Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20161029

Book is called reductionism in art and Brain Science. In science, particularly Brain Science, we want to understand how the human mind works, what could be more central. And we want to understand how people respond to works of art, how the imagination works, how we can stimulate the imagination, what are the things that are pleasing to people. Those are really important questions. Rose ted koppel and eric kandel, when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose ted koppel is here. He served as anchor and managing editor of Abcs Nightline from 1980 to 2005, 25 years. Earlier this year, became a special contributor to cbs sunday morning. He has won eight George Foster Peabody Awards and 42 emmys. His recent books, lights out, a cyberattack a nation unprepared surviving the aftermath, is now in paperback. I am pleased to have him at this table. Welcome. Thank you. Rose great to have you. 25 years at night line. If we could get rid of the cameras, we could just do what we always do, sit and gossip. Rose someone said the other day, hes only two lights away from having a podcast. Cute, i like that. Rose this Political Campaign season, youve seen a lot of things. Yes. Rose does it signal that, somehow, all of politics is going to change, and this is an Inflection Point for the way we play american politics and the way we Cover American politics and the way the parties get along . I think it is, charlie, but less because of what is happening to the political system than what has happened to our business. We have totally democratized communication in this country, and that sounds like a wonderful thing. Everybody loves democracy. But the idea of a representational government is that you have congressmen and senators and people who spend their entire lives, theoretically, trying to do what is best for country. What you and i were meant to do as journalists was the same kind of thing. We were supposed to gather information and then process it, give people what was most important. Were way past that now. We are at a point donald trump told me, in Cleveland Rose this is an interview you did for sunday morning . Yes, but we were just talking after the interview and he said, you know, i dont need you guys anymore, he meant you and me. Rose right. Hes absolutely right. He said i have 20 million twitter and facebook followers and if i want to get a message out, i just do it through them. So anybody who thinks that this fiasco is going to be over on november 8 is just dreaming. This is going to go on. We have never had a situation like this where someone like mr. Trump who, you know, i dont believe ever thought he was going to get this far when he started, but who has developed something of a taste for this. Hes not going to go back to just, you know, selling real estate and steaks and water and college and whatever rose golf courses. Golf courses. Rose i agree, hes intoxicated by the process. He also thinks that he is a figure and he believes that he went to the head of the parade, that it was not something he created, but something that came together, and that hes intoxicated by it because he likes this notion of people who look to him, who believe in him, who stick with him and who they believe he reflects them when no one else does, and, so, that gives him, i think, a real sense of i want to be a part of this process, im here to stay. Well, and the fact that he infuriates so many people in the establishment, whether thats our establishment of journalism or the political establishment or the Business Establishment or the defense establishment, that just indears him all the more to many of his followers who just feel betrayed and that the establishment has let them down. So this guy who comes along and says, effect, all the things hes not supposed to say, thats part of his great charm. Rose but it also is a reflection of how a significant portion of the American Population feel. They dont feel anybody listens to them, they dont feel like they have any impact, they dont feel like their life is going to be better, and they dont believe that the system is fair. Hes sort of rose and its beyond their control. Yep. But donald trump is, in some respects, like a political lottery game. You put 5 bucks in the lottery on the offchance, maybe 10 million to one or 100 million to one, but you could win 100 million, right . And i think there are an awful lot of people out there who look on donald trump exactly the same way, is he really going to change things . Well, maybe not, but we know damn well the establishment hasnt done any of the things it said its going to do, so lets try that. Rose in watching and listening to the people who come to the campaign every day, there is a sense that we believe in change, he may not be the change we want, but we want to cast a protest vote. If you look in the polls, shes ahead. Different polls are saying Different Things. It may be a little bit tight than it was, and we dont really know, well find out tuesday, in november. But my sense is that Hillary Clinton, you know, recognizes that shes got a very difficult time ahead, not only because of whats in this campaign about emails and who she is, but shes going to have as difficult a time governing as anybodys had in a long time, if she wins. I think thats exactly right. The fact of the matter is that some of the republican