Beauty and Art. Cognitive Function, Evolution, and Mathematical Models of the Mind

– The paper discusses relationships between aesthetics theory and mathematical models of mind. hierarchy of the mind and evolution of these abilities. The knowledge instinct is the foundation of higher mental abilities and aesthetic emotions. Aesthetic emotions are present in every act of perception and cognition, and at the top of the mind hierarchy they become emotions of the beautiful. The learning ability is essential to everyday perception and cognition as well as to the historical development of understanding of the meaning of life. I discuss a controversy surrounding this issue. Conclusions based on cognitive and mathematical models confirm that judgments of taste are at once subjective and objective, and I discuss what it means. The paper relates cognitive and mathematical concepts to those of philosophy and aesthetics, from Plato to our days, clarifies cognitive mechanisms and functions of the beautiful, and resolves many difficulties of contemporary aesthetics. 1. Introduction Based on novel ideas in the area of cognitive and mathematical theories of mind and new neuro-imaging data I would demonstrate relationships among concepts in cognition, mathematics of the mind, and aesthetics. I describe contemporary mathematical understanding of thinking processes, its conscious and unconscious aspects, mechanisms of concepts, instincts, emotions, cognition, language and their role in thinking. I discuss a possibility of understanding aesthetic emotions within mathematical theories of mind, the understanding corresponding to the intuition of the beautiful that have been escaping theoretical analysis in contemporary aesthetics and philosophy. Relationships between mathematics and aesthetics (if any) are commonly thought of along the Plato's understanding of beauty as related to the world of Ideas and pure concepts; " remembrance " of this world enables us to enjoy beauty not in the objects of the world, but in relationships among objects. These relationships are manifested in mathematical constructs like symmetries, geometric shapes described by mathematical equations, or (more recently) fractal geometric objects. But these " mathematical " ideas of beautiful clearly lack the personal, the subjective element and therefore they do not address this necessary fundamental concern of aesthetics. Similarly, computer tools enabling computer-generated art do not address the aesthetics fundamentals. Yet, the new mathematical models of mind are coming close to providing a new level of theoretical understanding of emotions, consciousness and unconscious, cognition and language, the individual and collective, and turning out to be closer than expected to the fundamental issues of philosophy and aesthetics. I will describe a …