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ADAPTIVE_ART

                                             August   31, 2012
                                             November 24, 2013
Possible positions:

Art is an irrelevant frill as
far as evolutionary fitness is     Then, if you identify with your
concerned.                         genes, it follows that art should
                                   be irrelevant to you.
   SPANDRELS
                                   If you don't, then art may be of
                                   some importance to you, and you
                                   care little about it's lack of
                                   adaptive advantage.


Art exists because it bestows
a subtle adaptive genetic
advantage: there are reasons       And, if you identify with your genes,
we evolved as an art-making        it thus follows that art is important
species.                           to you.

                                   If you don't, then art might not be
                                   important to you... or alternately,
                                   it might be important for some other
                                   reasons, even though you care little
                                   about it's apparent genetic advantage.

                                           ART_INSTINCT
                spandrels vs.
                   peacock tails
                   nautilus routines
                   heroin
                      ...?
                                      PINK_CHEESECAKE


    Working in the other direction:
    Starting from the estabished
    fact that art is of importance
    to us, you might be tempted to
    argue that this suggests it
    may have some evolutionary                It would seem that
    adaptive advantage... but                 the questions
    actually, this does not follow.           "is art important?"
                                              and "did art have
                                              a genetic adaptive
                                              advantage?" would
                                              have only a slight
                                              connection to each
                                              other.

                                           You would not know this from
                                           reviewing the writings on this
                                           subject from a number of well-known
                                           intellectuals out there on the
                                           scene...

                                   Though of course, I do not mean
                                   to suggest that any of them have
                                   said anything quite as simple as
                                   the above.


                      I can say that someone has backed
                      every one of those horses at one time
                      or another, though often inflated
                      with much convoluted verbiage making
                      it a little hard to tell how they've
                      hedged their bets.


The trail I'm on at the moment seems to
start with Steven Pinker, in 1998 or so...

         STRAIGHT_PINKER


                                   (December 07, 2013)
                      And I find myself wondering why
                      I'm bothering... this is all so
                      speculative it's amazing: everyone
                      projects onto the screen of the
                      distant past, and says little
                      except about themselves.
    DOWN_THE_SCALE
                                                                       
                      I think that what I personally am looking for    
                      here is some support for my contention that      
                      story-telling is undervalued as "mere            
                      entertainment", when really it seems fairly      
                      central to what we're about.                     
                                                                       
                      In order to argue that we are literary          
                      beasts down to our genes, they're going to
                      have to argue in the direction I'm
                      interested in going, even if I personally
                      don't care that much about our genes.
                                                                  
                                                                  

                                                                 
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