Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Something that I consider beautiful and is art:

A painting called "The Swing" by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. The painting is beautiful in the sense that it has aesthetic appeal and provides a perceptual experience of pleasure. But the painting can also be classified as art because it is intentional and expressive. There is a deep meaning behind the picture as well: the young man hidden in the bushes is watching the woman on a swing, being pushed by her husband. Her husband is hidden in the shadow, as he is unaware of the affair. Obviously, the artist put a great amount of thought into this painting.

Something that I consider beautiful that is not art:

The Prague Castle. 

Beauty is a very subjective matter (as the old saying goes: "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"). I personally believe that the Prague Castle contains a certain aesthetic appeal that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure. However, the Prague Castle was not originally built for aesthetics. Most castles were built as fortresses from invasions, not to be looked at as works of art. They were functional, as opposed to expressive. So although this castle is beautiful, it is mostly classified as non-art.

Something that I don't consider beautiful but is art:

The painting "The Potato Eaters" by Vincent Van Gogh.
To me, this painting doesn't exactly hold any sort of aesthetic appeal. The colors are a bit dark and depressing, the shapes of the peoples' faces appear odd and disjointed, and the overall picture just isn't pleasing to me. However, the painting was made intentionally by Vincent Van Gogh, and it is both expressive and creative. Therefore, it is art.

An attempt at shifting paradigms

One of you is a philosopher and the other is a mathematician. As such, you can both be classified as rational and reasonable people that understand logical areas of knowledge. Which is why I don't understand why you are both defending beliefs that are thousands of years old. Galileo gave you perfectly reasonable evidence for the fact that the Ptolemaic system of the universe, in which the sun orbits around us, has been proved wrong. According to the Ptolemaic hypothesis, "stars" are not supposed to be observed around other planets, but alas, Galileo found several objects orbiting around Jupiter. He was able to see the moons of Jupiter through his telescope and stated that they orbited around Jupiter, not Earth. This means that Earth is not the center of all orbits! If you two had simply looked through the telescope, you would have realized that the solid evidence against the Ptolemaic hypothesis.

Why will you not change your outdated beliefs in favor of a more pragmatic theory? I understand that Galileo shattered your previously held theological and scientific beliefs, but if the new ideas makes more sense, why should you preserve the thoughts and systems of Ptolemy and Aristotle? As Galileo stated so neatly, "What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times?". Your paradigms, my friends, are trapping you into a certain frame of mind and making you close-minded to other ideas. I understand you may be frightened of a new theory that could revolutionize all of society, and that you hate being proven wrong because you may have emotional attachments to your beliefs. However, you are logical professionals. Won't you at least try to look with your own eyes instead of the eyes of your authorities?

Oh, and here's a video of an old man impersonating Galileo's trial before the Holy Office:

A Review of Incognito

The aim of the book as a whole was to make sense of what goes on in our minds. Granted, this is an extremely tough job, as our minds are exorbitantly complex systems. David Eagleman proved that the brain and sensory organs don't always reveal the world as it is; our mind can play tricks on us. Eagleman further argues that the actions of the unconscious are so powerful that they can overthrow consciousness and, when combined with the influences of genetic expression, undermine our traditional ideas of self-control and free will.

Neuroscience raises deep, disturbing questions about crime, punishment, and the organization of society, which may have been the most interesting part of the whole book. Should mentally challenged people should be held responsible for their actions? On one hand, they aren't completely consciously responsible for their actions, but on the other hand, they committed a socially unacceptable crime. Does that deserve punishment?
 
Now, I suppose I didn't enjoy how Eagleman made us double-guess ourselves about consciousness and free will. As one student pointed out in class, I like to think I'm in control of myself. If I'm not, who is? It simply makes me unsettled to think that I don't get a say in my own identity.

In summation, the book had its ups and downs. There was no coherent order to the book and it tried to cram in too much information. A multitude of interesting facts was intended to shock the readers on almost every page of the novel, and shock us it did. However, it included so many optical illusions and surprising psychology experiments that I couldn't take it all in at once. I feel that Eagleman tried too hard to impress the readers, and I ended up with a headache at the end of the novel. If you're interested in random facts about neuroscience, then I recommend it. Just don't read it all at once or you may become overwhelmed.