The Aesthetic Brain
How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art
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Narrated by:
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Bernard Setaro Clark
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By:
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Anjan Chatterjee
About this listen
The Aesthetic Brain takes the listener on a wide-ranging journey through the world of beauty, pleasure, and art. Chatterjee uses neuroscience to probe how an aesthetic sense is etched in our minds and evolutionary psychology to explain why aesthetic concerns feature centrally in our lives. Along the way, Chatterjee addresses fundamental questions: What is beauty? Is beauty universal? How is beauty related to pleasure? What is art? Should art be beautiful? Do we have an instinct for art? Chatterjee starts by probing the reasons that we find people, places, and even numbers beautiful. At the root of beauty, he finds, is pleasure. He then examines our pleasures by dissecting why we want and why we like food, sex, and money and how these rewards relate to aesthetic encounters. His ruminations on beauty and pleasure prepare him and the listener to face art. He wanders through the problems of defining art, understanding contemporary art, and interpreting ancient art. He explores why art, something that seems so useless, also feels fundamental to our humanity. Replete with facts, anecdotes, and analogies, this empirical guide to aesthetics offers scientific answers without deflating the wonders of beauty and art.
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Consciousness is our gateway to experience: it enables us to recognize Van Gogh’s starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven’s Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine: philosophers have for centuries declared this mental entity so mysterious as to be impenetrable to science. In The Ravenous Brain, neuroscientist Daniel Bor departs sharply from this historical view, and proposes a new model for how consciousness works.
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Effectively demystifies consciousness
- By Gary on 11-18-12
By: Daniel Bor
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Wild Justice
- The Moral Lives of Animals
- By: Marc Bekoff, Jessica Pierce
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Scientists have long counseled against interpreting animal behavior in terms of human emotions, warning that such anthropomorphizing limits our ability to understand animals as they really are. Yet what are we to make of a female gorilla in a German zoo who spent days mourning the death of her baby? Or a wild female elephant who cared for a younger one after she was injured by a rambunctious teenage male?
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What Some Of Us Have Always Known...
- By Douglas on 12-12-13
By: Marc Bekoff, and others
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Blueprint
- The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
- By: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Narrated by: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.
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Many interesting thoughts
- By Jonas Blomberg Ghini on 06-01-19
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The Self Illusion
- Why There Is No "You" Inside Your Head
- By: Bruce Hood
- Narrated by: Bruce Hood
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The Self Illusion provides a fascinating examination of how the latest science shows that our individual concept of a self is in fact an illusion. Most of us believe that we possess a self - an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body is compelling and inescapable. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances.
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Disappointing
- By David R Pinsof on 05-10-12
By: Bruce Hood
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Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life
- A Psychologist Investigates How Evolution, Cognition, and Complexity Are Revolutionizing Our View of Human Nature
- By: Douglas T. Kenrick
- Narrated by: Fred Stella
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Between what can be learned from evolutionary psychology and cognitive science a picture emerges. In Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life, social psychologist Douglas Kenrick fuses these two fields to create a coherent story of human nature. In his analysis, many ingrained, apparently irrational behaviors—one-night stands, prejudice, conspicuous consumption, even art and religious devotion—are quite explicable and (when desired) avoidable.
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Rather dated and self-aggrandizing
- By Laurie Frick on 07-21-11
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A User's Guide to the Brain
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- By: John J. Ratey
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
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John Ratey, best-selling author and clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, lucidly explains the human brain's workings, and paves the way for a better understanding of how the brain affects who we are. Ratey provides insight into the basic structure and chemistry of the brain, and demonstrates how its systems shape our perceptions, emotions, and behavior. By giving us a greater understanding of how the brain responds to the guidance of its user, he provides us with knowledge that can enable us to improve our lives.
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Great book, mediocre narration
- By Dr. B on 09-25-18
By: John J. Ratey
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Mating Intelligence Unleashed
- The Role of the Mind in Sex, Dating, and Love
- By: Scott Barry Kaufman PhD., Glenn Geher PhD., Helen Fisher PhD. - foreword
- Narrated by: Bernard Setaro Clark
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Psychologists often paint a picture of human mating as visceral, instinctual. But that's not the whole story. In courtship and display, sexual competition and rivalry, we are also guided by what Glenn Geher and Scott Barry Kaufman call Mating Intelligence - a range of mental abilities that have evolved to help us find the right partner. Mating Intelligence is at work in our efforts to form, maintain, and end relationships. It guides us in flirtation, foreplay, copulation, finding and choosing a mate, and many other behaviors.
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Tedious with the gems buried deep within
- By Matt J on 09-26-15
By: Scott Barry Kaufman PhD., and others
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Mind in Motion
- How Action Shapes Thought
- By: Barbara Tversky
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In Mind in Motion, psychologist Barbara Tversky shows that spatial cognition isn't just a peripheral aspect of thought, but its very foundation, enabling us to draw meaning from our bodies and their actions in the world. Our actions in real space get turned into mental actions on thought, often spouting spontaneously from our bodies as gestures. Spatial thinking underlies creating and using maps, assembling furniture, devising football strategies, designing airports, understanding the flow of people, traffic, water, and ideas.
