Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20161112

Of singer songwriter Leonard Cohen who died thursday, age 82. Charlie interviewed him for cbs night watch on this day in 1988. There is something that is wonderful about finishing a song youve labored on with a kind of care and intensity. You know that if youre going to be singing a song for the next 20 years, you want to be sure that you can get behind every word, and i have a lot of songs that i can still get behind because i brought that kind of attention to the lyric. And we conclude with Nobel Laureate eric kandel who talks about his new book which explores the relationship between art and Brain Science. In science, particularly Brain Science, 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 about how the imagination works, how we can stimulate the imagination. One to have the things that are pleasing to people, those are really important questions. What enriches your life. Veterans, Leonard Cohen and eric kandel coming up. 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. The war in iraq has claimed the lives of more than 2800 american troops. On this program weve talked about the war from many perspectives, journalists, generous, politicians and authors debated the reason we went to war, talked about the policy, strategy, the idea of the future years involvement in iraq. Joke me are three men who served in the u. S. Military in iraq a. Paul rieckhoff, author of chasing ghost a soldiers right, founder and executive director of the iraq and afghanistan veterans of america, he served in the u. S. Army in iraq from april 2003 to february 2004. Also here daniel anfang, he served in the marines in fallujah in 2004, currently holds the rank of sergeant. David myers also served in the marine corps as a First Lieutenant. I am pleased to have all of them here to talk about iraq as they see it, the war as they see it, the issues that they see and what those of us at home ought to know about the soldiers in iraq and the war that they are engaged in and what their own feelings and their own understanding of mission is, so i welcome all of you. Thank you. Let me, paul, begin with you. Tell me, what ought we know from your perspective about the men and women who are fighting the war . Well, theyre fantastic. I think theyre really doing our country so proud in so many different ways. They are without a doubt the final force weve ever fielded. Theyre educated, dynamic, passionate, theyre really trying to do their best every day, but theyre also in a tough spot. I think they recognize that and theyre trying to make do with a difficult situation, difficult operating environment, and i think a detached American Public. Thats one to have the things i hear consistently from people. Rose a detached American Public. Yeah. Rose detached because theyre not personally connected. Less than 1 to have the American Population served in iraq and afghanistan. In world war ii, you had about 10 or 11 . When you come home, looks like most of america is busy looking at Britney Spears or madonna when you have friends in fallujah or tikrit operating in combat environment and that detachment affects the way we treat veterans and view the war. The entire dynamic is different because its such a small of the population and the American Public is so removed from it. Rose what would you add to this . Echoing what paul said a, they are unbelievable individuals. I dont think ill go through the rest of my life meeting a better group of individuals than i served with in iraq and i constantly keep in touch with them, and, you know, moving forward, i think it, you know, just like paul said, it is difficult because the American Public is very detached, and there is somewhat of i think you could call it like a siphon, in terms of whats going on there on the ground. Like you said before in your introduction, youve had a number of individuals here who have different perspectives than we do and im happy you invited us here today because we have that boots opt deck perspective. Rose how else is it different . Its really different because were there for these extended periods of time, okay. Daniel and i served in the same regiment together. Rose both in fallujah together. Fallujah together . Yeah. Rose i know your dad and he said to me before you thought about doing this segment, you know, you ought to talk to my son about fallujah. What would i have understood if i had talked to you at that time . At that time, when i had immediately gotten back, i was extremely frustrated with the way we had been able to operate while we were in fallujah. Rose you couldnt operate the way you wanted to . We had certain constraints, absolutely. The city of fallujah during the marchup was basically bypassed. The objective, when we pushed up from kuwait, was to get to baghdad and secure Baghdad International airport as quickly as we could and certain areas were bypassed, fallujah was one of those areas, it became a staging ground an an infestation of the insurgency. And from the first month that i got into iraq for my second deployment was february of 2004. We had done a turnover with the 82nd airborne, and fallujah was a nogo zone. We were not allowed to operate