The functionality of Art
Daniel Kelly
Here is are a few interesting suggestions about the relationship between Art
and Darwinian survival which arose during a long chat I recently had with
two friends over coffee. Please give the following a little thought if you
have the time and possibly we could get involved in a nice and thorough
discussion over the coming few days.
At first glance, there seems to be little evolutionary function of Art. How
could these creations ever help us in the quest to survive and reproduce?
Is Art just an emergent property or possibly even a 'glitch' arising from
the intense complexity of the human mind and society? Or can we explain
humans' interest in Art in terms of survival?
The first suggestion is similar to one explanation of dreaming - that we are
constantly craving new experiences. In dreams, we are exploring our own
emotional responses, sometimes pushing them to levels never experienced in
the real world, all without any threat to our physical well-being. We are
going through a training ground for reality whilst finding out more about
ourselves. This explanation can be extended to Art - when we experience an
example of art, no matter how little we consciously assess it, our
subconscious is putting it through a whole series of criteria, making
judgements and reacting to these judgements. Not that a postcard is going
to teach us anything about the fundamentals of nature, but the finer arts
can bring us to appreciate new perspectives on life. Good survival
technique can be stripped down to having a working and flexible mental model
of objective reality - if we only use our self-generated models then we are
guilty of locking out whole aspects of nature which we may only appreciate
by also accepting others' views on reality. Art is the medium for
transferring this intensely subjective information and so by taking an
interest in Art, we are opening ourselves to others' views of nature and
hence enhancing our personal understanding of nature.
This brings us to a quick thought on stereotypes. Often, the types of
people who take an active interest in the more abstract arts also have a
philosophically exercised mind. Possibly people who have time to drop down
a few levels of thought from the localised and arbitrary fuss of every-day
living and consider the more fundamental aspects of our world can also read
more into abstract art and so find it interesting? Or possibly these people
just enjoy the 'modern' and 'intellectual' image which is sometimes
(possibly incorrectly?) associated with abstract art and fundamental
thought.
This takes us on to consider social labelling. "I'm eccentric - I like work
by unrecognised London art students." "I'm well educated and only like the
art of the 18th century." "I'm a modern person and love Damien Hurst's
work." OK, so these are pretty dull stereotypes, but I hope it makes the
point. We are social animals and seek security by etching ourselves into
various social groupings; the types of art these social groupings 'enjoy'
are, for some, strictly defined.
But where does raw aesthetic appreciation stem from? When we see an image
or hear a sound that genuinely brings us pleasure? Well, let us briefly
consider why we have sex. Especially back when we did not appreciate the
true function of sex, humans would have consciously decided to have sex
because of the pleasure it brings. The orgasm is evolution telling our
sometimes unruly consciousness self that sex is a really good idea - it's a
sales pitch. "Have SEX! Get a great feeling!" whilst behind the scenes
Mother Nature is plotting human world domination. Just as Mother Nature is
openly inviting us to procreate, so we are being invited to enhance our
experience of objective reality through 'beauty' - the sensation we feel
when we experience 'beauty' takes a similar function to orgasm. We are
tempted back to find beauty in reality by aesthetic pleasure just as we are
tempted back into having sex by the high of an orgasm. Possibly this is
also why scientists report that elegant theories are beautiful because they
are, by their elegance, easily accessible to the human mind yet powerfully
descriptive of nature - again, an expansion of the scientists' personal
understanding of nature.
What are your views? What does Art do for you?
Many thanks and kind regards,
Daniel Kelly,
London.
Sparky
This is a very intriguing question about which I have often
wondered. Why do we create art? Furthermore, why do we enjoy art?
Where the hell did these impulses come from? It seems that the impulse
to make art has been with us from the beginning. From the earliest age
of our species existence we have recorded in pictures what was going on
in our minds, even though the behavior served no real purpose at the
time. Indeed, the behavior might even have detracted from the primary
food-gathering purpose of the tribe. It takes time to mix paints and
acquire the right kinds of sticks to make cave art--time that might
otherwise be spent in the hunt.
However, the first art might have served a functional purpose.
Think about it, briefly. The pictures you see from the caves in France
and the like are mainly of hunts. This suggests that they might have
had the purpose of serving as a sort of institutional memory for the
cave-dwellers. After all, even with our more developed brains, we still
have vast failures of memory. The cave-paintings may have served as a
way to preserve and teach the methods of hunting.
