Pretentious, Meaningless Dribble and it's Effect on Science

The moon is not within walking distance.

That sentence doesn't mean anything at all. Nothing. There is nothing at all profound about that sentence. But I guarantee you that if you think about it long enough you can derive something from it.

So this is stupid. Or is it? Here's the thing: When we apply meaning were there is none intended, we create completely new ideas. I think that this is the real benefit that society gets from art. We create leaps over large gaps of logic and reason, which allow us to think in completely different ways. Usually this leads nowhere and a reasonable person can tell when they are going to down a false logical road. Occasionally, however, abstract thought brings to brilliant conclusions.

Off the top of my head I can't think of any specific examples of art influencing science (I'm sure they exist), but there are some insane things in science that standard logical rules probably wouldn't lead to. The biggest examples are Relativity and Quantum Physics. These were derived from math, but there are some huge logical gaps to jump before arriving at those theories. Of course evidence later confirmed these crazy ideas but they are proof of just how imaginative that we can be when confronted with seemingly meaningless information.