inside that area because it was deemed as being too dangerous, and that was frustrating once we first got there. Then the culminating point was this blackwater scenario where these individuals ended up being hung on the west side. From that point we were able to cordon off the city rose people working as private contractors in iraq . Right. And then we were allowed to make an initial push into the city. Before that, we were frustrated as marines that we could not go in there and do the job we came there to do. Rose why couldnt you go in there at that time . Political rationale at that time probably was we were going to take a heavy loss if we went in there. I think politically, we wanted to try and work toward a different solution in terms of negotiating with these individuals, see if we could have another alternative as opposed to going in there, and we tried that, and it didnt work. What subsequently happened was the november invasion of fallujah after i had subsequently left. Rose and what happened at that time . At that time, fifth marines along with a number of army units andout urinates picked up where we left off and moved through the city and cleared it. Rose which is what you wanted to do in the beginning. Which is what we wanted to do once we got there. Rose it is often said, and ive heard this a thousand times, that men and women in combat have a mission but the most important thing is the people that theyre fighting alongside, that that is what binds them, thats where their highest instinct is, to work with and take care of those that are in battle with them. You develop this bond that you cannot find anywhere else. Its something that is so tight that you trust the men to the right of you and the men the to the left of you. You cant find it anywhere else. Its something thats very unique. Rose some believe that a lot of things that are good are not reported. Is that something you guys feel strongly about . There hasnt been enough breath. They dont dig in deep. They want a 30second sound byte, a quick story but they dont want to understand the magnitude of the story. Try to explain how your buddy died in a cnn clip. There are so many emotions there its hard to convince it down for a quick sound byte and thats part of the frustration i felt. But i think, at the same time, if you want good news stories, go to disneyland. This is a war zone and people are dying and being wounded and i think you have an obligation to represent that and show American People the true human cost of war and i dont think nats an antiwar or pro war statement, its a statement in the best interest of our military and soldiers to to understand the experience and the obligation of america to urns what happening there. I would add one of the things that very much so frustrates me is not too many of the stories of our heros are really told. I have ten to 20 of my very good friends who deserve a frontpage article in the new york times. Rose a story overone. Captain shantash, a platoon commander during the march up and he was a commander of a kat team and they have heavy guns and humvees. They were rolling north, encountered a trench line of iraqis, came under severe fire. He decided to take his humvee, drive it directly into the trench, disnowntd humvee, cleared the trench, killed 30 iraqis, ended up saving a number of lives of the men in his platoon. Ended up awarded for the navy cross rose highest medal in the navy. Highest in the navy and marine corps. The only thing mentioned was a little article in his local paper. Rose did you believe you had the support of people at home when you were fighting . Was there any question that their public country support, those who might disagree about the war but the support for you as a soldier . I had many people who supported myself and my platoon, per se. I had dwayne reed support us, send us packages, family, friends. I had more support, helped me through the war, a letter every day just got me through. He mentions the letters people sent him to help him get through. Very important. The soldiers, the marines overseas in theater, it motivates us and builds our morale up. Its war, no ifs ands or buts about that, but the letters and packages from home, we appreciate that. In america culture, people separate the war from the policy. The vets in vehement learned to separate the two. I have been treating fantastically by and large. I live in new york city and when i walk around everybody wants to shake my hand, treats me well and thats an amazing testament to the American People. Because youre antiwar, i dont think it necessarily means youre against me and i think thats progress in this country and what we need to look for going forward. The support i got forward was incredible. Rose did you get the support you needed from the military . We hear stories about people driving humvees have to go out and get extra protection and the humvees were not and this was raised with the secretary of defense. Right, my guys didnt have adequate rose how can that be . Thats the question we need to ask. How did you send troops with inadequate body armor, no double a batteries, inequipped. We didnt have interpreters and economic and political tools to be successful. That goes