congressmen are already making noises about the investigations. Really . Before the election is even over, weve got the investigations going . Well, yes. The fact of the matter is, as long as it was her or donald trump, a great many people in this country were prepared to say, all right, ill hold my nose and vote for hillary because i cant stand the idea of donald trump. Once donald trump is theoretically out of the picture, all of a sudden, the limelight falls entirely on Hillary Clinton. Rose and shes got pressure within her own party as well. Shes got pressure within her own party. Shes going to receive an awful lot of pressure from the left, and, you know, im not at all sure shes going to be a happy lady two weeks into her administration. Rose even if she has a Democratic Senate and well give her some power and some capacity not to have to fight some of the battles, but still shell need 60 votes to avoid. I was going to say, even if she has a Democratic Senate, it will be by a vote or two. Its not going to enable her to do that much. Its still going to be a largely divided. Rose what about journalism. Thats a real disasterrer. Rose why . First of all, in the years you and i have been around, charlie, there was a day when people in our end of the business im talking about broadcast journalism genuinely felt that we had a mission out there to give the American Public the news that it needed, and that has changed in some measure because of the technological inventions. We didnt have cable. We didnt have satellite. We didnt have the internet. You didnt have the blogssphere. It also changed because of the economic dynamics. 40 years ago, 50 years ago, the networks were making they were printing money down in the basement with all of the entertainment programs they were doing, and because there was a certain amount of government regulation, the f. C. C. Actually had some cloud in those days. So the deal was, go ahead, you make all the money you want to make on your entertainment, but make sure that you give the American Public operate in the public interest, necessity and convenience, those were the three catch words. And, so, we had a commitment to doing that. You and i were talking about it just before we went on the air. Abc, nbc, cbs, among the three of them, had more than 100 foreign correspondents 40 years ago. 100 based all around the world, gathering information. These days, i would be surprised if they have 20 among the three of them. Probably not even close to that. Rose but, at the same time, we are, on the other hand weve got some very brave correspondents covering the attack the effort to retake mosul. You see them every day. Let me just say my hats off, particularly to the women at what is now our network, cbs, Holly Williams and liz palmer doing an absolutely brilliant job. The quality is there but you dont have the quantity. Rose right. Which means that whole sections of the world are uncovered. If you list up, and i recommend to your audience im sure a lot of your audience does it anyway pick up npr at 9 00 in the morning and listen to the bbc for an hour and just take note of how many important events are taking place around the world that are never covered on american radio and television. Rose indeed. Back to this campaign. Here you have a campaign that has been based a lot on not on issues but on assaults, on character assaults. Have we given enough attention to the issues, or have we been distracted by this story that generates so many headlines, name calling . Well, sure. Of course we have. Let me tell you a story that seems to be unrelated that really isnt. Back at the time of the hostage taking in iran, i learned that a group of american diplomats and there may have been one or two intelligence people in the group, maybe five or six of them had escaped from the u. S. Embassy and taken up refuge in the residence of the canadian ambassador. Was turned into a movie, argo. I learned about that at the time, was going to go on the air with it, received a call from then secretary of state cyrus vance who said, ted, im not denying the story, its true, but im asking you as a serious journalist not to carry it because i think you can see that it would jeopardize the safety, possibly even the lives of those people. And its the only time in 50plus years of journalism that i killed a story. When the movie argo came out, all of a sudden the subject was hot again and i found myself talking to marvin kelb, my counterpart at cbs, and dick, didnt talk to him directly, found out both got a call. Rose had a call from the secretary of state. Got the same story, got a call from the secretary of state and agreed not to use it. Killed the story. My point being, in those days you only had the three networks. The fact that the three of us were prepared without having spoken to one another to kill the story meant that it was dead. The story didnt run. You could never do that today, charlie. There is no way, with the thousands of outlets, the thousands of blogs, the tweets, the facebook, the social media, the various channels on cable and satellite television, there is no way that you can kill a story. So the longwinded way of getting to your question which is how can one station, lets say, how can one network lets say cbs, for the sake of argument if it were to focus entirely on all the serious subjects that you and i, in principle, can agree rose and can cover on this