Janitor@MIT
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Member # 125
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posted 08. April 2004 15:58
Even though the Web is the largest garbage dump on Earth (and I know that’s not what it was designed to be), sometimes one discovers a gem in the stinking heap.
“When art is anticipated as epistemic treat then at least some of the many notions of complexity are likely to feature prominently in its criticism. In fact, the link between complexity and aesthetic experience can excite strong evaluative implications, particularly in the wake of recent quantifications of various properties
of complex things.”
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/fine_art/milos/papers/frozen_complexity.pdf
“Nor ought we to marvel if all the contrivances in nature be not, as far as we can judge, absolutely perfect; as in the case even of the human eye; or if some of them be abhorrent to our ideas of fitness… The wonder, indeed, is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection have not been detected.”
Darwin is infamous for projecting onto nature his own aesthetic and moral categories and sensibilities. And by “his own” I mean his conventionally “Victorian” sensibilities. (The Victorians were remarkably “pre-Copernican” in their “nasty moralizing” and often, strange(?) to us, anthropomorphizing of nature. “Rank anthropomorphisms” in the words of one historian.)
If it weren’t for Darwin’s staid and even dour demeanor in all the photographs of him I’ve ever seen, I would swear that there is a bit of a devilishly delighted glint in his eye. Because he is also capable of doing the opposite, via some even grotesquely absurd arguments. (See e.g., “The Expression of Emotions”)
I’ve always been intrigued by the relation between aesthetics and morality. It is not, however, the thesis of the author, who explores only the relation between perceived complexity and aesthetics. (And I’m using the article as a springboard, but its very interesting in its own right.)
It is one of the implicit theses of Darwin: how "complexity" is related to "morality." Is it?
Darwin is certainly a man of his age How could it be otherwise? And his sensibilities are obviously the legacies of 1500 years of the Christian theology and “Christianized” philosophy, moral, political, even cosmological! (Just as is ours.)
That is why the argument from imperfection/perfection wherein our aesthetic and moral assessments find their synthesis/antithesis, play a role, but a surprisingly equivocal role, in Darwin’s theory.
Darwin, no stranger to equivocation, cannot develop his theory while seriously equivocating about “perfection.” The very word appears in his “one long argument” because he has accepted it as an appropriate evaluation from theology. It has no origin in science!
His theory, as even some theologians have noted, is not simply an argument from imperfection (an argument he does make). It is also an argument about perfectability.
But how does that relate to complexity? Tapping the collective intelligence of the correspondents, I’ve come to the conclusion that “complexity” is a cognitive or computational category only. (And computational and cognitive are just the same thing, aren’t they?) What is “complex” is what is difficult, for us, to truly understand , which is not, as you can see in the article, the same as “explain.” Implicitly, complexity is what tests our previous understanding and even our ability to understand. Complexity is not a test of explanation, as we can “explain” anything anyhow. But it is a test.
Darwin (in the quote at the top) relates the eye to both complexity and perfection (and in a previous context “extreme perfection”). He explores the evolution of the eye at some length, in one of the more interesting examples of how evolutionary thinking works and doesn’t work. He confessed that the problem gave him conniptions. Why? Obviously, Darwin wasn’t so “easily satisfied” with “evolutionary” arguments or “explanations,” as we are. Why? Darwin, as dead as he is, can’t answer that. But we can attempt an answer. (And please note, sorry to have to say, the argument isn’t, obviously, about the evolution of the eye!)
I realize I am testing the rules here (But that’s what science is about, isn’t it?), as anyone’s “moral and aesthetic judgments” are not evidently the theme of the board. But I think Darwin’s “argument from imperfection” is important to understand as it has played a significant role in the development of evolutionary thought before and since Darwin. And to hopefully make it relevant (and bend the rules back) it relates to what we think is complex and why we think that, what information means, and why modern scientists and philosophers are so disarmed whenever anyone makes an “argument from design.”
I’ve left wide-open the original question, which is not merely “Darwinian.” I don’t really care what Darwin thought about the relation (If any!) between complexity, morality, and aesthetics.
What do you think?
(Actually, I just got tired of typing. LOL And I apologize for the mess, not organizing my thoughts. But as a true “evolutionist” I sometimes discover some interesting things in disorganization. LOL)
[ 08. April 2004, 16:20: Message edited by: Janitor@MIT ]
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