to the leadership. The senior generous bear some of the responsibility, but i think rumsfeld was failing in his job and lost the confidence of a lot of people in the military and thats why in part the military times last week called for his resignation, people on both sides of the aisle called for his resignation. He failed us. You have to hold people accountable for the failures in the administration. Its about accountability. You were in the reserves, right . Rose yeah. Speaking from First Marine Division and my battalion, we had all of the personal body armor we needed and could possibly carry. Rose did you feel safe if you were on a humvee that the humvee had the kind of Armor Protection thaitd needed from rodeside it gets to a certain point, i think, and these guys are building these improvised explosive devices today with an incredible amount of power. Rose more and more sophisticated. Yes, and it gets to a certain point where no matter how much you have on this hum vehicles its not going to help. I know a number of our tank commanders who have humvees and its not just about body armor for a couple of guys or platoon. It was widespread logistics and procurement failures and it took an outcry of the American Public, the people and veterans coming home to get it fixed. Rumsfeld was dismissive and said you go to war with what you have. The armored humvee factories could have done more. It goes back to the initial issue of detachment. The American Public doesnt know our american soldiers. Most people in the country never met a soldier who had been to iraq and that detachment had to do with it. As far as the body armor, i felt, you know, we had equipment, a right amount of body armor. There is only so much we can carry as soldiers. I felt that was okay. As far as the marines on deck or the soldiers on deck, i didnt feel it was enough. I didnt feel like we had enough men on the ground. My platoon had a hard time filling positions. That was my big problem. Rose having enough . Enough member on the ground filling positions. Just to add to that, you know, there is marine corps doctrine and im sure its in the army field book as well that a it takes a certain amount of combat power to take an objective. It takes a lot more combat power to hold that objective once youre there. So we went into iraq and we took the objective, we took baghdad within a number of weeks, and since we have been there, i completely agree with paul, we needed, and i know senator mccain is pushing the issue for more troops. Rose 20,000 hes calling for minimum. Thats middling around the edges. If you want a comprehensive strategy, weve got to get serious about what its going to take. The criticism i hear constantly in the military and from the members is weve done this halfway. The longer out gets the harder it gets. We need hundreds of thousands not tens of thousands rose what do you think would have happened there is a famous controversy with a general in which he testified they would need 200,000, 300,000 troops and the conventional wisdom is that was sort of the end of his army career, he was chief of staff of the army at that time. General powell has often said weve needed more troops going in there. Is it all your beliefs that, in fact, one of the things thats been wrong with the iraqi war is we didnt have enough men and women on the ground to do the job . During the marchup, we had what we needed and took the objective. Rose until saddam was over. Yes. Post, there was not enough thought process by tommy franks, Donald Rumsfeld or our leaders for whats this aftermath going to look like. My personal opinion, i came back from my first tour and thought im probably not going back, pretty much tone and we had a great welcome from the majority of iraqis and i didnt think it would morph into what it has, but we have not reacted to that. We went with enough combat power to take the objective. We have not reacted to whats been going on in terms to have current threat, and i do believe we need absolutely just like paul mentioned increase it not by incremental but significant amounts. Fitz going to work. Im not saying it will. But we really need to hold the minor changes that are rhetorical or political. You have to talk about comprehensive solutions and the longer which wait the harder it gets. The window of opportunity was summerfall of 2003 and ever since then its been fighting uphill. Rose they werent in control. They disbanded the iraqi army, didnt control the situation and started to go downhill. Rose i wanted to come the rum feld. Do you think his resignation was a good idea . I think it should have happened two years ago. I totally agree with that. Rumsfeld underestimated what we needed in iraq and i believe he didnt take care of the troops like he should have. Like you mentioned about the poor specialist that he ignored. Thats unacceptable. You have an obligation as a combat leader to go down to the lowest level, to talk to the sergeants, the privates and find out about the Ground Troops we call the military is that what would have they heard . Exactly what the sergeant is saying, we didnt have enough people, didnt have the tools to be successful. Thats the frustration i hear within the military