I thought “aesthetics come from facts” was going to go off into evolutionary psychology. Health being good for our genes is a fact that explains why (without explaining away) health is aesthetically better than sickness (for most people), etc.
Everything is experienced through a series of filters. Filters are created by instinct and experience… The entire world looks and feels COMPLETELY different for each person, because no ones’ set of filters is the same.
The “deeper” the filter, the more influence it has over your perception of reality. Evolutionarily developed filters (instinct) occurred from millions of years of selection, and are very deep. Filters originated in your childhood that survive into adulthood are generally deep, etc. Someone calling you a mean word adds a filter that might last an hour.
These filters are stacked on top of each other like a house of cards. The deeper the filter, the more influential. But every filter effects one’s perception of reality… There are deep filters based on physical brain chemistry, instinct based on human evolution, etc. Layers of filter can be peeled away to see reality in a more “pure” way. Peeling away layers allows one to see things(reality) in a way they didn’t before, and reconsider “their” reality. Note: peeling away layers does not necessarily mean one will then go on to form a truer view of reality.
Some of the filters defining what’s beautiful and what’s ugly are going to be learned and others innate, with the learned ones being formed on the basis of the innate ones.
I generally agree, but I think that there’s also a sense in which aesthetics comes from facts. See Propagating Facts into Aesthetics (which is exactly about that), Identities are (Subconscious) Strategies (one’s sense of identity often includes lots of aesthetic considerations as well), and Book summary: Unlocking the Emotional Brain (the kind of emotional learning described there probably drives many of these aesthetics).
I thought “aesthetics come from facts” was going to go off into evolutionary psychology. Health being good for our genes is a fact that explains why (without explaining away) health is aesthetically better than sickness (for most people), etc.
Well there’s that too. I liked this take on it:
Some of the filters defining what’s beautiful and what’s ugly are going to be learned and others innate, with the learned ones being formed on the basis of the innate ones.