Aesthetic phenomena can be explained by universal biases in animal brains and sensory systems, rather than improbable coevolutionary connections to differential survival. © 2025 Andrew Hodgson Some kind of aesthetic activity is apparently a feature of all the 3,000 or so distinguishable cultures that are to be found on the
What an odd thing it is to see an entire species — billions of people — playing with, listening to, meaningless tonal patterns, occupied and preoccupied for much of their time by what they call ‘music.’ — Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia (2008) For beneath the first depth, namely that of the earliest civilizations — which
Universal patterns in language and behavior reveal that pairs of psychological opposites are structured such that one component is more arousing than the other. What, was he sad, or merry? Like to the time o’ the year between the extremes Of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry.
Aesthetic phenomena are generally made up of mixtures of qualities from opposite, more and less exciting ends of perceptual and conceptual dimensions. Well did Aristotle say that virtues in contrast to vices are judicious means between contrary extremes. But the principle holds much more generally than even Aristotle saw. It
There are two major patterns to be found in the structure of language, one involving confirmation of preexisting associations within mental categories and the other involving contradiction across the same categories. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die- to sleep. To sleep- perchance to dream:
Aesthetic phenomena can be organized into lists that reflect their structure as mixtures of psychological opposites, demonstrate aesthetic indifference and show that large numbers of individual aesthetic events can be explained by a relatively small set of biases in their favor. Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, Ease after
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye. — François Duc de La Rochefoucauld, 1613-1680 (Bartlett 2022) Nay, I'll come: if I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to death with melancholy. — Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (2022) Strangely, any mixture
The same psychological bias that causes the selection of fluid~solid mixtures in poetry and creation stories causes them in culture more widely, in myths, stories, religions, rituals, paintings, sculptures, architecture, decoration, language and elsewhere. Coming from the throne are flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and
Philosophers have always recognized life as a complex mixture of fluid and solid components. © 2025 Andrew Hodgson That which is bound may be dissolved, but only an evil being would dissolve that which is harmonious and happy. And although you are not immortal you shall not die, for I will
The most important and under-appreciated characteristic of life is its complex, intermediate, liquid crystalline physical condition. Liquid crystals stand between the isotropic liquid and the strongly organized solid state, life stands between complete disorder, which is death, and complete rigidity, which is death again. — Dervichian (Repula 2022) The aspect
The idea of death is coupled euphemistically with qualities from the more exciting side of primitive perceptual dimensions. O Unas, you have not gone dead, you have gone alive to sit on the throne of Osiris. Your scepter is in your hand that you may give orders to the living,
Heat Even thus did we bore the red hot beam into his eye, till the boiling blood bubbled all over it as we worked it round and round, so that the steam from the burning eyeball scalded his eyelids and eyebrows, and the roots of the eye sputtered in the