with rumsfeld and others. We no general batiste who compland it did division inside iraq wasnt listening. In many ways he set the military up for failure. I dont want to see the rhetoric change where you blame the generous. True commanderinchief or not and if you are take charge and start to fix the situation here. I think thats the last thing we want is this to become a war of escalation which, you know, ive done a little reading, obviously, but thats what the perceived problem in vietnam was, it was a war of escalation. We didnt come in with full force with everything we had to take care of that problem, and i know deep within my heart that if we do that here, we can win. Iraqs never going to look like new jersey or texas. We need to seriously downgrade our expectations. Now what were doing is geopolitical triage. We have to think about iran, the turks and our geopolitical stability and downward manager what were going to get out of iraq. It wont look like president bush told us. Rose you think it was a mistake to go in . I do. I think its weakened us and hasnt made us safer. The president always said we have to fight them over there so we dont have to fight them over here. What if we have to do both is this. Rose why did you go into the marines . I joined 9 11. I was a high school senior. I was the staten island. I looked outside my School Building and saw the twin towers were hit. I left school with permission from my parents. My father was a new York City Police detective. He came running home to get his weaponry and told me, im not going to be home for a couple of days. I didnt see my father for five or six days. I said to myself, you know, i dont want this for my kids. Let me take a stand here and now. Ly de i will devote four years of my life or whatever it takes to ensure the safety of the American People. I felt my children should live in a safe rose and you were how old . 17 years old. And now im 21 today. Rose and do you look back on that time as one of the most important things you did and something you would do over . Without a doubt, i would do it over. Would ity through it more . Definitely. Would i do it over . I would. I feel very patriotic for doing what i did. I feel like ive, you know, helped the greater you know, the greater cause. Rose how did you end up in the marines. Ended up in the marines from bucknell university, graduated, and just wanted to do something different. Rose the year was. 2001. Ended up going to officer can at that time school before september 11th, it happened. Rose so you were in there before. Right, in the pipeline before 9 11. I just wanted to do something different. It was a challenge. You know, i certainly did not want to sit behind a desk and get a finance job like the majority of my friends. Rose and your father. Ight. Rose and you served two tours. Two tours. Rose each one a year or how long . Each one roughly eight months. Rose and you . 1998, i joined the Army Reserves after i graduated college. I wanted to serve. Rose did you really . I wanted to give Something Back. My father had been drafted during vietnam, my grandfather during world war ii and spent two years in the south pacific, and i felt like if i didnt do my part i was kind of free loading as a citizen, i wanted to give Something Back and i wanted the challenge piece. I wanted to jump out of airplanes and blow stuff up, i think that was part of it, but i also wanted to test myself and i think that military service is an honorable thing, something that had been a tradition in my family and i wanted to do my part. Rose beyond the idea of brotherhood, sisterhood, whats the most important thing we could never understand about combat unless you have been there . In the middle of the firefighter, the mortars dropping and all of the chaos and adrenaline returning through your body and this fear you witness some pretty incredible and some pretty heroic and wonderful actions. A corporal of mine in my platoon running from out from under a bunker to in the middle of a barrage of mortars to grab one of his bodies and pull them back to safety, and that is just one of the images in my life that i will never forget, and theres an absolutely horrible and disgusting aspect to war but there is that tiny bit of just amazing piece of bravery that you witness when youre there and that you will never forget. So i think that might be one of the toughest things there. Rose there are many things to be said which we cannot say in the amount of time that we have except thank you for all the things youve done. Paul rieckhoffs book is chasing ghosts. Daniel anfang sergeant in the marine corps, and david myers First Lieutenant u. S. Marine corps now Business School in new york. Thank you all. Thank you, sir. Rosehe has been called a poet laureate of outrage and despair for more than 20 years. Canadian Leonard Cohen has been writing and singing songs with a passion of longing. He was at the forefront in the 60s and found him sft in the midst of another renaissance, out with im your man, first major label album in ten years and getting critical acclaim. We look now at the video version of one of the songs from the album. First we take manhattan. They sentenced me to 20 years of boredom what