I will just discuss the first sentence of your text below the question proposed for discussion: «Art is not based on evidence, but on experience». Both 'evidence' (understood as logical reasoning) and ‘experience’ (life experience, mostly) are clearly intertwined at many influential artworks. Both logical reasoning and 'experience' are also at the heart of the 'scientific method'. Yet, thinking at 'natural' sciences, we typically deal with a special kind of 'experience', meaning, controlled experiments. This distinction, however, typically does not hold for social sciences. Mathematics is mostly based on 'evidence', with little room for experiments. So, considering the first part of the question ─ Does art need evidence? ─ I would say that it needs.

The second part of your question ─ What is the goal of Art and Science? ─ deals with the relationship between these two different 'types' of Culture and the Society. This leads us to the C. P. Snow seminal talk, "The Two Cultures" (1959) and to the following debate. I just stress that Art is much older than Science, what gives us some ground to address the third part of the question ─ Where do they overlap? ─ from the diachronic perspective. Appealing to the ever evolving aesthetic thinking, we may predict that the concepts of Art and Science should tend to evolve so that they remain distinct in spite of the contemporary trend for transdisciplinary approaches encompassing both Art and Science.

Both Art and Science are forms of social consciousness and reflect the "reality" - the material world, the society and the inner human being. Art does this through artistic images, Science - through establishing and expressing objective laws.

I think that the answer to the question of whether Art needs evidence depends upon whether the ultimate aesthetic goal of the artist is to reflect Truth. This may or may not be the case.

I won't perhaps agree that Art is much older than Science - of course, if we consider systematization of empiric knowledge as "science".

I would disagree that "Artists try to express the reality through their intuitive understanding.." What art is about is usually deeply personal, it is the artist trying to express the "human condition", not reality. Everyone (to varying degrees) experiences reality, nobody needs to have it interpreted for them, but how they experience what they experience is personal, and to convey that takes more than senses or words, it takes emotion and that is what art seeks to express. Science seeks to understand, not express, so in the end science and art really intersect where the human condition does, in understanding the intangibles. What does the nucleus of an atom look like? What color is a proton? How many photons can fit on the tip of a pin? What does it look like to travel faster than light? These may even be silly questions in science (as we understand the universe now), but they are fascinating concepts to art. BTW art is the evidence. Evidence of us.

“After all, what is art? Art is the creative process and it goes through all fields. Einstein’s theory of relativity – now that is a work of art! Einstein was more of an artist in physics than on his violin.

Art is this: art is the solution of a problem which cannot be expressed explicitly until it is solved.”

― Piet Hein, Grooks 1

Not only has art moved away from the decorative purpose to involve social engagement and political motives, but also art is now at the heart of science and science is deeply interwoven with our lives. Science's ability to affect change is unimaginable, it has not only changed our lives but has changed our world.

great question! Values underly both. We value a system, want to describe it, and we do so through either/both art and science. Science and art are both description, interpretation, and evidence of our reality re-processed. I see little difference between the two and assume that both need and use evidence to various extents as needed.

Dear Rohitash:

Literature is not philosophy. Literature is an art in itself, Its form, use of language, use of figurative language, sound, etc., are literature's own. Literature does not have to have a philosophical content to be good.

Art has no "evidence": it is an expression carried out through the materials chosen by the artists. 

Art is an expression in itself. It needs no validation in science or in any other human pursuit. Art does not need an excuse to exist, neither scientific nor philosophical, or religious. It has its own intelligence, and it does not even need to be beautiful or convey a feeling. Art is not about emotion, but about form. 

Each art has its own way. Literature is not sculpture, architecture is not music, painting is not dancing, etc. There are many arts because each has its own making and purpose as to form. Maybe that is why, in myth, there are many muses and not just one. The arts may be sisters and converse, but they never completely collapse into each other.

I suggest you browse the thematic anthologies published by the MIT Press titled Documents of Contemporary Art, on issues like color, painting, design, the cinematic, sound, participation. They are very cheap, beautifully designed and excellent as co contents.

Art is art. Just that.

Best regards, Lilliana

To me, art and science are two signs of the same coin just as the soul and ego attached to our  human body with mind being the curd binding them together. Both are discovering but one attaches more importance to the winners of the race based on objective experimentation/evidence( too often motivated by ego) rather than finding the ultimate truth- the inner voice of soul to be expressed through art. The art of science and the science of art continue to dance together just as the Nature and Spirit until we find answer to our eternal quest - the portal of ultimate discovery .  

Best regards, Bikash       

Dear Rohitash and friends, here are my comments from my point of view:

a) Where do they overlap

--Both art and science are interacting with reality through experiences(E) and ideas of that reality(I)

--Art links observations to experiences and imagination to ideas and science links observations with experiences and experiments with ideas.

--Both art and science have a component based on experience that we can call practice(P)

-But while science is based on theories(T) of the ideas of reality that are testable art is based on theories(T) of the ideas of reality than come from imagination.  So both maybe based on theories about the ideas of reality, but only the ones from science are testable

-Science has to respect the theory(T)-practice(P) consistency principle, art does not  requires that

b) what are their goals

--Both may pursue the truth, science as the scientific truth and art as non-scientific truth

c) who needs evidence

--Only science must be based on evidence, art does not have to.

Wish a good day to all;