RE: why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?
January 14, 2019 at 7:33 am
(This post was last modified: January 14, 2019 at 7:39 am by Alan V.)
(January 14, 2019 at 4:19 am)Belaqua Wrote: So serious, non-snarky question: what can going into an MRI machine add to our understanding, in regard to this poem?
Another example: I grew up in a small town with no art. I had books from the library though, and I loved to look at pictures of paintings by van Eyck. When I was 17 I went to London and saw a van Eyck painting (the Arnolfini wedding portrait) in the flesh for the first time. This was absolutely thrilling for me -- the painting is almost supernaturally beautiful, in that it is more subtle and richer than any mass produced item has ever been. It's this experience, and this added hands-on knowledge, that makes the painting meaningful. Not to get all Platonic, but the beauty points to higher things. Remember what Stendhal said: beauty is the promise of happiness. Not happiness, but the promise of it.
These infinite and ongoing connections are, for me, what any art is about. And again, in a totally non-snarky way, I just don't see what a brain scientist is going to do for me.
An MRI machine would likely show a difference in brain activation between the people who enjoyed such works of art and those who don't. It might even show a greater activation of the right hemisphere in interpreting an artistic experience, or perhaps show how certain modules of the brain are involved. It wouldn't add to or subtract from our appreciation, most likely, but could tell us more about how our brains work.
Art appreciation happens on the level of complex symbolic interpretation, and might look like a firework show in the brains of those who enjoy such things, at least until they were habituated.
I would like to add that my long book report was not just a series of assertions drawn out of thin air, but a series of conclusions or speculations based on careful scientific observations over many years. Explaining what we actually observe, which is what scientists do slowly over time, is not the same kind of activity as some philosophers who tend to question even carefully collected observations until they are adequately explained.
