On the Development of Spart - Sports Art: An Opinion

Science is plagued by a number of inconsistencies and incoherencies. It assumes that the laws of nature are continuous and necessarily operative in all time and space. This may also be stated as to the assumption of the law of induction. It assumes that there is always some mechanical causal system or mechanism, but we find in Quantum, a-causality, the simultaneity of a substance being A and not A (a wave and a particle), we find non-local faster than the speed of light communication and probabilities where it appears that consciousness and not simply matter in itself collapses the wave so that a certain reality might come into place.

The blind adherence to science and the assumption that Western medicine is always the best is also skewered. The reductive and analytical sciences often cause more harm than good as laws suits against its practitioners testify. That an ideal cultured clinical trial might stand for the complexity of the whole (context) is an assumption of experimental sciences - physical, biological and social. Furthermore, the institution of science that receives funding on a large scale is usually reserved for military advantage. The repercussions are potentially devastating. Given the above, I therefore believe that a purely scientific application to sport is rather one-sided and ridiculously specialised. We need experts in sport history, philosophy, aesthetics; sport through the lens of the artistic dimension, alternative healing and so on.

I would suggest a new paradigm that aligns sport with art and cultivates the sportsperson holistically, both from a physiological perspective and the softer humanities. I would therefore suggest a new coaching method where art and psychological introspection are part of the sportspersons diet. Competition in sport is not its only value. It is also an expressive and creative act that can be enjoyed not only on the elite level. A continuity between the self as sportsperson and as a fully participatory being open to the arts is thus called for, while sports science serves its function on its level. We may even be able to scientifically measure that doing and enjoying viewing art and sport activate similar neural circuits and areas of the brain, thus adding to a new body of knowledge on creativity and the enigmatic notion of consciousness.

If one were to do such research, the inter-disciplinary overlap between art and sport and even more ambitiously the humanities and the sciences will go some way to halting the idea of knowledge and the person (the “object”) as merely parcelled out into separate disciplines. Indeed, research of this sort will suggest what I call an “epistemic unity”, that is to say, the idea that although there are various disciplines (like the range of sports), there is, to borrow from Wittgenstein a “family resemblance”, so that a kind of “in between”, a wave function if you will develops, encompassing broadly all kinds of knowledge into a synthesis or picture, much as the various data entering the senses and thence the brain formulate a coherent image or narrative. Thus construed, sports medicine and health are not simply about treating, curing, high performance, rehabilitating, operating, but also speaks another language. It cultivates, elevates, draws on the imagination and vision, on intuition and emotions; it asserts the significance of the formal, of beauty and harmony and aesthetic sensitivity.