program where we have the provision of being on Public Television and they give us that kind of freedom. Exactly, but if they were to do that, they would get their butts kicked in the ratings. Rose exactly. And pretty soon, someone out there in management would say, guys, this is not a private club you have here. Rose Something Like that happened this year in terms of anybody who refused to do a telephone interview with donald trump also found him doing a telephone interview on the other shows and they did better because they had trump on. Of course. Rose it was during the process where trump was so colorful, so much of a performance artist, that he was an entertainer and attracting attention. Which is the ultimate paradox of his complaint now that there is this terrible media conspiracy against him. To a certain degree, and we can talk about that if you want to, i even accept part of that as being a legitimate statement. I think the media, certainly the establishment media, has taken a position that comes dangerously close to saying, you know, we feel that donald trump is such a danger to the republic that were going to do things we have never done before. The New York Times, for example, putting the f word, spelling it out on the front page. Can you imagine that they would ever have done that in the past . However, for donald trump, who owes where he is today to the fact that he got the kind of unbelievable coverage on every television station rose he got that coverage because he was generating ratings. Exactly. Rose what did we if donald trump refuses to release his tax returns, as an example. Yep. Rose Hillary Clinton doesnt have press conference to talk about emails, what do we do with that responsibility . Thats a perfectly legitimate question and the answer is simply you try to cover it. Rose but you ask them, they dont say. You do whatever you can to find out. Rose but in the end, they find out somebody sent them a copy of an early tax return. Yeah, who did that . Rose they dont know. Theyre not telling us. The fact of the matter is journalism has always depended on someone with a conscience or a grudge, right . Saying, you know, im going to send this to the times. Rose uh do you miss not being a part of this every day . No. Rose not a at all . I really do not. Rose is it because you have a life that would get in the way of, or youve done that, been there . I must tell you, charlie, this campaign makes me very sad. Rose it does. You know, this is an extraordinary country. I mean, it really is. I came here as a young immigrant from england, and i love this place. I think its just remarkable. And you remember churchills great line, you know, the americans always end up doing the right thing but only after theyve exhausted every other possibility. Thats largely true. I mean, americans have always done things in their own sort of wild, chaotic fashion. Rose i was reading about you today. You were naturalized ten years after you came here. Yes, because i had married an American Woman and we had our first child, so i had an american child. I mean, there was no great pressure on me being a british citizen in this country is no hardship. Rose what do you regret . About . Rose this journalism career youve had. Oh, nothing. Rose are there missed opportunities . Roads you wish you had traveled . Roads is a little too poetic, charlie. Rose i like to quote poets when i can laughter there are stories i wish i had done differently, but as i look back, i cant imagine a more rewarding professional lifetime. You know, i used to sometimes when i would go to a college and get a give a speech, they would say, why do you want to be a journalist . Rose why wouldnt i want to be a journalist . Yeah my colleagues and i wake up in the morning, we get on the phone and we say, whats the most interesting going on in the world today . Who are the most interesting people . What are the most interesting places we can go to . And then somebody else pays for that for us to go there. Rose this is the most interesting of times, not necessarily the most hopeful, but i think it is, in the end. Let me talk about this and then well, lets talk about the book because that will lead us to somewhere which is i just interviewed James Clapper and we talked a lot about cybersecurity, we talked a lot about the power this book had come out in paperback called lights out a cyber attack of a nation unprepared surviving the alternative. Just lay out the threat of a cyber attack against this country and why it has not happened. Well, look at everything that has happened, and look at, in one respect, the most interesting thing about the cyber attack that, in effect, has created this awkward situation with Hillary Clinton and the democratic party. Rose right. And her campaign manager. And her campaign manager, right. And here are 17 intelligence agencies which are saying, in effect, the russians did it. And the russians say, no, prove it if you can. And Vice President biden comes out and says, were gonna get you guys. Were going to respond. And then Something Interesting happens rose and the question was, will putin know . He said, yes. They said, well, the rest of us know. H he said, i hope not. I hope not. Rose the point is they will do something that will be embarrassing to putin and hell know where it came from. Right. Rose and hell say, i better think twice before i order that done again. Thats the