Aesthetics

[Quantum Perception]

List some good books/websites/philosophers on the topic.

Personally on a side note, I really think that the Darwinian paradigm cannot account for ALL OF humans behavior. And i think aesthetics is one of the main factors which doesn't fit in to the paradigm. I am aware of some of the explanations of symmetry as the reason. But i think that answer does not take into account all the asymmetrical beauty we encounter, like clouds, the sound of rain, and stars.

 

[ninjadanslarbretabar]

aesthetics fits perfectly well with evolution for me
if you are talking about symmetry i guess you are talking about sexual attraction in relation to how we pick our mate
we go for symmetry for the sake of survival
the closer to the blueprint the better, the less extra information the better
but how about clouds ?
same principle but on a larger scale
we find something esthetically pleasing because of it quality of being of itself

if you talk darwin its about mutation and selection
what does survive is what fits perfectly well and in balance with its environment
that underlying principle behind that balance is something we are drawn to (because it means survival)

asymmetrical beauty are asymmetrical in themself but not when put in their context
like how two negative creates a positive, a asymmetrical object put into a asymmetrical environment can create balance, so it can conjure the feeling or idea of beauty
because its fitting perfectly well inside that environment

 

[muvolution]

Books:
Earth Moves by Bernard Cache
Learning from Las Vegas
The Image of the City
S,M,L,XL
Massive Change
Delirious New York

essays:
Ornament and Crime
Society of the Spectacle
Animate Form
Terminal Velocities

film:
Lettres a Freddy Bouche

 

[lulzkiller]

The question is not so much whether evolution can account for refined aesthetics; it is more whether it is a meaningful level for talking about aesthetics. (Just like physical phenomena ultimately account for human life as well; it just doesn't make very much sense to talk about life this way because it would require ridiculously complex computations.)

I think symmetry and asymmetry; roughness and smoothness etc are perhaps identifiable as pretty universal aesthetic qualities (Shimon Edelman has a chapter on this in his excellent book "Computing the Mind"). On the other hand, I can't resist sometimes asking my professors of literature how new modes of literary analysis become popular, what the selection criteria are, so to speak. Perhaps there aren't any; perhaps they are extremely complex. Either answer would be somewhat troubling