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The EVOLUTION of ART and the SELF TVUUC FORUM, Part 1 29 August, 2004

The EVOLUTION of ART and the SELF TVUUC FORUM, Part 1 29 August, 2004. Neil Greenberg Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Tennessee. Review from forum on TRUTH.

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The EVOLUTION of ART and the SELF TVUUC FORUM, Part 1 29 August, 2004

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  1. The EVOLUTION of ART and the SELF TVUUC FORUM, Part 1 29 August, 2004 Neil Greenberg Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Tennessee

  2. Review from forum on TRUTH To be a successful species, our knowledge or our beliefs don’t have to be true – they only have to represent our needs well enough to serve our biological fitness – our competence to survive and thrive. TRUTH is a quality of a belief about the nature of the REALITY in which we are immersed and about which we have very high confidence. Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est “Knowledge is power” Francis Bacon 1597

  3. Review from forum on TRUTH We are "immersed in reality" and yet the capacity to detect and act upon many qualities of that reality are weak at best and may never have evolved. Modern science has shown that there are many qualities of the world we have no “need” to know about – so there has never been an evolutionary "selection pressure" to detect them. “during the constantly-recurring struggle for existence, we see a powerful and ever-acting form of selection” Charles Darwin

  4. Review from forum on TRUTH Experiences must pass TWO TESTS: • CORRESPONDENCE ("reality testing") and (2) COHERENCE ("story telling") These are the minimum essential elements that must work together in order to invest a belief or idea with "truth" “There are two modes of knowing, through argument and experience. . . .” Roger Bacon, 1268

  5. Why are we Conscious? “Whoever looketh into himself and considers what he does when he does think, opine, reason, hope, fear, etc., and upon what grounds, he shall thereby read and know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like occasions” (Th Hobbes’ Introduction to Leviathan, 1651) Thomas Hobbes

  6. ART and EVOLUTION To bring the tools of evolutionary thinking to bear we must 1. Establish that ART is adaptive -- meets NEEDS 2. Describe a hypothetical mechanism by which ART evolved

  7. ART and EVOLUTION 1. Establish that ART is adaptive --meets NEEDS: a cascade of more or less urgent NEEDS must be met if an organism is to “self actualize” (“be all it can be,” manifest “maximum fitness” in the environment in which it finds itself For example, one’s mental health is arguably dependent upon SELF-KNOWLEDGE . . . the quality of the connection between the implicit and explicit in our minds and ". . . harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto"

  8. ART and EVOLUTION 2. Describe a hypothetical mechanism by which ART evolved: the most elaborately adapted traits (such as art and science) have been gradually transformed from very modest beginnings For example, reflexive responses of the autonomic (homeostatic, emotional) nervous system or motor patterns are transformed into communicative signals over the generations by the process known as “ritualization.”

  9. GNOTHI se AUTON But knowledge of the “thoughts and passions of all other men” is not the only reason to “looketh into” one’s self. Without confidence in the outcomes of our actions, we are helpless To be an effective, competitive organism, we would be wise to follow the advice of the Oracle at Delphi: “Gnothi se auton” (Know thyself)

  10. How do we know ourselves? ". . . I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. . . . We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand” (C. Day Lewis) Cecil Day Lewis

  11. How do we know ourselves? “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” (E.M. Forster) “I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means.” (Joan Dideon) Joan Dideon

  12. How do we know ourselves? “Writing has got to be an act of discovery. . . . I write to find out what I'm thinking about. ” (Edward Albee) “Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery” (Henry Miller) Henry Miller

  13. WHY do we CREATE? • It is our nature . . . Learning begins with creating connections . . . • Even infants develop hypotheses and test them – they are arguably “scientists in the crib” • Like scientists, artists are motivated by curiosity, “driven by imagination and reined in by logic” (William Etkin) • We are all seeking knowledge, scientists are mapping the world, artists are mapping consciousness (as it is represented within them)

  14. The “scientist in the crib” We seek knowledge for the same reason as “the scientist in the crib” Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est Knowledge is power Francis Bacon 1597

  15. ART and EVOLUTION To bring the tools of evolutionary thinking to bear we must 1. Establish that ART is adaptive -- meets NEEDS 2. Describe a hypothetical mechanism by which ART evolved

  16. ART and EVOLUTION 1. Establish that ART is adaptive --meets NEEDS: a cascade of more or less urgent NEEDS must be met if an organism is to “self actualize” (“be all it can be,” manifest “maximum fitness” in the environment in which it finds itself For example, one’s mental health is arguably dependent upon SELF-KNOWLEDGE . . . the quality of the connection between the implicit and explicit in our minds and ". . . harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto"

  17. ART and EVOLUTION 2. Describe a hypothetical mechanism by which ART evolved: the most elaborately adapted traits (such as art and science) have been gradually transformed from very modest beginnings For example, reflexive responses of the autonomic (homeostatic, emotional) nervous system or motor patterns are transformed into communicative signals over the generations by the process known as “ritualization.”

  18. The survival and prosperity of individuals and species depends on their ability to meet needs imposed by their environments

  19. PART 2 in NOVEMBER: Present and past adaptations; the roots of art and science in the human psyche; why they must be integrated "The senses cannot think. The understanding cannot see." Immanual Kant Critique of Pure Reason

  20. What is the urgent need that is shared by those of art and science? We need confidence in our beliefs We call it “truth” and it is an amalgam of two functions, otherwise critical in their own right: CORRESPONDENCE (with reality) COHERENCE (within a web of causes and consequences) ART, by exploring the boundaries of experience, exercises and integrates these qualities, enlarging and improving their intercommunication.

  21. "Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens" --Ralph Waldo Emerson

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