The Search for Ideals & Cultural Evolution

In the previous lessons we have seen that art may be produced out of the instinctive belief that in representing the world artistically we are magically in control of it. We have also seen that some works of art reveal to us the serial and parallel nature of our thoughts. Although it is politically incorrect to say it, we know when we are in front of "good art"by the way it speaks to us in an intensely parallel way.

In this lesson we see that abstract art can be produced as an indirect result of the brain's limited capacity to remember everything it sees. The brain seeks essences and abstractions. The brain perceived them as ideals.

Consequently, a malaise is generated in us because we are constantly producing perfect stylized images of things in the world and the world itself, but we are surrounded by particulars. According to Semir Zeki the role of the artist is to recreate or materialize these images for us, providing us with some kind of relief for our search.

We could speculate that the human character is predisposed to suffer from longing; that is, an inherent dissatisfation with the present. This may explain the addiction to consumerism and the concomitant demise of the environment to satiate it.


Abstraction in Society and Nature

We could say that products such as modern mobile phones take the best of existing models and render the older ones obsolete. In time the new model will itself be synthesized with competing products that contain innovations which in turn drive its parent forms extinct. This process is unending.

The driving force of consumerism appears to be discontentment with what one possesses. This may be in part engendered by the mind's law of abstraction.

In a society that has no contact with other cultures, abstraction of culture cannot occur, and that society would evolve very slowly if at all. In societies where there is cultural exchange, abstraction can proceed and this would lead to dissatisaction and a desire to possess the synthetic and stylized images we manufacture in our minds. In other words change begets more change.

Here now we could take the opportunity to make explicit another connection between society and Nature; that is, by linking product research and development to biological evolution. We could argue here that living organisms are analogous to commodity by being abstractions of their ancestors. In other words, the 'best' features are naturally selected and produce an organism most adapted to its current surroundings.

In summary one of the roles of art is the response to the brain's limitations. In this respect we very quickly enter into the field of neuroscience and biology.

There appears to be an analogous relationship between social evolution and evolution in Nature. This can probably be illustrated through the notion of abstraction which appears to occur in both society and Nature. It may be explained through the fact that both genes and memes are governed by the same algorithm, but that is for a later lesson (see Memes and the Memosphere etc.)