So whence came our art? Consider, briefly, the "art" of cooking.
The evolution of the basics of cooking seems fairly obvious. After all,
every organism needs to eat. The next step, cooking *simpliciter* is a
behavior that might have evolved from the fact that cooked meat was less
likely to be toxic to its consumer than uncooked. Our preference for
certain fruits and vegetables over others (taste) might have evolved as
a behavior from the fact that we acquired necessary nutrients from
plants which had a similar taste. Eventually, as agricultural societies
developed, more time could be spent on cooking the food because the time
spent on getting was decreased. This led to the development of cooking
as we know it today.
Art might have had a similar history. It began as a rudimentary
exercise designed to maintain instutional memory. Then, when more time
was available, it developed further. Nonetheless, it still retains its
orginal functionality. Most art through all the ages of civilization
has been used to record important historical or mythological events or
people. Even the most original and creative of art usually is designed
to speak to a feeling or event of importance to its creator.
What spurred these developments? It seems to me likely that the
presence of the rudimentary behavior built into our brains likely led to
a proliferation of ideas etc. which developed into the forms of art we
have today. That is, the basic behavior became more complex when more
time could be spent on it. Now, of course, the functionality of the
behavior has changed. From what was probably an instructional tool, art
has transformed into a method by which we relax--easing the tensions of
our modern life. I think you are correct in stating that the pleasure
of beauty now serves as a kind of incentive to look for an artistic
experience. I would go further to state that the pleasure is an end in
itself--the very purpose of artistic endeavor today. In a similar way,
with the species need to reproduce at an all-time low, much of the
purpose of sex is now in the pleasure, rather than in the actual
reproduction.
So the art we have today might be the result of an evolutionary
shift. It evolved for one purpose, teaching, that got reinforced
because the tribes that had been taught had a greater chance of
survival. Then, as the situations changed, so did its function.
Sparky
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Daniel Kelly
many thanks for giving my post thought, it is always a great joy to engage
in discussions like these...
> It seems that the impulse
> to make art has been with us from the beginning.
Yes, I would agree. It would be very interesting to know if any other
species has an appreciation for art. Supposedly they would find no pleasure
in human art, but possibly some species spend time creating just for the
sake of creation?
> Why do we create art?
Possibly, now we have all our survival needs catered for by society, we
create art parcially as a celebration of the fact that we no longer have to
spend our days catching dinner. There's little behind that claim, but there
could be some truth there. Also, the creation of art can be quite a
philosophical experience. There are very few times we can sit and consider
reality and life in the way one can while producing a work of art (not that
I have much experience!). Somehow the abstract mindset one drops into while
working makes for a furtile backdrop for philosophical thought.
I utterly agree that art is often quite blatently all about survial and
instruction, like the example of cave paintings.
> I would go further to state that the pleasure is an end in
> itself--the very purpose of artistic endeavor today.
Yes.
I wonder if art has closer links to sex than we have considered so far?
After all, we find sexual partners 'attractive' just as we find art
'attractive'. Obviously, they are different sensations but could well be
linked. Does any one with a neurological or psycological training have any
infomation on this? It could be argued that the techniques needed to find a
sexual partner are all part of having a functional model of objective
reality. The opposite sex are, of course, just another artefact of
objective reality which we need to be able to understand and manipulate just
as we need to be able to understand and manipulate all the objects which
exist in reality in order to survive. So, just as we could argue that
artistic experiences enhance our understanding of reality through the
appreciation of the artist's views of reality, so one could argue that
engaging in a sexual relationship is an education in the opposite sex and
hence also an extension of our knowledge. Erm, possibly?
Respect,
Daniel.
Chris Connal
Daniel Kelly wrote:
Whence I began to absorb this message and it's title, I anticipated a much more
Darwinian analysis of the subject. I regret to say that you have only scratched
the surface of this issue. A strict scientific analysis of Art as an
evolutionary funtion would inevitably begin as such:
What is art?
In order to answer this question in a matter that will effectively shed light on
our primary question it is essential to take a very unromantic approach. To be
brief, art can only be considered the surpluss fruit of the human's creative
mind. After all, it is not the creation of aesthetic masterpieces that has
given the human race its strangle-hold over this plantet, but the invention of
tools, language, agricultural methods and civilization.