kind of chains im coming now im coming to reward them first we take manhattan then we take the men rose joining us Leonard Cohen. Welcome back, i should say. Thank you for having me over. Rose why ten years . Its been ten years in this country because my Record Company neglected to put out a couple of my records, but, you know, i have been still moving around europe and playing now. Rose whats it like during the lull period . Do you notice a difference . I dont notice it because you dont really live according to your chart position. One continues to do ones work. Rose and do the audiences still want to hear the favorites . Yes, i like to sing the old songs. Usually, im asked for them. Sometimes its different to enter into a song you have been singing for 20 years, but its important to find the door. Rose enter into it, what do you mean . Well, for instance, last night, the audience asked me over and over again to sing suzanne. Rose of course, they did. And, you know, there was a point where i felt, okay. Rose do you purposely tease them in a sense . No, no. Rose knowing youre going to have to do it but wanting to hold out as long as possible . Well, it isnt that severe an ordeal, you know. Its a pretty good song snownot an ordeal but in the sense knowing in the end its your responsibility to them, to an audience, if youve written a song and performed a song and sage a song that has registered. Did you write that . Yeah. Rose thats the probably most popular song youre known for. Yes. Rose therefore you know they want to hear it i. Would think an artist would owe that to an audience. Ere would be no point in refusing to sing a song people like. Rose but if you sing it the third song in your performance that evening, in a sense, you want to hold it out till the end. The position of every song has to be carefully determined in a concert set. Rose what goes into that determination . Its mostly instinctive, but a lot of it has certain technical considerations. You dont want to put three uptempo songs all together. Rose is it written somewhere . Do you have it hidden on stage . Its engraved in the heart but i do have a set list pasted on the floor beneath me. Rose i went to a performance backstage and the whole play list was right there. I knew, if you play every night on tour and you change, you have to have a recollection of where to do. And technical considerations because were working with synthesizers and programs so that players have to be aware of what song is coming up. Rose you are what, now, 50 . 54. Rose do you still train your voice . Do you still work with your voice . I try to smoke quite a lot and drink to deepen it. Rose right. laughter i never had a voice. I never thought i had a voice. Rose you have a deep voice. It keeps getting deeper. Rose because . 50,000 cigarettes. Rose you still smoke . I started again for the tour. Rose why . There is just that moment on a tour where id been reaching for a cigarette for 30 years and just kept doing it. I had quit for some time. Rose because of the cancer scare . Just generally wanting to get on the bandwagon of health. Rose i would think a tour for someone like you who really has a onetoone relationship with an audience in a sense, its not a razzle dazzle, its you and the audience and the long you know they want to hear, would be fun, would be enjoyable, would be satisfying, would be confirming. Well, i love touring. The preparations are difficult, but once you get on the road its like living with a motorcycle gafnlgt yourenr free from decisions and alibis. You know the whole day funnels down to the moment where you step out and there is nothing else to be considered. Rose like a television show. I know whereof i speefnlgt there is nothing thats going to stand in the way of that moment. Rose if suzanne is the audience favorite, what is yours . I dont know if its the audiences favorite but its the most familiar song and their right to insist they hear it. I think it varies from night to night in terms of how well the song is played and sung. Rose yeah, are you the least bit surprised at your continued survivability and acceptance and success . Of course, im happy to be able to stay in the game, but when i started this work on this record, i always thought i was in for the long haul. Rose and thought you would be successful in what and would have a career . I never thought of it in terms of a career. I always wanted to be paid for my work, but i didnt want to work for pay. Rose thats a good way to have putting it. And you dont work for pay now . Of course there is an economic consideration rose but you dont work for pay. You dont have to do this. You know, there are certain private obsessions that really determine what your life is, and a lot of my life is concerned in turning out a certain standard of work, and as long as i can keep up a respectable standard. Rose why do you think youre more appreciated in europe than the nats . I used to say because they dont understand the words over there. I dont know. laughter rose that if youre saying french in france, they wouldnt appreciate you as much. I dont know, in america there are very simple and perhaps even refreshing market laws and if you dont satisfy those laws, you