How to Win at Art

I've been using his "Android Brain-Animal Brain" idea a lot recently, so I thought I'd link to this genius series of articles on how to "score" art by Ken Arneson.  He postulates that language is the way our android brains, the conscious, reflective part of our brain, communicates, but that our animal brain, that is our evolved animal instincts, uses art to communicate.  Our animal brain uses pattern recognition in art to form associative memories that are the currency of creativity.  Good art forms lots of memories, bad art forms none.  The best art avoids habituation (the recognition of familiarity that allows us to ignore reoccurring patterns as unimportant so we aren't distracted from keeping a watchful eye out for new stuff that might be important to our survival) and cliche even upon repeat viewings.

Beyond art, that struggle between our animal and android brains seems pretty right on in my everyday life.  Life is the attempt to train our animal brain to shape its powerful tactics into the service of our long term android strategies.

Comments

[Christopher Carr]

As a stoic, I more or less agree. However, I'm generally a big fan of spontaneous order (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_order) as a way of explaining unexplainable things, and I generally agree with Tolstoy and others in thinking that standards in art, as well as the monetary system, and evolution, evolved in the same way your post describes. Well done.