operative idea. Thats the operative idea. Something happened this last weekend. Do you remember what it was . There was a distributed denial of services on the internet. Rose oh, yes. And it knocked out thousands of operations, right, for hours. Now, my guess is and thats all it is that that was the russians. Rose let me just tell you, though, because i did an interview with clapper and that was one of the headlines that came out of that. It probably was a nonstate actor, he said. But a nonstate actor can still be working for the russians. Rose i think he was indicating someone else. Maybe, maybe not. Rose yeah. My point, is in the good old days of just the Nuclear Balance of terror, right, we always knew where the danger was coming from. If those rockets had been launched by the soviet union, there wouldnt have been any doubt in the president s mind as to who did it and against whom retribution should be taken. In the case of the cyberattack and this books premise is the russians and chinese are already inside our electric power grid and they have the capacity of taking down one or all three of our power grids. Rose when you say inside, what do you mean . What i mean is they have been mapping our power grid through their through using the internet to get into it gets kind of wonky, charlie, but its the skater system, the supervisory control and data acquisition. Its the system that controls the flow of electricity in this country. If you can get inside there, you can cause failure. Rose so, therefore, are you saying the reason theyre inside and could cause havoc. Right. Rose the reason they dont do it is they know we could do it and they are more vulnerable. No. Rose not saying that . Im not saying that at all. In fact, im saying exactly the opposite of that. Rose we dont have the same power to get inside their system . We do, but what do you do if there is a cyber attack and the president is sitting there in the situation room and hes got all his intelligence people and he h says, who did it . They say, well, mr. President , it looks as though the attack came from stockholm. Really . Well, yes, but before there it was routed through wellington, cbs eveninnew zealand and befo, bonebuenos aires. And as best we can determine, it came through brooklyn. Against whom do you take action . That is the problem and they call that attribution. Exactly. Rose but they tell me theyre much better at attribution. It still takes a long time, charlie. Rose they know and spoke out about the North Koreans and their hacking sony corporation. But it took them a couple of months. Rose yeah. But they also suspect the chinese did the personnel in washington. They have not identified publicly and said we know its the chinese. The question is why dont they do that . The answer on the part of some is they dont do that because they dont yet know what they want to do. First, they want to be sure that they have it right, and then secondly they want to know what theyre prepared to do before they single them out. And thirdly, that was only intelligence gathering. A humongous amount of intelligence gathering, arguably the greatest single intelligence wind fall of all time. Theyve got, what, 22 1 2 million personnel records. Rose people they may want to know something about so they can approach them for one reason or another. Exactly, whether for blackmail or secrets or whatever. 22 1 2 million. But you remember mr. Clapper at that time. Rose director of National Intelligence. Director of National Intelligence almost said, wow, pretty impressive. You know, if we could do that, why not . Intelligence gathering is okay. Economic war fair less so. Taking out one of our most critical infrastructures, thats an act of war, charlie. And i dont think that either the russias or the chinese will do it because it would amount to war once the attribution was made. But as you go down the capability scale the iranians, the North Koreans remember, the syrians actually did something a few years ago where they hacked into the Associated Press and put out a little bulletin, and the bulletin said there had been an attack on the white house that someone had shot a gun into the white house and the president s whereabouts were not known. Now, within Something Like three minutes, the a. P. Realized they had been hacked and put out a correction. Within those three minutes, the dow jones dropped 400 points, and it was simply the syrians who had their own cyberwar fair capability, saying to the United States, watch it, guys. Rose there is also this there is the accusation that the russians are hacking because they want to question the credibility of the american elections. Thats quite a different thing thats been done. True. Rose alethough it is said that alethough it is said that Vladimir Putin believes the americans try to understood mine him all the try to undermine him all the time and that in his election in russia we tried to create problems for him, he believed it was the c. I. A. In ukraine that created the problems that led to the president of ukraine having to flee to russia. You and i are old if you have to remember that back in the 1950s, the c. I. A. Was extremely active in Central America undermining governments we didnt like. 60s, 70s rose and protecting dictators. Exactly. Rose against revolution democratic revolution. There were simply different tools being used at that time, and what that book is