Qualitative problem solving is, as John Dewey insisted of scientific inquiry, not a neat progression of steps but a single, continuous means-end progression, sometimes hesitating, halting, grouping; it may be rethought, move forward again, start over; in short, it is experimental behavior.
One of the essential traits of the artist is that he is born an experimenter. The artist is compelled to be an experimenter because he has to express an intensely individualized experience through means and materials that belong to the common and public world. This problem cannot be solved once for all. It is met in every new work undertaken. Otherwise an artist repeats himself and becomes esthetically dead. Only because the artist operates experimentally does he open new fields of experience and disclose new aspects and qualities in familiar scenes and objects. – John Dewey
Einstein stated that the artist and the scientist each substitute a self-created world for the experiential one, with the purpose of transcendence. The main difference is that the artist is guided by an “artistic attitude" while the scientist is guided by a “scientific attitude". Artists are reflective and intuitive persons; materializing and visualising subjective experiences; and breaking the boundaries and traditions. Scientists are logical and rational persons; formulating verbally objective theories and principles; and seeking to improve and optimize. Scientists in their work are usually problem solvers, which are selecting course of actions that is believed to yield the best possible outcome. Artists are usually problem dissolvers, which are changing the nature and the environment of the system where the problem is imbedded so as to remove the problem. These differences are not exclusive; this means that sometimes the artists will be working as scientists and vice versa, during their working process and problem solving process.
Rene Victor Valqui Vidal
The Art and Science of Problem Solving
