Abstract
Juxtaposing the work of Einstein and Magritte has made for a wonderfully diverse and stimulating conference. As Michel Foucault has pointed out, many of Magritte’s works have entertained themes about the openendedness, indeterminateness and complexity of the relations between language, world and imagination. His paintings reveal a world whereby simple objects from our experience are combined in novel ways, providing an elegant way to construct strange new phenomena from the familiar. Einstein, on the other hand, urged us to accept a theory in which it is possible to explain all novelty within a deterministic framework. The theories of relativity show how it is possible to derive a complex world from the geometrical structure of space-time alone. Many things could be said about how we react when asked to think about the relationships between these world-views. And indeed, many imaginative responses have been forthcoming in the course of these proceedings. Unfortunately, I possess neither the time nor the space to say anything more that is immediately about the relationship between the work of these two great artists.
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Herfel, W.E. (1999). On Cognitive and Social Dimensions of Science: Constructivism & Nonlinear Dynamics. In: Cornelis, G.C., Smets, S., Van Bendegem, J.P. (eds) Metadebates on Science. EINSTEIN MEETS MAGRITTE: An Interdisciplinary Reflection on Science, Nature, Art, Human Action and Society, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2245-2_7
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