“Pleasure functions homeostatically at different scales. We saw that pleasure makes us act to keep our physiology functioning well. Pleasure as a way to maintain homeostasis extends from one person’s desire to eat something sweet or salty all the way to our collective enjoyment of beautiful people, pretty places, and elegant proofs. Through evolution, the species brings itself in line with the environment in order to function well. When the environment changes, the species needs to change into a new state.

Our brain that evolved to face the challenges of our past doesn’t always keep pace with our jet-propelled present. Our environment is changing rapidly. When we act in seemingly illogical ways, we are often observing the behavior of a brain behind its time. We intuitively understand barter exchanges, but don’t understand credit default swaps. As changes in our cultural environment accelerate, the link between our adapted predispositions and our present-day actions becomes increasingly attenuated. This attenuation between our instincts and behavior is an important point to keep in mind, especially as we think about art.”

Excerpt From: Anjan Chatterjee,. “The Aesthetic Brain”. Apple Books. 

“Stepping back from all these studies, what have we learned so far? Five principles underlie our sense of beauty in people and places. First, similar to faces and bodies, our preferences for places are partly hard-wired. We prefer vistas that resemble savannas even if we have never visited such a place. These preferences are then modified by later personal experiences. Second, our Pleistocene ancestors who were drawn to places that also happened to improve their chances of survival passed on these tastes in what we now regard as beautiful. Natural selection rather than sexual selection played the dominant role in the evolution of place preferences. Third, the brain’s responses to beautiful landscapes involve neuronal ensembles in the visual cortex that classify environments, and these areas fire together with neurons in reward systems. It is too early to be sure, but the evidence suggests that our visual brain not only classifies things, it also evaluates them. Fourth, we respond to fitness indicators. In faces, these could be big eyes, full lips, or square jaws. In landscapes these are trees that indicate a bountiful environment or flowers that promise rich sources of nutrition. Fifth is the role of enhancements. We[…]”

Excerpt From: Anjan Chatterjee,. “The Aesthetic Brain”. Apple Books.