about that simply that we now have new tools that are far more dangerous. Rose what do you think putin is up to in a broader sense, not just in terms of what hes doing hacking. In the broader sense, i think he is restoring some of russias greatness. I think it hit a lot of people in russia very hard that they were now considered a second or even a thirdrate power. And i dont think you can i dont think you can overestimate how important that is. Rose has he played his hand well and has he made russia relevant . I think hes i mean, look, youre his pal. Rose why would you say im his pal . Well, the two of you looked adoringly at one another. Rose those are some of the hardest questions he had to answer, putting people in jail, killing his opponent hes not my pal, though i would say i would like to go tomorrow and talk to him. So would i. laughter no, you did a brilliant job of interviewing him, and i wasnt for a moment you clearly had a fairly warm relationship there. Rose well, i got him to be engaged. Sure. Rose the point is you want to engage people so that they, in a sense, are trying to be as open as they possibly can. Its your great skill, my friend. You engage everyone. You really do. Rose thank you. And youre wonderful. Rose well, you know, its ill notion about the sun and the wind. The sun will have them open up and the wind will cause them to hunker down. Exactly. And i was far too windy in my day. Rose no, you were far too brilliant in your day. So when you look at this, whats going to happen . Should we expect we have, what, three electric grids in this country . One will be attacked and why would we assume its not successful . Its a bit like the intelligence people are surprised that there has not been a successful attack, not as large as 9 11, but a successful attack against the United States on our own soil . Well, again dismoosh and there have been certain isolated attacks in terms of lone wolves. Yeah. At the risk of being repetitive, an attack on the grid would be an act of war. An attack on the grid would have i mean, heres a way of sort of wrapping in the subject we were talking about before, the campaign. When donald trump talks about building a wall on the southern border, were living in an age where walls are truly irrelevant. You dont need a wall to attack the United States. I mean, you rose a wall will not prevent a wall will not prevent it. Rose on the other hand, as you and i know, the israelis believe that the wall that they have built has made them more secure. Thats true, but its a very small country. You can do that far more easily in israel, and the israelis have to be more concerned about a physical attack, but i guarantee you the israelis have spent as much or more time on Cyber Defense and worrying about the ability to respond to a cyberattack as we have. But the point i was trying to make, charlie, before, is we and the russians, we and the chinese have so many interlocking interests, that i think its unlikely that a cyberattack from them will come in the next year or two. Iran, mmm, a little more likely. North korea . Much more likely. If they have the capacity to do it, i think they would, and certainly an outfit like i. S. I. S. , if they can somehow, with the money that they still have, if they can hire someone with sufficient cyber expertise, the hardware you need to do this can be bought off the shelf. Rose you know whats amazing about covering the area you and i both love which is international affairs, war and peace, the sense of nations in competition for good or for evil, it is how, certainly in the middle east, how the relationships are constantly changing. I just saw before i came over here that the turks are saying to the United States erdogan has said, you know, let us together go after raqqa. Yeah. Rose its incredible to me and if they happen to knock off a few kurds while theyre doing it, they would be very happy about that. Rose its amazing its out of syria. Although sometimes people were supporting other aspects our friends are against and things our friend are for were against. That shouldnt surprise us. The german and japanese were our enemies, are our friends, the chinese were our allies, were our adversaries. You know, in a long lifetime. Rose have you ever lived overseas . Yes. Rose i know you were born overseas. Yeah. Rose but after you came here and started working, i know you were in vietnam as a radio important and then later television. Did you go as radio or no, i went as television. Thats how i made the transition to tv. Rose i know youve covered foreign events. But have you lived overseas . Yes, was in Southeast Asia for three and a half years. My family lived in hong kong, and i spent most of that time in vietnam, laos, cambodia is that thats what ive missed. Ive not lived overseas. Ive visited, spent lots of time, covered a thousand stories in a thousand parts to have the world. Not too late, we could probably shift the table rose no, you just take this over while i go away. Ill come back and and there will be a National Campaign saying, bring charlie home rose no, it will be like, whos charlie . Oh, no, no, no. Rose now, paper back, lights out by ted koppel, New York Times best certainly. Its all about the new threat of cyber attacks. Its also, you will understand, more about cyber espionage, you will understand that the world we live in is vastly different than it was a sure simply ten years ago