just dont perform in the market. Rose yeah. And its been determined that i am not a mainstream singer and, therefore, the market is not as receptive, but i cant i cant don a check of neglect and go into a sense of obscurity. Ive had a modest worldwide career for a long time and i cant complain about that. Rose i wouldnt either. Tell me about the new album. Some say it kind of hearts back to country western. Well, i started off in a country western band in montreal 35 years ago called the buckskin boys. Ive always liked that element. I think Country Music is one of the most sophisticated strains of music we have in america. Rose why . Well, its a kind of minimal music where theres a good emphasis on the voice, on the experience in the voice, and i love to hear the stories told in Country Music. Rose i do, too. But its sophisticated because its raw, because no, because the hearts and minds that produce this music are very sophisticated. We have this motion that because its from tennessee and there are some cotton farmers singing it that rose i dont have that notion at all, but im interested what you think it does that reflects sophistication. Its just the refinement of very complex situations into very cokent and hearttouching phrases. The technical considerations of Country Music are very demanding, and the great singers, the great writers like Hank Williams are as important as any other writers we have. Rose do we still you know, whats interesting is the trend now is back, randy travis and some of those guys, are really, in a sense, looking for those roots. Well, you know, the roots have always been there, and for millions of people, the roots never withered. Fad styles move away from one music art to another, but that kind of music has always been there. We call it folk music. That is our music. Rose where does blues fit in . Well, you know, youve got to earn the right to sing the blues, you know. Rose yeah. They fit in whenever the heart is full enough and the heart is willing, you sing the blues. Not my strain of music, you know. I wouldnt touch that kind of music. Rose because if. Its not really my tradition, but i rov love it. Rose have you seen Clint Eastwoods film charlie park . I havent seen it yet. Rose they say its the best film ever made about a jazz artist. How is the writing experience for you . Its a desperate kind of experience. Rose never gets easier is this. Well, no. Theres said to be two school of writers. One school where you work three months on a paragraph, and the thomas wolf school where you write 30,000 words on the top of the refrigerator every night. Unfortunately im in the former category. Rose im on the later. The idea of working three months on a paragraph or writing and laboring on one paragraph before you move to the next is just painful to me. Its a severe enterprise, but there is something that is wonderful about finishing a song that youve labored on with that kind of care and intensity. You know that furr going to be singing a song for the next 20 years, you want to be sure that you can get behind every word. I have a lot of songs i can still get behind because i brought that kind of attention to the lyric. Rose because you knew what went into fashioning the words and the paragraph. Well, i have to write down everything i throw away, so by the time i get down to six verses in a song, ive thrown away 60 or 70 completed songs. So the ratio is about ten 2001. Rose whats the difference in writing poetry versus prose . Im not sure if there is a difference. Im not sure we know what poetry is today. Certainly that the lines dont the words dont come to the end of the line makes it poetry. Poetry has rhythm, authority, music, but prose can have that, too. Sometimes a paragraph in the National Geographic will have that kind of stunning simplicity and clarity that we associate, you know, with great verse. Rose yeah, it really is that. Stunning simplicity and clarity. But we dont have to be limited about that because sometimes we like complexity and we like puzzles and certainly modern poetry gives us a lot of that. Rose any book that you continue to go back to and want to read . For example, i think it was Carlos Fuentes said to me on this broadcast that every few years or so he reads cervantes. Yeah, oh, it takes a few years to read cervantes. I suppose the book that i go back to most often is the bible, the King James Version of the bible. Rose why . The language, the authority, the . Mag i have in sense of the the mag i hav mag i have magnifa literary level, has value. But to read the psalms of king david is the poet of every writer. Rose are you a religious man . I wouldnt think so. You wouldnt want to advertise yourself that way on national television. You would never be able to get a date. Rose what kind of date . laughter well, thank you very much. A pleasure to have you here. Much success with the album. Hope you will come back. Always welcome on this broadcast. Youve very kind. Thank you very much. Rose eric kandel is here. He is my colleagues on our brain series and a former Nobel Laureate. His new book comploars a 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. Im delighted to be here. Thanks for having me. Rose so both of them