That is to say that the development of art in evolution is more the result than
it is the cause of evolution. In other words, art is the byproduct of the
evolution of a creative and intricate intellect in humans. Certain evolutionary
pressures forced us to become the most adaptive species this planet has ever
seen. In order to meet the needs of ever-changing environments and climates, we
developed the mental faculty of creativity. This blessing of creativity
provided us with an certain benifit-the ability to produce and the appreciation
of art. That is all the time my coffee break entitles me to discuss.
toodleoo
Chris Connal
Daniel Kelly wrote:
I failed in my last writing to make any mention of your blurb about art being
likened to sex. That is, that there is a corelation between the appreciation of
beauty in the opposite sex and the appreciation of beauty in aesthetics. My
best advice on this issue would be a regurgitation of James Joyce's discution on
this very same comparison.
A distinction is made between kinetic art and static art. Where kinetic art
defines that which evokes a desire or a repultion, static art can only be
appreciated for its aesthetic beauty. Static art is thus given the
denomination: pure art. Joyce goes on to discuss this point ad naseum in his
novel "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". Mind you, it is a very
interesting read and highly worth your time.
Once again,
Krs
Daniel Kelly
> Whence I began to absorb this message
> and it's title, I anticipated a much more
> Darwinian analysis of the subject. I regret
> to say that you have only scratched
> the surface of this issue.
I do not try to deny it - as I stated, I was simply recording some thoughts
a few friends and I came up with over coffee; I never intended it to be a
PhD
thesis...
> What is art?
> In order to answer this question in
> a matter that will effectively shed light on
> our primary question it is essential
> to take a very unromantic approach.
An objective approach, yes? I agree we must try to cut out as much of our
own personal views on Art, but surely Art and aesthetics is one place in
philosophy where we must not loose sight of subjective processing and its
effects? What I mean is, romanticism aka subjectivity is an integral part
of art and hence we cannot afford to take an entirely unromantic approach.
> To be brief, art can only be considered
> the surplus fruit of the human's creative mind.
I disagree. I agree that Art *can* be considered an emergent property of
the complex human brain, but it is not *purely* a 'bug' in the system. Art
does have some roots in evolution, and I would like to think that my first
message outlined a few examples of proof for this hypothesis. One could
even
argue that the entire of *consciousness* is merely an emergent property of
the brain - it is not a theory I give much time...
I am assuming that you are referring to some strand of complexity research?
That the human mind can be considered a 'complex system' and that artefacts
like consciousness and Art are merely emergent properties of this system. I
would, at this point, like to suggest that taking this stance leads us no
where new. It is all too easy to see something in Nature and proclaim :
"AH! An Emergent Property! Ho-ray for science... now we can model it as a
complex system and...erm..." You see, I don't believe that labelling
something merely as a 'complex system' gets us anywhere. We just have one
more thing to cross reference in the great Index of Science.
Erm... if you were not referring to complexity theory, then that previous
paragraph probably still applies. I don't really think we can be satisfied
by the 'art can only be considered the surplus fruit of the human's
creative mind' for this reason. As I said, it really does mean very little,
it's just a cop-out.
> After all, it is not the creation of aesthetic masterpieces that has
> given the human race its strangle-hold over this planet, but the
invention of
> tools, language, agricultural methods and civilisation.
The creation of tools? Dot dot dot... a little spare time... a few less
predators and caves to dig... and now we have creative ability not being put
to use... so where does man put his efforts?... into creating for the sake
of creating... art...
Language? The technique of using symbols to express virtually anything? Be
the symbols spoken words, paintings, music, dance, Web page design,
photography... art...
> That is to say that the development
> of art in evolution is more the result than
> it is the cause of evolution. In other words,
> art is the by-product of the
> evolution of a creative and
> intricate intellect in humans.
> Certain evolutionary
> pressures forced us to become the most
> adaptive species this planet has ever
> seen. In order to meet the needs
> of ever-changing environments and climates, we
> developed the mental faculty
> of creativity. This blessing of creativity
> provided us with an certain benefit-the
> ability to produce and the appreciation
> of art.
Oh. I agree with all of that. Shit. Erm... can we have more of an
argument later? Pleaaaaase?