or five years ago. Thank you, ted. Thank you, charlie. Rose back in a moment. Stay with us. Rose eric kandel is here. He is my colleague on our brain series and a former nobel laureate. His new book comploars the relationship between art and science. It considers how science can help us to perceive, appreciate and understand great works of art. It is called reductionism in art and Brain Science bridging the two cultures. I am pleased to have eric kandel back at this table. Delighted to be here. Thanks for having me. Rose both of them are concerned, science and art, with the deepest questions about human existence. They share that concern. Absolutely. Rose but we think of them as separate. This book is designed to show its not as separate as we think and why. C. P. Snow phonetic made the point that the humanities concern with art and literature is a different world that science is concerned with the nature of the universe and thats because scientists and humanists have different aspirations and different goals and use different methodologies to get there. And in this book i make the point that, in certain instances, this is not the case. For example, if Brain Science and weve seen this in the program weve done together the goals of the scientists are very humanistic, to understand the nature of schizophrenia, to understand consciousness. These are all extreme, all important humanistic questions. In addition, painters, artists often use experimental approaches. So very much like scientists, you know, a painter can try Different Things in order to see whether theyre getting exactly the kind of impact. Rose i think it was Richard Serra who said to me once and may have said it at this table while you were here but he said it to me a number of times that art is about making choices and then moving on. Absolutely. Rose you choose this color, and then you move on. Absolutely. Rose you make another choice about where this line goes. Yes. Rose science is about choosing, making choices. Well try this. Yep. Rose and then well try this. Solving problems is the kay serra puts it. And this is the point that i try to make here that this became very clear with the abstract expressionists. Rose what do you mean by reductionism, the title . Taking a complex problem and selecting one component that you want to study in great detail. Many of these artists focused on one particular thing, color or flatness in jackson pollack and specialized rose and how does that relate to what you did in terms of snerm. Well, what i in terms of memory . What i did was take a complex thing like memory and say, you know, studying your memory would be very difficult. But what happens if i take the simple case of animal simple case of memory in a simple animal, i might make progress. I took a marine snail that had a very few nerve cells, each of which was very large. I could work out of neural circuit of behavior, produce a change in that behavior as a result of learning and see exactly what happens. And my colleagues and i found learning involved changes in the strength of synaptic connections, how nerve cells communicate with each other. So thats a simple example of reductionist approach. This has been used in all of molecular biology, using reductionist approach. Using reductionism in science is not new. In art also not new, but people didnt think of it in those terms. Rose you said science and specifically abstract art. Yes. Rose why specifically abstract art . Because in some ways abstract art is more experimental and allows the artist to play with your imagination where it focuses on certain aspects of things. So in abstract art, verosco will focus on color, jackson pollack the splattering of paint on canvas, so they focus on simplifying the task, allowing the imagine, freedom to wander, and one of the things in abstract art is to view a response to it very differently. Rose you say abstract art and science address questions and goals central to humanistic thought. What are those questions . In science, particularly Brain Science where we want to understand how the human mind works, what could be more central. In art we want to understand how people respond to works of art, how the imagination works, how you can stimulate the imagination. What are the things that are pleasing to people. Those are likely important questions. What enriches your life . Rose take a lack. We have slides, i want you to take a look at them and go through them. The first one, take a look, this is a turner. I love this turner. This next sequence likely outlines the whole task before us. So turner was interested in ships at sea and how they confronted the natural forces, the storm at sea, the clouds, the waves and these ships struggling in order to handle themselves under those circumstances. And this is a very figurative, beautifully detailed depiction. He now returned to the scene 40 years later and has done away with much of the detail. You barely recognize the fact that its a ship because you see the mast and you see that a lot of the detail is gone, but you still see the ship struggling against the force of nature, against the waves, against the sky, and in some ways, because it leaves more to the imagination, it affects you more powerfully. And this is a very interesting thing about this work of art, and abstract art in general there are processes that are involved in how you and i look at art. Rose right. One is