The Glacier Lakes of the Sierra Nevada

In his first book, The Mountains of California, Scottish-born mountaineer John Muir (1838-1914) writes about his travels and adventures around the peaks, passes, canyons, glacier and lakes of the Sierra Nevada. He dedicates one chapter to glacier lakes, which he introduces to the reader as follows [1]:

Among the many unlooked-for treasures that are bound up and hidden away in the depths of Sierra solitudes, none more surely charm and surprise all kinds of travelers than the glacier lakes.

John Muir, 1894.

Keywords: geography, glaciology, California.

References and more to explore

[1] John Muir: The Mountains of California. The Century Company, New York, 1894. Note: see page 69 in the Penguin Classics Book print of 1985 with an introduction by Edward Hoagland.

The Mountains of California

In his first book, The Mountains of California, Scottish-born John Muir (1838-1914), known as an initiator of the modern conservation movement,  writes about his explorations in the Sierra Nevada and other mountain ranges and hilly landscapes of California. Promptly with the first sentence in his book he summarizes his passion for California's majestic, rugged and scenic wilderness [1]:

Go where you may within the bounds of California, mountains are ever in sight, charming and glorifying every landscape.

John Muir, 1894.

Keywords: landscape, geography. 

References and more to explore

[1] John Muir: The Mountains of California. The Century Company, New York, 1894. Note: see page 1 in the Penguin Classics Book print of 1985 with an introduction by Edward Hoagland.

Smells like what?

The way we communicate about smell or odor perception differs from how we talk about colors [1]:

Smells, unlike colors, do not have names of their own: they are always identified by what they are smells of (vanilla, orange blossom, bakery, wet dog, burnt match, tar, rosemary, pine smoke, strawberry, garlic, etc.).

Denis Dutton, 2009.

Keywords: naming, linguistics, anthropology. 

References and more to explore

[1] Denis Dutton: The Art Instinct. Beauty, Pleasure & Human Evolution. Bloomsbury Press, New York, 2009; pp. 211-212.

From ordinary to mind-expanding: capacities of storytelling

A story links experienced or imagined events [1]:

Storytelling is a mirror of ordinary everyday social experience: of all the arts, it is the best suited to portray the mundane imaginative structures of memory, immediate perception, planning, calculation, and decision-making, both as we experience them ourselves and as we understand others to be experiencing them.

Denis Dutton, 2009.

From stories we can learn how to overcome obstacles. Typical stories contain either open or hidden advice. A story may prepare its reader for future situations and how to deal with those. And told or written in an artful, exciting, thrilling way, listening to or reading a story always is a great pleasure.

Keywords: literary narrative, imagination, fiction. 

References and more to explore

[1] Denis Dutton: The Art Instinct. Beauty, Pleasure & Human Evolution. Bloomsbury Press, New York, 2009; page 119.

What is evolutionary psychology?

Denis Dutton gives the following definition in his book “The Art Instinct” [1]:

Evolutionary psychology is the study of the developmental history and adaptive functions of the mind, including the ways those functions shape the mind's cultural products.

Denis Dutton, 2009.

For comparison and further study, here is a selection of related definitions, introductions and interesting excursions [2-7]. Also, there is an open-access peer-reviewed journal dedicated to this discipline [8]. 

Keywords: psychology, evolution, anthropology, human mind.

References and more to explore

[1] Denis Dutton: The Art Instinct. Beauty, Pleasure & Human Evolution. Bloomsbury Press, New York, 2009; page 86.
[2] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Evolutionary Psychology [plato.stanford.edu/entries/evolutionary-psychology/].
[3] Psychology Today: What is Evolutionary Psychology? [www.psychologytoday.com/basics/evolutionary-psychology].
[4] Systems - Thinker.com: Evolutionary Psychology [www.systemsthinker.com/interests/mind/evolpsych.shtml#glabachglabachwhatisep.shtml].
[5] Edward H. Hagen, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Berlin: What is evolutionary psychology? [www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/epfaq/ep.html].
[6] Scholarpedia: Evolutionary psychology [www.scholarpedia.org/article/Evolutionary_psychology].
[7] Science Daily: Evolutionary psychology [http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/e/evolutionary_psychology.htm].
[8] Evolutionary Psychology [www.epjournal.net/].

Theories change with the subject they are trying to analyze and formalize

As art forms and techniques change and develop, as artistic fashions blossom or fade, so art theory too tags along, altering its focus, shifting its values.

Denis Dutton, 2009.

Theories often claim universality, but—as demonstrated for art theory—the approach to theoretical tinkering and formulation depends on historical epoch, learned culture and personal bias. Do theories exist mind-independent—like, perhaps, prime numbers—or are they simply human affairs and brainstorming precipitations?

Keywords: rational thinking, philosophy, arts.

Reference

Denis Dutton: The Art Instinct. Beauty, Pleasure & Human Evolution. Bloomsbury Press, New York, 2009; page 48.

From the Pleistocene into the Holocene

Today we view human nature—the genetically endowed network of needs, desires, capacities, preferences, and impulses on which culture is built—as having been fixed only since the advent of agriculture and cities, the events that initiated our present epoch, the Holocene, around ten thousand years ago.

Denis Dutton, 2009.

The geological epoch preceding the Holocene was the Pleistocene, spanning periods of repeated glaciations. The Holocene began around ten thousand years ago (or eleven or twelve thousand years ago, depending on the employed dating methods) and continues to the present. We are shaping the Holocene, while we as today's human species were shaped during the Pleistocene. Denis Dutton shows how our universal dispositions and human behavior patterns arose during the Pleistocene and can be found as motives, emotions, desires and ambitions reflected in arts and culture—around the globe. 

Keywords: evolution, history, anthropology.

Reference

Denis Dutton: The Art Instinct. Beauty, Pleasure & Human Evolution. Bloomsbury Press, New York, 2009; pp. 41-42.