Are humans hard-wired to seek beauty?
That would explain so much. And justify some very strange behavior.
Watch this video, and then we will discuss.
It’s a stretch, but an entertaining stretch.
Leo Abaya, art professor: “What I am thoroughly convinced about is that the hand axe and its long predominance in the history of prehistoric man does not really prove our being hard-wired to beauty, as such. In fact this claim is too adventurous especially with the absence of language at the time. Being drawn to certain forms or configurations does not necessarily prove our primeval propensity for beauty, maybe just for order. Beauty is much more complex, adaptive, and subjective, even with language.
“What the lecture does manifest is the idea that the anthropologist proposed: that it took a very long time for primitive man to be conscious of the relationship between form and function (tool-making) and the distinction between form and function. Because before these two concepts, everything else was just raw nature, or what primeval man would have instinctually felt: everything outside of himself.
“Moreover, the presentation ignores an important component: man’s relationship to nature and natural phenomena (pleasant and unpleasant, beneficial and hazardous) and how these early forms were related to that functionally or symbolically.”
In sum: Clever, but no cigar.
“It is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn’t look like David.” Michelangelo on how he sculpted David. Photo and quote from www.michelangelo.com.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
November 25th, 2010 at 17:33
Thank you for posting this. I will show this to my students so I don’t have to explain much about their concept of beauty. By the way, they are in grade school. They are used to these stuff anyway because of me and your influence. :)
November 27th, 2010 at 13:24
These T.E.D. free lectures on video are excellent. We’ve used several of them for corporate training, and the good thing about them is that they don’t feel like some boring session with HR.
The new insight from this video is that humans are hard-wired to consider beautiful anything that is well-made. Thus, we appreciate as beautiful well-designed and -executed buildings, houses, and cars, and even furniture, hand-made books, and other small objects.
This may explain obsessions, collection mania, and other strange behaviors like crazed hoarding. It’s likely that the subjects of reality shows such as “Hoarders” considered their possessions beautiful and continued to appreciate their “well-made”-ness despite the squalor that had eventually enveloped them.
What other strange behaviors does this explain?
November 28th, 2010 at 08:29
The evolution of peacock feathers, and Darwin’s opinion about them, are kinda wrong according to this article:
http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2008/04/01/sexual_selection_falsified_in_the_case_o
November 28th, 2010 at 10:46
I wish I have the sense to counter each “scientific” opinion/statement he has made with “philosophical” ones, for the simple reason that I do not agree that the human being’s concept of beauty came from his brain, or from himself alone—or that the discussion on beauty is not limited to biology, physiology, or the science of the mind. Also, if one must speak of beauty, one should not bypass the ancient philosophers’ (particularly the Greeks) thoughts on which.
This is not to say that his presentation was faulty—but it failed to address the question of origin (which was probably deliberate because it’s an inconclusive and highly debatable subject anyway).
I asked my younger sister to watch this with me (she’s a Fine Arts major as well) and to give a comment. She said that Mister Dutton was just explaining the HOW (which is what the main function of science) and not the WHY (which is the domain of philosophy).
It’s agreed that Mister Dutton’s lecture was on aesthetics only (or the study of human sensibilities) and not ontology (the study of the nature of being).
But I added that a lecture, with such high exposure and with a giant topic like that, should not be one-sided. And that I somehow expected more from him (although I haven’t checked out his background nor do I know of him prior to this) for he must be a known man in his field.
Mister Dutton’s presentation or perception of beauty (which is mechanistic) is an upfront to the arts or the artist in me. See, when you break down every concept into a scientific concept, it loses its sense of importance (uniqueness) or its sense of romance—and it makes me want to inquire about the speaker’s inner most intention. If it’s, at all, oriented to the truth or at least, in pursuit of THE truth, or if it’s just for the sake of coming up with an entertaining presentation for TED.
And artistic gifts…the high concept or experience of beauty, to me, are too rare and special to have come from just within the very limiting/limited human body or mind, as what I have gathered from him. He doesn’t seem to have a sense of reverence for beauty.
Lectures like these tend to leave me cold and abandoned in the streets—much like a used up prostitute. And to illustrate that feeling some more, and if I may be sexist for a second…what a typical male perspective it was, to only want the sex (mechanistic, perfunctory, robotic…unmeditated, just a reflex action, spiritless) and not the love as well.
This lecture, though entertaining, is reminiscent of that 50 Cent rap, “I’m into having sex, I ain’t into making love…”
When one speaks of beauty, in my opinion, one is speaking of the dynamic human spirit (which, I suppose, the sciences would rather not tackle as it cannot be brought in for testing) which is a property of the divine or metaphysics. I understand that it’s the duty of scientists to attempt to explain everything in existence, but if its truth lies only in what is tangible or physical (the ones that can be investigated/tested) then what is it doing with the concept of beauty?
The concept of beauty is subjective and to attempt to objectify it is, I suppose, to fall short, each time.
When one speaks of beauty, one is pertaining to the main woman, and not the playmates. When one speaks of beauty…one must be referring to the stars above, you know? The unreachable stars. As our friend Mister Sinatra…as. Yes.
But I suppose Mister Dutton was referring to the…common sense beauty…the one for mass consumption? (I do not know what I’m being so snippy snappy about). If that is the case, though, then I rest in case. In peace. I rest in…case…in peace. Yes. That is the right thing to do. Also, to be mindful of the word count.
Lectures and mindsets like this–are maybe one of the reasons why certain countries don’t have public art funding or that the arts is below the math/sciences in certain countries’ public schools . Aside from poverty.