Aesthetics

I am interested in the value of aesthetics in art, since really very few definitions of art fail to incorporate it.

I was considering the current findings regarding universal vs relativistic aesthetics and this essay is useful: http://rebeccanelson.com/aesthetics.html

Howard Morphy’s concepts seem most similar to mine in that he posits that aesthetics are a combination of a rather universal/objective sensory perception with a subjective, culture/society driven interpretation. I think this seems fitting even with all the other arguments presented in the paper, but I also find the argument regarding the ‘universal’ safe landscape and safe shelter at sunset images very telling, as I would assume that if there are universal human instincts, then these could be translated to other human endeavors such as aesthetics of art. The description of the 3 tribes who all appreciated, aesthetically, glistening, but found it depicted in 3 different formats visually and also interpreted it as representing 3 different things, I think lends credence to Morphy’s ideas but with a bit more definition of those sensory perceptions based on human instincts as reflected by the landscape tests. What I mean is, yes, they could all perceive light/shininess — and that’s an important point regarding the objective perception bit — and they all interpreted it as meaning/representing something slightly different — important for the cultural influence. But they all LIKED shininess and while the interpretations were slightly different, they were similar in that they all were good qualities reflecting human power, whether health, virility, or human ghost presence. So this is more than simply everyone being able to perceive shine. Now would we all think shininess was generally good? Actually, I would say so and it is because of the health factor which seems based on a universal instinct. Some human health traits do not change based on our environment or culture, but then again, perhaps this is simply a by-product of us living on a shared earth and not something INGRAINED. Hmm. Yes, I am beginning to think that the level of ingrained, biological responses are very limited, and as those are the only things you could ever base a universal human aesthetic on, it’s probably more logical to admit it would be pretty paltry to find a visual that would trigger this universal, universally.

Anyway, my idea was to use AI to adapt an image to everyone’s aesthetic. Interestingly, this paper mentions a rather similar test — though traditional media/tech i.e. painting: Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid’s Scientific Guide to Art  with paintings for different countries based on what they said they would like to see. They were all similar in topic suggesting not a universal inherent though, but a universal culture — in my opinion.

I think the issue is a difference between universal culture and universal biological response. Pavlov’s doggy suggests we have a biological system as humans, set up to handle responses to stimuli. It suggests that the system is programmable. As a programmer, this makes perfect sense. That the input to the program would be very similar for certain processes across all cultures on Earth also seems quite logical and reasonable, however, this is still a case of inputs — VARIABLES — being sent to universal programs. Put us in an alien planet and certain things which we might think everyone currently shares, will differ. This means there may be far fewer biologically universal responses to traits than we think. Even ones we think we can say are certain because they would universally damage us, may still be programmed in from an early age rather than being biologically inherent. After all, it is hard to scientifically judge/distinguish what’s ‘nurture’ vs ‘nature’ considering that  we have so many shared experiences at and around birth.

So even if we say universally, we have say the 9 affects [pull, expel, reset, communicate alarm, etc] []