called a bottomup process, and the other is called a topdown process. So when i look at you, for example, all my retina sees is the light bouncing off your face, the n the photons bouncinf your face. That is insufficient for me to recognize charlie rose, yet i recognize him with great facility. So there must be something else. Bottomup, our visual system is involved over hundreds of thousands of views and brought to bear many builtin clues it uses automatically. If i see a source of light, i immediately assume its above because the sun is above. If i see a person larger than another, i assume hes closer. There is a builtin mechanism where we make essentially guesses but correctly 90 of the time and thats why everyone recognizes you despite all they see is photons bouncing off your face. In addition to the builtin mechanism, theres a topdown mechanism. We learn Different Things, have different experiences, seen different works of audit and people and that acquired experience bears down and riches us. When it comes to this, the vaguer it is at abstract art, the more you rely on topdown processing, and one of the reasons abstract art is so pleasurable for people is because topdown processing involves the imagination, creativity, and that is very thrersable for most people. Rose the next slide is decuny. Yes, hes generally considered americas greatest artist next to picasso matisse, he painted a picture of the woman he loved. If you look at her right arm, its abstract and also the right side her face, so its a mixture of abstraction and figuration. Within a short period of time decuny became extraordinarily powerful abstract. This is one of his greatest paintings, ex cay vairkses a mixture of cubism and surrealism, unconscious processes. What is true for him and many of his paintings is despite the fact he is abstract and it causes you to spin around and move, its sort of a new york painting, you can see figurative elements. First, he often goes back and paints particularly women, but in addition even in his abstract paintings you can also see figurative elements in it. Rose the next slide is jackson poll lacks. Jackson pollack is an extraordinary guy. He was trained by a guy called benton, a midwestern painter, and, you know, started off doing reasonably interesting work but then he saw picassos work and got interested in doing something more radical. He decided he wanted to paint in a completely new way. He took the canvas off the wall, put it open the floor on the floor and started to is part paint on it. And he could walk around and splatter in different directions. No one had done this before. This absolutely blew everybody away. And decuny who was both his rival and his friend said jackson pollack has really blown the conventional idea of a picture completely to hell. This is a completely radical depiction of a work of art. Rose okay, the next one is mark roth. They all started off as figurative artist. You trace them as they move from figuration to abtraction. Roscoe said everyone is paying attention to line and form. What about color . Color is so interesting, so sensual, so spiritual, and he began to play with color. What you can cobe looking at it what you cant do by looking at it is see theres depth to it. He has layers with the top off, for example. This orange red, he has layers of paint and translucent lay on top and as you sit in front of it, you really see the depth of the painting. I once sat in front of these things i had the spiritual reaction everyone has and i say to myself, you think you are reductionist . You are nothing. This is extraordinary. The physical response someone has Something Like this. I dont know if you went to the roscoe chapel in houston. You see the dark paintings he made. He was depressed at the end of his life. You stand in front of them and see practically nothing and after a while you see a Little Movement and you dont know is it movement in the i think or you. Its very powerful. Hes a fantastic artist. Rose the next one is alex. One of the interesting thing about the abstract expressionist is not only did they influence each other and the world but they influenced figurative artists. For a while seemed the figurative artist was dead, unless you were in abstract youre not in the action. Alex was influenced by the abstract impressionists. He has a simple background in this case, a light blue, and he is interested in depiction. Hes not interested in conveying a message. He just wants you to get the beauty of the painting. And he influenced wor worhal. Rose what about other arts, music and writing. Do you see reductionism there . Yes. Rose give me an example of that. Schermberg who revolutionized music made music simplified a great deal, again, it is not from a perceptive point of view as attractive as abstract art so that form of music has not caught on but certainly people simplify music in a variety of ways to make it more attractive for a person. Rose youve said art, and you explained it in this conversation, i had you a more sensitive human being. Oh, absolutely. Enriches your life a great deal. First of all, you see people, you see scenes that you would not formally experience and also allows you to get more insight into yourself, what you respond to, what moves you. I dont know whether you find this, my guess is you do. I get the shallowest little idea thats original, i get pleasure out of it. One gets a great deal