are concerned, science and art, with the deepest questions about human existence. They share that. Absolutely. Rose concern. But we think of them as separate. C. P. Snow. Rose yes. And this book is designed to show its not as separate as we think and why. C. P. Snow made the point that humanity is concerned with art and literature are in a different world than science is concerned with the nature of the universe, and tha 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, in 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 important humanestic questions. In addition, painters, artists often use experimental approaches. So very much like scientists, you know, painter can try Different Things to see whether theyre getting exactly the kind of impact. Rose well, i think it was Richard Serra who said to me once and may have said it at this table when you were here, said it to me a number of times, but 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 way serra puts it. Rose yeah. And this is the point i try to make here is this became very clear with the abstract expressionist. Rose what do you mean by reductionism . By reductionism, i mean taking a complex problem and selecting one component that you want to study in great detail, and many of these artists folk on one particular thing color or flatness in jackson pollack, and special rose and how does that relate to what you did in terms of memory . Well, what i did was to take a complex problem like memory rose yes. And say to myself, you know, studying your memory would be very difficult. But what happens if i take the simple case of animals, very simple case of memory in a simple animal, i might be able to make progress that way, and i took a very simple animal, marine snail, that had very few nerve cells, each of which was very large. I could work out a neurocircuit of behavior, produce a change in that behavior as a result of learning and see exactly what happens. And my colleagues and i found that learning involves changes in the strength of synaptic connections, how nerve cells communicate with each other. So thats a simple example of reductionist approach. Thats used repeatedly in all molecular biology. Using reductionism in science is nothing new. Using reductionism in art also is not new but people didnt think of it in those terms. Rose you have said that science and abstract art, specifically abstract art. Because abstract art in some ways is more e experimental and allows the artist to play with your imagination where it focuses on certain aspects of things. So in aspect of art, roscoe will focus on color, jackson pollack will focus on the splattering of paint on the canvass, and, so, they will focus on specific things, sort of simplifying the task and allowing the imagination freedom to wander. And one of the wonderful things about abstract art as to figurative art is the viewers responds to it very differently. Rose abstract art and science address goals that are central to humistic thought. What are those questions . In science, particularly Brain Science, one would understand how the human mind works, what could be more central. In art, you 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. What enriches your rife. Your life. Rose take a s slide. That is turner. I love this turner. This next sequence really 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 returns to the scene 40 years later and he 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. 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 photons bouncing off your face. That is clearly insufficient for me to recognize charlie rose. I recognize him with great facility and so does everyone else. So there must be other sources of information, and there are. Bottomup and topdown. Bottomup is our visual system is involved in over hundreds of thousands of views and brought to bear in builtin clues that 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 the other, i assume hes closer than the other person. Theres a builtin mechanism whereby we make guesses but correctly 90 of the time and thats why everyone recognizes you despite the fact all they see is no tons bouncing off your face. But in addition to this builtin meek simple theres a topdown mechanism. We learn Different Things, have different experiences, weve seen different works of art and different people, and that acquired experience bears down and enriches us. When it comes to this, the vaguer it is, abstract art, the more you rely on topdown processing. One of the reasons abstract art is so pleasurable for people is because topdown processes involve the imagination, the creativity, and that is very pleasurable for most people. Rose the next slide is a decuny. Yes, william decuny, generally considered americas greatest artist next to picasso matisse, painted this of the woman in the 40s he was to marry years later. This is a figurative depiction. But if you look at her right arm, its abstract and the right side of her face is abstract. So a mixture of abstract and figuration. Within a short period of time, decuny became an extraordinarily powerful abstract. This is one of his greatest painting excavation. Its a mix of cubism and surrealism processes. Whats true for