Camaban

I'd doubt we'll ever find an answer, still an interesting thing to discuss though.

Synaesthesia

It's the same stage at which he found a certain plant and thought to himself "Gee, I think I'll burn this an inhale the smoke."

Christopher Lord

I think beauty is the same concept as Quality (Pirsig's quality).

And I think that observing this quality in our tools led to a general-purpose quality/beauty detector we have.

Or: If evolution wanted us to make useful tools, it would have made useful tools look beautiful.

[ July 08, 2002: Message edited by: Christopher Lord ]</p>

HRG

While many interesting points have been made during the discussion so far, let's keep in mind that the original question ís somewhat analogous to "When was the first word of French spoken?"

Regards,
HRG.

lpetrich

This principle can be applied to other likes and dislikes. For example, stuff that smells and tastes good is stuff that is usually worth eating, while stuff that smells and tastes bad is stuff that is usually not worth eating.

And I've seen a weird speculation that we have some instinctual tropism for places that resemble eastern Africa of the last few million years -- open terrain with scattered trees and small lakes and rivers.

This may explain our liking of spread-out vistas and sunsets and starry nights, because such sights would be difficult to see in forested areas.

However, this instinct is not an all-controlling one, because t some of our species have had claustrophilia, a liking of enclosed areas. One well-known claustrophile is the late Dr. Isaac Asimov, whose favorite place had been his home office.

tommyc

I believe there is certain research that suggests that happier people live longer. A human which can appreciate beauty, may live a happier life, and a whole race that shares this attribute may be more succesful.

A lot of maybes I know, just a suggestion.

GeoTheo

Sounds like circular reasoning to me. Mankind is made "happy" by art because that is his nature. That explanation that it made some ancestor happy and longer lived doesn't explain anything. If it wasn't his nature to be affected by art it would do him as much good as my Andrew Wyeth prints do my dog.
Are there any artists here? I would assume perhaps there is a low percentage.Art is associated with religion. It is a search for perfection. To quote Kurt Vonnegut (loosely) "Art is when you realize you cant succeed in making the world any better, you can't make your marriage work but you can make somthing right on a piece of paper."
Artists seek the transcendant. It involves intuition. Finding the larger picture.
The sexual selection explanation is nonsense too. It does nothing to explain the origin of the matter. It may explain why artistic talent may run in certian families, but does nothing to explain it's origin.
To a creationist this has been a very encouraging thread.

GeoTheo

"Goes from there" is right.
That is akin to an olympic Gold medalist explaining how he achieved the honor by stating
"On day I joined a Gym and it went from there."
The sum total of all Sculpture and painting of every civilization that ever existed can be explained by "camouflage methods" that "went from there."
In the Army I had to use camouflage methods and they did progress due to my "God given" artistic talents as I became more experienced. The Key is to offset the shadows of the human face with light pigment and the higlights with dark so as to break up the visual cues that the brain recognizes as a face. Add in some immitation of the local flora and one begins to become invisible.
This involves a concept of the self. A higly "evolved" concept that I do not believe any other animals save humans posess. You must interpreet the perspective of others. Therefore recognizing the existence of "self" and "non-self."
primates such as baboons do not at all posess this.
A mother baboon traversing a river with its young clinging to the belly will drown its young. They do not realize that their baby cannot breath since they can.

GeoTheo

I heard it too. That is supposedly why people like golf. Sounds like a fairy tale. That's what most of evolutionary psychology is.
You are still dwelling on the very very surface of the issue. Can you tell the difference between Art and Porno? There is no distinction in your argument. Animals have mechanisms in place to conserve good genes, that is all you are really saying.

GeoTheo

If there is a reductionistic explanation for the appreciation of beauty,and there being one in no way contradicts my view of creation, it is a created mechanism to draw people closer or to cause them to search for their creator.
Best explanation.
If you want to tweak that a bit and tie it into the evolutionary explanation for the existence of religion then fine. Still you would create a tautology, but to tie it into sexual selection misses the mark by a long shot. I have observed people meditating in Art galleries and natural wonders like Niagra falls for hours. It was not related to sex. Sex is a big deal and a very important motivator, but the appreciation of beauty is signifigant in that it is apart from it in many ways. It takes more resources and does not seem to produce a quanitative return. Why do you think Republicans often try to cut the national endowment for the Arts? Appreciation of beauty is not practical in the most banal sense.
Was it Leonardo Davinci that tried to break a beautiful face down into a mathematical formula?
Math was not created for the purpose of sexual selection. Rather the beauty drew Da Vinci to seek out higher principles that tie all things together. Things that transcend the mundane reality. A search for the sublime. Appreciation of beauty in one area draws one to its appreciation in another. What one is grasping at is the elegance of the design of the universe.

[ July 09, 2002: Message edited by: GeoTheo ]

[ July 09, 2002: Message edited by: GeoTheo ]</p>