of pleasure out of ones individuality. When you look at an abstract painting that allows you to put your own ideas into it, i think its very satisfying. The people who enjoy abstract art i think they do it because it recruits the Creative Processes. Rose who was ernst crist . There were a trio of artists. Rio said he would die unless art becomes more scientific, relates to psychology and addresses how the beholder responds to. A he said a painting is not complete until the artist paints it and a viewer responds to it. No in we have to pay someone to say this is obvious. But no one put this in print and thought about it. How does a beholder respond to a work of art . Chris took that on. He said when you and i look at a painting, we see it somewhat differently. What does that mean . That each of us is undergoing a Creative Process that recreates in their own head to a very modest degree the image that they see and thats one of the reasons its satisfying to the viewer. He developed an idea that came from hemholtz that said we should Pay Attention to bottom up and top down processing. The way we look at modern art from a psychological point of view is like this. The next step is and im beginning to explore this with colleagues of mine is to see what happens if you image a person while theyre looking at three of these paintings, figurative, intermediate and abstract. What is happening in their brain as they shift from figurative to abtraction. Rose how do you do that . You first of all ask what their response is. Then you image their brain. Rose at the same time theyre seeing as theyre looking at a work of art. Rose are these in a museum or a laboratory . No, no, you take these images. Rose okay. And what do you see in the brain . We havent done this yet but this is what we hope to do. Rose how much does the subconscious play in creativity . Enormously. Yeah. Rose meaning. Ernst chris called it a regression in the surface of the ego. Psychotic people regress, they dont control it, but we in creative moments when more relaxed allow unconscious processes to come to the foreand allow us to play with ideas more readily. Rose how do you incorporate your sense of art into your life . I have a very nice collection and get pleasure out of going to museums. Rose have you always liked the new york abstract artist most . Because youre from vienna. I wrote a book on this. Rose right. I first collected a particular art, but they share features in common. I like looking at a collective because they influence each other and these people influence each other enormously and not only that, they had a very interesting philosophy. They said, look what happened in the second world war. There was the holocaust, there was the destruction of lives, there was dropping atomic bombs in japan, how can one deal with the art that existed before in face of these catastrophes . We have to look at the world anew. That was a very bold thing for these new york guys to do. And as a result, they moved the art scene from vienna where it was in 1900 and paris where it was most of the time to new york. Rose rocco, where was he born . Europe. Rose right before the war, right . I dont know, but, i mean, i think i remember the story. Anyway, so in terms of what you are doing, you have jeff koons coming up to columbia. How do you know . Rose we know these things. I have recruited jeff koons to be an artist in residence at this new building we have. Rose the book is dedicated to lee bollinger. I gave this talk first at his inaugural. Rose right. And he realized as you do that Brain Science is a bridge between discipline, that everything depends on the mind. So he is very interested in the fact that jeff koons is coming, is very excited about that. And what jeff is going to do is hes going to run one or more workshops in which he shows and talks to people. Rose heres whats interesting about this. At medical school they send the medical students to focus on works of arts to study in detail. Rose and synthesize. Thank you for coming. You deserve credit. Great doing a program with you. Rose my pleasure. This is how it began. You wrote a book. We do three or four series and here you are again with another book about art. Your series are so wonderful, charlie. Rose somebody ran up to me on the street the other day and said i have to ask you something about the brain series, please, please, please, something we had done a year or two ago. I feel a little embarrassed you have not gotten more recognition. Ive tried very hard, but you have so many recognitions in so many other areas, you dont need this. Rose reductionism in art and Brain Science bridging the two cultures. Eric kandel. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Youre watching pbs. You this is nightly Business Report with Tyler Mathisen and sue herera. October surprise. The fbi says its reviewing newly discovered emails in the clinton server case, and the markets shutter. Oil slick. Profits tumbled at exxonmobil and chevron. Is the outlook for one brighter than the other . And going green. Why california may usher in a new era for the still young but fast growing marijuana industry. Those stories and more tonight on nightly Business Report for friday, october 28th. Good evening, everyone. And welcome. Im Tyler Mathisen. Sue herera is off tonight. We begin tonight with new developments on the bumpy torturous clinton email trail. In the militantf