Reply #19: So much of human aesthetics is instinctual shorthand

[starroute]

Fruit is most attractive to us in appearance and smell when it's perfectly ripe and thus most nourishing. And this isn't just a matter of us judging -- the fruit itself is sending out "eat me" signals when the seeds inside are ready to be disseminated.

Attractiveness in women generally translates into "young, healthy, built for child-bearing."

Attractiveness in men tends to have two poles. In times of upheaval, women go for "rugged and aggressive." In more placid times for "cute, geeky, likely to stick around and help raise the kids."

Even the earliest hand axes nearly two million years ago were symmetrical and pleasingly shaped -- and the rule for tools ever since has been that if it looks good and feels good in the hand, it probably works better than one that's ugly and awkward.

What we experience as aesthetics is a matter of both survival and communication among individuals and species. As humans, we're capable of detaching aesthetics from its basis in survival and keeping things around just because they look good and make us feel happy. But even there, we may be training our perceptions to make fine distinctions that are essential to our actual well-being.