Serious science starts when you begin to measure.
According to this philosophy we constantly apply our complexity
technology in attempts to measure entities/phenomena/situations that so
far haven't been quantified in rigorous scientific terms. Of course we
can always apply our subjective perceptions of the reality that
surrounds us so as to classify and rank, for example, beauty, fear,
risk, sophistication, stress, elegance, pleasure, anger, workload, etc.,
etc. Based on our perceptions we make decisions, we select strategies,
we make investments. When it comes to actually measuring certain
perceptions complexity may be a very useful proxy.
Let's consider, for example, art. Let's suppose that
we wish to measure the amount of pleasure resulting from the
contemplation of a work of art, say a painting. We can postulate the
following conjecture: the pleasure one receives when contemplating a
work of art is proportional to its complexity. This is of course a
simple assumption but it will suffice to illustrate the main concept of
this short note. Modern art produces often paintings which consist of a
few lines or splashes on a canvas. You just walk past. When, instead,
you stand in front of a painting by, say, Rembrandt van Rijn, you
experience awe and admiration. Now why would that be case? Evidently,
painting something of the calibre of The Night Watch is not
matter of taking a spray gun and producing something with the aid of
previous ingested chemical substances. Modern "art" versus a
masterpiece. Minutes of delirium versus years of hard work. Splashes
versus intricate details. Clear, but how do you actually compare them?
We have measured the complexity of ten paintings by
Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt. The results are reported below without
further comments.
Leonardo
and Rembrandt
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