This is something I just noticed on big think. As you may or may not know, I'm currently in the state of rapture, for descovering all these great ideas about evolution, culture, the mind and more that propels my joy an creativity. Just today I listened to an interview with Paul Bloom of Yale university. He is a professor of developing psychology. The whole interview was in it self very interesting, but he praticularily said something about the personal exploration of taste that just struck a chord within me.
Two expressions: 1: "Exposure effect": The effect that the more you experience of it the more you like it.
2: "The inverted u- shape": First you kind of don't like it, then you like it more and more until finally you start getting bored with it.
The thought I came up with I call riding the wave to sophistication. (Sophistication means developed by experience). So, while experience, for instance, music you can start out simple, learn the ropes, and when you are about to tip the boredom mark, move on to something similar but more challengig. In (some sort of quazi) theory you could ride that succession of waves right on to the edge of your cognitive ability. Until the music becomes so complex you won't be able to "understand" it, or until with food, you can't hold any more tastes in your mind, or with squash, the game becomes to complex. I mean, this theory is very positive in my view. It means that as long as you enjoy something, there is only one thing to do; slowly evolve for the better.
The downside to this, is that if you always evolve your taste or ability in this way, the materials of your pleasures tend to become more expensive. Well, that is, supposing there is a linear way to go when it comes to these things. When discussing these things there are almoast moral conciderations to take. Two things to ponder:
Is more complex really better? I know for a fact that Ravel's "Gaspard de la nuit: Ondine" is more complex than the "Shaun the sheep" intro melody, but does that make the music better? Perhaps it is just that the ability to enjoy the complex music is blocked for those lacking the experience, and not that there is something intrisically better with the music.
And also: Do we like things because they are exclusive? (complexity naturally excludes). The notion that this is only for me, because of my increased worth of a human being is a tantalizing thought, because it boasts our ego. And we for some reason like getting our egos boasted. Not only does the complexity exclude, but also the cost of many of the things we believe to be better. But keeping in mind the former paragraph, it might not even make sense to say that we need to be able to discern what has a fake elevated status because of is exentic value, and what should rigly be praised because of it's intrinsic value, because we have no way of impartially value one over the other.
Indeed. When not in the presence of a cognient entity with the aparatus to detect something as music, music would just be... sound. To us, removing humans from the world would... flatten it, for the lack of a better word.
Actually art is a good example, because we have such high thoughts about art.
We think that art becomes art, because the objects themselves are put in the "natural context" of being art; appreciated for their shape of form, or because it is in a gallery or similar environ. However, even when standing in an art gallery, there would be nothing whatsoever that would imply to you that this is important because this is an art gallery. You would only think this WAS an art gallery, and that within it was art, because long ago someone told you that this kind of space was exactly that.
These views are put forth rather more elloquently by Dr. Manhattan in the Watchmen graphic novel. The world is not composed of hope, faith, art, justice and beauty. The world is entierly made up of atoms, ordered in molecules and structures like salts. There is no room in newtonic or relativistic physics for love, or hate.
But why am I at all speaking of this? Am I in fact trying to imply, that because love and beauty does not exist, that it does not matter? Not at all! That something "matters" is in fact just another human invention.
But what other measure do we have?
So to answer some of the more answerable questions in this post. Exclusiveness is not a prerequisite for quality. That much stands to reason. But the notion of complexity however might hold some merit: Because in the action of unravveling the, to us, mysteries of this inherent complexity there lies a joy, and it is the joy which in this sense is important. In a sense, why we feel a good sense of accomplishement over enjoying Stravinsky or Chopin is not an important question at all. Merely that we do matter.
And it is here, that I think the knowledge of riding the cultural wave could be important. The message to us as thinkers is: If you stand still, you are in fact going backwards. The status quo is never non- action, it is movement. Da Vinci said it wonderfully:
"Iron rusts from dissuse, stagnant water looses it's purity. So also does inactivity sap the vigour of the mind."
But riding the wave is actually also moving forward. There is an end there to our endevours, which is represented in short by our intelligence. There is at least, only so much complexity my mind can handle.
