Primitive perceptual opposites interact in complex ways throughout the history of metaphysical thought. The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony, and all things take place by strife. — Heraclitus (see Campbell 2008) Aesthetic phenomena are among the most complex phenomena within the domain of psychology,
For what seemed an immensely long time, I gazed without knowing, even without wishing to know, what it was that confronted me. At any other time I would have seen a chair barred with alternate light and shade. Today the percept had swallowed up the concept. I was so completely
General biases in animal sensory systems are the most likely explanation for Thayer’s Law. © 2026 Andrew Hodgson Animals are painted by nature, darkest on those parts which tend to be most lighted by the sky's light, and vice versa. — Abbott Thayer (1896) Among all the wild absurdities
The structure of aesthetic phenomena can be explained by preferences that arise from the soft, liquid crystalline physical state of the animal brain Thesis Aesthetic phenomena are usually made up of complex, contradictory mixtures of differentially exciting qualities or concepts, particularly those from the opposite ends of evolutionarily primitive perceptual
Each of the qualities given in list 3 has a number of more specific conceptual relatives that behave the same way the quality does in aesthetic material, presumably because we use primitive sensory opposites as categories into which other, more recently derived phenomena are sorted. Solidness is essentially the same
Abbasvandi, Mehdi & Mojtaba Maghsoudi. 2013. “A contrastive socio-pragmatic analysis of anger metaphors in English and Persian.” European Online Journal of Natural and Social Sciences 2(2). 50–58. Albers, Frank, Julia Maier, and Claudia Marggraf-Micheel. “In Search of Evidence for the Hue-heat Hypothesis in the Aircraft
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 tend to be made up of mixtures of qualities from the more and less exciting ends of primitive perceptual dimensions. More will I tell thee too: there is no birth Of all things mortal, nor end in ruinous death; But mingling only and interchange of mixed There is,
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:
Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily. — William of Occam, Quodlibeta Septem (Bartlett 2022) The lists in the following sections contain thousands of specific examples of aesthetic phenomena that match the structure of perceptual and conceptual mixtures of the more and less exciting opposites given in list 4 (reproduced below), including,
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
The abundance of juxtapositions of fluidity with solidness in poetry requires an explanation involving a universal feature of human psychology. I have seen a medicine That's able to breathe life into a stone, Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary With spritely fire and motion; whose simple
The structure of creation stories reflects the complex physical, liquid crystalline state of living matter. Having this in view, the Creator mingled earth with fire and water and mixed with them a ferment of acid and salt, so as to form pulpy flesh. — Plato, Timaeus (1873) Blood is thicker than
How Edgar Allan Poe accidentally predicted the discovery of liquid crystals. Another reason was, that the incidents to be narrated were of a nature so positively marvellous, that, unsupported as my assertions must necessarily be, I could only hope for belief among my family, and those of my friends who
Universal animal preferences for mixtures of differentially exciting physical and psychological opposites © 2023-2026 Andrew Hodgson. Edited by Lisa Anthony and Margaret Cameron. Draft 1. For it is by earth that we see earth, by water water, By aether divine aether, and by fire destructive fire, And fondness by fondness,