Kind regards,
Jack (my nick name) aka Daniel
Ludwig@Hemingway
<dan...@ekelly.dircon.co.uk> wrote:
Daniel,
Your ideas are very interesting, and I love this subject. But
your comparision to sex is interesting, for another reason. The idea
that the orgasm behind the same sensation that art gives us leads me
to a question where art may be superior. One pyschological issue I see
when indulging in purely biological drives is the "morning after"
syndrome. I'm not talking about guilt after the experience, but more
the downward spiral after ograsm, the fall from the high of orgasm and
for many, the return to rational thought :)
For many, this return to rational thought is what ushers in
guilt, but others may not experience this, but almost all have the
tendency to remember 70 other things they would rather be doing :)
Does art also give us this pyschological condition of rise and
fall that is seemingly inherent in all other biological indulgences?
Before we quickly answer no, perhaps we're miscalculating the
severity? How many of us have loved a particular genre of music or
expression and then find it no longer carries the same effect on us
anymore? Could we prove that art is indeed a biological drive by it's
same reliance on infatuation?
Bruce Werner
>Hi,
>
>> Whence I began to absorb this message
>> and it's title, I anticipated a much more
>> Darwinian analysis of the subject. I regret
>> to say that you have only scratched
>> the surface of this issue.
>
>I do not try to deny it - as I stated, I was simply recording some thoughts
>a few friends and I came up with over coffee; I never intended it to be a
>PhD
>thesis...
>
>> What is art?
>> In order to answer this question in
>> a matter that will effectively shed light on
>> our primary question it is essential
>> to take a very unromantic approach.
>
>An objective approach, yes? I agree we must try to cut out as much of our
>own personal views on Art, but surely Art and aesthetics is one place in
>philosophy where we must not loose sight of subjective processing and its
>effects? What I mean is, romanticism aka subjectivity is an integral part
>of art and hence we cannot afford to take an entirely unromantic approach.
>
>> To be brief, art can only be considered
>> the surplus fruit of the human's creative mind.
>
>I disagree. I agree that Art *can* be considered an emergent property of
>the complex human brain, but it is not *purely* a 'bug' in the system. Art
>does have some roots in evolution, and I would like to think that my first
>message outlined a few examples of proof for this hypothesis. One could
>even
>argue that the entire of *consciousness* is merely an emergent property of
>the brain - it is not a theory I give much time...
>
>I am assuming that you are referring to some strand of complexity research?
>That the human mind can be considered a 'complex system' and that artefacts
>like consciousness and Art are merely emergent properties of this system. I
>would, at this point, like to suggest that taking this stance leads us no
>where new. It is all too easy to see something in Nature and proclaim :
>"AH! An Emergent Property! Ho-ray for science... now we can model it as a
>complex system and...erm..." You see, I don't believe that labelling
>something merely as a 'complex system' gets us anywhere. We just have one
>more thing to cross reference in the great Index of Science.
>
>Erm... if you were not referring to complexity theory, then that previous
>paragraph probably still applies. I don't really think we can be satisfied
>by the 'art can only be considered the surplus fruit of the human's
>creative mind' for this reason. As I said, it really does mean very little,
>it's just a cop-out.
>
>> After all, it is not the creation of aesthetic masterpieces that has
>> given the human race its strangle-hold over this planet, but the
>invention of
>> tools, language, agricultural methods and civilisation.
>
>The creation of tools? Dot dot dot... a little spare time... a few less
>predators and caves to dig... and now we have creative ability not being put
>to use... so where does man put his efforts?... into creating for the sake
>of creating... art...
>
>Language? The technique of using symbols to express virtually anything? Be
>the symbols spoken words, paintings, music, dance, Web page design,
>photography... art...
>
>> That is to say that the development
>> of art in evolution is more the result than
>> it is the cause of evolution. In other words,
>> art is the by-product of the
>> evolution of a creative and
>> intricate intellect in humans.
>> Certain evolutionary
>> pressures forced us to become the most
>> adaptive species this planet has ever
>> seen. In order to meet the needs
>> of ever-changing environments and climates, we
>> developed the mental faculty
>> of creativity. This blessing of creativity
>> provided us with an certain benefit-the
>> ability to produce and the appreciation
>> of art.
>