I offer this without edit because I think it's pretty good. It comes from comments on a post below about Beauty. But, if you read it you will find that it's well thought out. I like thinking about these things.
From an "anonymous" friend; her thoughts on Beauty and Design:
People coevolved with the other life forms in their environment to avoid danger and to seek and find food and shelter and healthy mates. All the universal things we call beauty can be traced to that fact.
Fruit is green and inconspicuous while it is immature and useless as seed but when the seed matures, the fruit ripens and gets a color and odor that will attract things to eat it and move the seed away from the parent plant. As the plant evolved the color signal, we evolved the idea that the contrast of red or blue or orange against the green is beautiful. A flower evolved to attract pollinators so that the plant can later form seed, and the person who notices and appreciates the flower has an advantage in knowing where to find seed later.
A symmetric person is a healthier mate and a symmetric shelter is sturdier. Those who preferred symmetry had healthier children and lived longer in their safe shelter.
Snakes were one of the worst predators to early primates and part of our instinctive brain is still wired to fear and avoid snakes, which is why we have written evil into most religions in the form of a snake. (The religion appears true because it reflects an instinct.) We are driven by instinct to avoid being preyed upon, seeking safety and routine and security, and the often conflicting instinct to find new things to eat, seeking novelty and risk and opportunity.
In the modern world, we are still driven by these instincts that gave us our ability to survive, even though they now conflict with the modern world. When calories were harder to come by, eating as much as one could when it was available and storing it as fat for use later was as advantage. Now, when calories are easy to come by, well, technology changes the world faster than we can ever evolve to fit into it!
I teach design principles. In order to teach it in a simple way, we summarize into a few principles. Repetition, variety, balance, emphasis, sequence, scale expressed in line, form, color, texture. I could explain every one of them in survival terms including asymmetry which is a form of balance. (Unbalanced asymmetry is not pleasing. The asymmetry must be balanced to be pleasing. Structural stability and the ability to judge found shelter and build shelter.) I can also explain diet, teen angst, and anything else you want explained in survival terms. These theories are synthesized (read making it up as I go) from years of studying pop psych, sociology, anthropology, evolutionary science, rock music (I threw that one in for fun) and so on.
Subjectivity: If design is universal and related to instinct, why don't we all like exactly the same thing? Because while evolution was fine tuning us and the rest of the living world to be in synch with each other, it was also guaranteeing that some diversity continued to exist so that when geology and climate and larger patterns changed, there would still exist some on the continuum would be able to adapt. Thus, while we all prefer balance, some prefer it to be symmetric and other that it be asymmetric, some prefer white wine and some prefer red, some prefer vegetables and others meat. It seems on the surface like evolution would make for uniformity, but the mechanism of evolution is changeable genetics and the ability to be adaptable over deep time depends on diversity within each species.
I teach design principles. In order to teach it in a simple way, we summarize into a few principles. Repetition, variety, balance, emphasis, sequence, scale expressed in line, form, color, texture. I could explain every one of them in survival terms including asymmetry which is a form of balance. (Unbalanced asymmetry is not pleasing. The asymmetry must be balanced to be pleasing. Structural stability and the ability to judge found shelter and build shelter.) I can also explain diet, teen angst, and anything else you want explained in survival terms. These theories are synthesized (read making it up as I go) from years of studying pop psych, sociology, anthropology, evolutionary science, rock music (I threw that one in for fun) and so on.
Subjectivity: If design is universal and related to instinct, why don't we all like exactly the same thing? Because while evolution was fine tuning us and the rest of the living world to be in synch with each other, it was also guaranteeing that some diversity continued to exist so that when geology and climate and larger patterns changed, there would still exist some on the continuum would be able to adapt. Thus, while we all prefer balance, some prefer it to be symmetric and other that it be asymmetric, some prefer white wine and some prefer red, some prefer vegetables and others meat. It seems on the surface like evolution would make for uniformity, but the mechanism of evolution is changeable genetics and the ability to be adaptable over deep time depends on diversity within each species.
Interesting ideas. Thanks.
4 comments:
Gene I hope you realize that this author is writing from a profoundly naturalistic worldview.
WE did not make snakes into evil religious because we fear and dislike them- they ARE evil religious symbols, a priori. Therefore - meaning, because of the antecedent fact - we fear and dislike them. WE are responding to the rugged reality of the universe: not the other way around. (This is the distinguishing error throughout the comment.)
All in all, a prime example of some very good writing about some very bad ideas.
And aaron's error is in thinking that somehow people are separate from nature. People are one part of the natural world. Symbolism is symbolism because of people made it so in trying to understand and communicate to each other about the natural world. Snakes no longer offer much of a predatory threat to us yet we react to them in a much stronger way than other creatures of similar size and danger, because at a time in our evolutionary history, they were a greater threat. The highly developed parts of our brain wrap around the older parts that still retain the instincts that we are not even consciously aware of. Yes, science does promote what some have throughout time called 'bad ideas' but that does not make them less true.
Anonymous:
The knowledge of a thing cannot be a part of the thing itself: it must come from "outside" it. If we were indeed a part of nature as you say, we would have no independent concept of it. But we're not, as so we do.
Or, if you dislike logic and philosophy, we can reach the same conclusion empirically. You will notice that men build houses and birds build nests. You will also notice that a given specie of bird will always build the same nest, while man is forever designing and experimenting and improving his dwellings. Why? Because of his creative impulse, put there not by the survival-instinct, but by GOD. This behavior speaks of a difference in kind and not just a difference in degree.
It is pointless to have a scientific discussion based on religion, which is just another cultural invention of humans that provided community cohesiveness and therefore a survival advantage.
Birds do not always make the same nest and humans do make pretty much the same house, by the way. Your distortion of those facts and your ignoring the relationship of creativity to brain size reveal your unwillingness to be open to the study of science.
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