that we have some sort of television in our brains. Maybe the television is
watched by the homunculus.
Paul Churchland compares a television to
the workings of the brain in a startling way. A
TY screen has a grid of 525 x 360 pLxels, ~eld-
ing roughly 200,000 pLxels. The brain has 100
billion neurons which is 500,000 times the
number ofTY pLxels. To have a TV that equaled
the brain's capacity, we would need to completely cover the faces of one of the World
Trade Center towers with TY screens, a half
nUllion I " screens. Then we need to make
connections between the rarious pLxels so they
can interact \rith one another. Moreover, the
surface of tlus construct, if it is to resemble the
brain, must be of something like extremely
thin aluminum foil so that we can roll it into a
baU the size of a grapefruit. 9
Apopular area of investigation, the Cognitive Sciences, grew out of psychology, linguistics and computer science. In a search for
artificial intelligence, theorists have tried to
compare the workings of the brain to the
workings of computers. Most of us in design
and technical theatre are fairly familiar with
computers and may be tempted to accept this
analogy. However, we make a mistake if we believe that computers work like our brains and
will soon be able to do what human brains ac-

complish. \obel Laureate Francis Crick describes the magnitllde of the differences.
A computer is built witb intrinsical()'
fast components. Even in a PC, tbe
basic cycle, 01' clock rate, is more
tban /0 million operations pel' second. For a neuron, on tbe otber
band, a ()'pical firing rate is in tbe
region ofon(JI a bundred spikes pel'
second. Tbe computer is getting on
for a million times fasteL: A bigbspeed super-computeL; like tbe Cra)',
is even fastel: Large()' speaking, tbe
operations in a computer are serial-tbat is, one after anotbel: Tbe
arrangements in tbe brain, on tbe
otber band, are usual0' massive()'
parallel. For example, about a million a.rons go from eacb e)'e to tbe
brain, all working simultaneous0'.
Tbis bigb degree ofparallelism is repeated at almost evel:)' stage of tbe
s)'stem. Tbis kind ofwiring compensates somewbat for tbe relative(r
slow bebavior of neurons. It also
means tbat tbe loss ofafew scattered
neurons is unlike()1 to appreciab()'
alter tbe brain's bebaviOl: /n tecbnical jargon, tbe brain is said to "degrade graceful(J'." A computer is
brittle. Even a little damage to it, or
a small errol' in its program. ma)'
cause bavoc. A computer can degrade catastropbical(J'./o
One more of the many basic differences
between brains and computers is worth mentioning. Computers are electrical and for the
most part, unvarying in the transmission of signals between connections. The brain is both
electrical and chemical. The spikes, or electrical potentials, travel through the neuron's
axon to the synapse where they cause neurotransmitter chemicals to jump to the next
neuron. The chemicals produce another electrical signal that travels through that neuron.
Therefore, the brain's process is electricalchemical-electrical. It is this chemical connec-

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1996