him and many of his paintings is despite the fact its very abstract and causes you to spin and and move,th a new york type painting, you have different elements. First, he often paint particularly women, but even in his abstatic paintings you can often see figurative elements in it. Rose next slide, jackson pollack. Hes extraordinary. Trained by a 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 that he wanted to paint in a completely new way. He took the canvas off the wall, put it on the floor and started to splattered paint on it and he could walk around and splatter in different directions. No one had ever done this before. This just absolutely blew everybody away, and decuny who is both his rival and 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. Whats interesting about all these people, you can 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, sensual, spiritual, and he began to play with color. What you can do by looking at it, you have to see it in real life, is to see there is depth to it. He has layers with the top off for example, the orange here, he has layers of paint and translucent lay on top and as you sit in front of it you really sees the depth of the painting and i sat in front of these things and had a spiritual reaction everyone has. I said, you think youre reductionist . Youre nothing. This is extraordinary. The physical response somebody has to Something Like this. Nobody ever went to the rothko chapel in houston, you see the dark paintings, he was depressed at the end of his life, you stand in front of him and see practically nothing. After a while, you see a Little Movement and you dont know if the movement is in the image or you. Its very powerful, a fantastic artist. Rose the next one is alex one of the interesting things about the abstract expressionist is not only did they influence each other and the world but they influenced figurative artists. For a while it seemed the figurative artist was dead. People were saying unless you do abstract youre really not in the action. But alex katz didnt go along with that but was very much influenced by the abstract expressionist. The paintings are completely black, no per suspective, a very simple battleground in this case bring and hes interested in depiction. Hes not interested in conveying the message. He just wants you to get the idea of the painting. Rose katz was influenced by warhol . Cats influenced warhol. Rose what about music and writing . Do you see reductionism there . Yes. Rose give me an example of that. Shermburg who revolutionized music, made music a total, sort of simplified it atonal and simplified it a great deal, 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 in order to make it more attractive for a person. Rose you have said that art, and you explained it in this conversation, has made 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 normally experience. And also allows you to get a more insight into yourself, what you respond to, what moves you. And i dont know whether you find this, my guess is you do, i get the shallowest idea thats original i get pleasure out of it. When you look at a painting, particularly abstrarkts that allows you to put your own ideas into it, i think its very satisfying and the people who enjoy abstract art, i think they do it because it recruits their creative processes. Rose and who was ernst crist . Regal was the first that said art will die unless its more scientific. Science relates itself to psychology and its how you the beholder responds to a work of art. He said a painting is not complete until the artist paints it an and a viewer responds to. This is obvious. But no one put this in print and thought about it. How does the beholder respond to a work of art . Crist took that problem on and when you and i look at the same painting we see it somewhat differently. What does that mean . That each of us is undergoing a creative process, that behold the 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. Ganbush realized all you see is photons and he developed this idea that came from hem holts that we should Pay Attention to bottom up and top down processing, so the current, modern way we look at works of art from an experimental, psychological point of view is like this. And now, of course, the next step is, and people are trying to do this 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. Theyre figurative, intermediate and abstrarkts what is happening in their brain as they shift from figure regulation to abstraction. 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. Announcer this is nightly Business Report with Tyler Mathison and sue herera. Turning point. Is stock kicking back . Why now may be the time to change your investment strategy. Post election portfolio, what names should you consider buying now that we know who will be in the white house come january. Building a business. Well introduce you to some veterans to went from active duty to active entrepreneur. Those stories and more tonight on nightly Business Report for veterans day friday november 11th. Good evening, everyone, and welcome. Im tyler matheson. Sue herera is off tonight. The trump bump didnt slump but it did flatten a bit today. It