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Physically difficult to listen to
- By Claire Hay on 11-08-19
By: Barbara Tversky
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Consciousness and the Social Brain
- By: Michael S. A. Graziano
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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What is consciousness and how can a brain, a mere collection of neurons, create it? In Consciousness and the Social Brain, Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano lays out an audacious new theory to account for the deepest mystery of them all. In Graziano's theory, the machinery that attributes awareness to others also attributes it to oneself. Damage that machinery and you disrupt your own awareness. Graziano discusses the science, the evidence, the philosophy, and the surprising implications of this new theory.
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Cutting edge...
- By Douglas on 08-07-14
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Nothing new or original
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Critique of 'Western' Aesthetics - A Virtue Signal
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In his Introduction, Abraham Kaplan places Dewey's philosophy of art within the context of his pragmatism. Kaplan demonstrates in Dewey's esthetic theory his traditional "movement from a dualism to a monism" and discusses whether Dewey's viewpoint is that of the artist, the respondent, or the critic.
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Dense, but enlightening!
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Good but too surface level.
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Dense, but enlightening!
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What listeners say about The Aesthetic Brain
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- paul
- 06-27-23
Good and understandable
I enjoyed the first half of the book but it seemed to me to get a little off track in some chapters. Still glad i listen to it thougg
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- Gerwald
- 03-25-16
Brains and beauty
Information is great, it was a good deal to get there. From the esthetics of faces and places, through common philosophy of beauty to the Neuroesthetics and some implications. If you did not study psychology or neurology the (like me) , the brainsystems will seem a bit complicated. But it is really worth while to see it through.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Thad Matheny
- 01-30-20
Unique and Interesting Contemplation of Art
Well read and written. Worth a listen if you are interested in this topic.
I didn’t think neuroscience would have anything valuable to contribute to the discussion of art, but this book offers a unique and insightful perspective on it while maintaining a genuine appreciation for it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Daniel Crumbo
- 06-10-15
A fine contribution
A responsible, sober, up-to-date, and clear take on evolutionary neuroaesthetics, Chatterjee's book navigates the science and the anxiety the science elicits with tact and aplomb.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Oliver Nielsen
- 02-02-16
Glad I got this one!
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. I got it because I've wondered about beauty and aesthetics for years:
"Why are flowers beautiful?"
I haven't finished the book yet, as I began listeting to it yesterday – but can already say it's a wonderful book! It talks about human beauty, baby face bias, fibonacci / golden ratio: aka "right down my alley"!
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1 person found this helpful
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- tjricoy
- 10-04-17
A Beautiful Brain Child
This book is a perfect introduction to the field of experimental neuroaesthetics. It informs and inspires readers to dig deeper into a personal understanding of what and why art is.
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2 people found this helpful
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- S.O.
- 07-22-20
Artist take on this book.
As an artist it was a great pleasure to be painting and listening to this audio book. Great insights that gained new understanding as I watched them transpire on the canvas in real time. Truly gave comprehension to experiences I have strived to understand my throughout my art career. The message of how freedom causes an explosion of diversity is a precious message that makes me even more grateful to live in a time where I can live that.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Francisco Herrero
- 03-19-16
Litany of Facts
I would suggest that any person who is very visually oriented approach this book with caution, or at least an image of the brain in front of you. The author goes on and on with things like, when a person sees something like X the Y part of the brain lights up, and just keeps on lifting things like that. The areas of the brain have very technical names, and are often abbreviated. There's very little synthesis going on in any individual chapter.
I kept wishing that the author built the story around parts of the brain and what they do, telling a story, synthesizing things, rather than around the visual stimulus coming first followed by the brain activity. Very frustrating, and I will be happily returning this.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Clara
- 12-22-15
Disappointing
I am a potter and I often listen to audiobooks while I work in the studio. I was interested in this book because I listed to a very short podcast on this subject which described how people all over the world preferred an image of particular landscape regardless of where they lived. I found that fascinating and hoped this book would tell me more along those lines.
The description looked so great, I neglected to listen to the sample before purchase- my mistake. The narration is of the old fashioned type that always reminds me of WWII news clips or 1960's nature shows. I was only able to get an hour in. I heard nothing I hadn't heard before about why certain people are more attractive to the opposite sex- facial symmetry, pointy chins, etc. I was really annoyed as I thought the book was going to be about art and neuroscience. I do not care which Hollywood actress the author is attracted to. That's not interesting to me and the objectification of women embedded in that discussion is not something I want to spend my time on. Between the narration, familiar information (to me anyway), and the way the book is written, I thought maybe I had bought a book published a long time ago (actually just 2013). When I realized I didn't like either the narrator or the book, I turned it off and went to find something else. I'm sorry I spent money on this one.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Greg
- 01-12-17
This Author Does Not Understand Art
This person has a very pedantic understanding of art, which frankly, most often misses the point altogether. I disagree with much of his thesis as well regarding why we love great art, our purpose for creating it, and what more or less defines art.
If given the opportunity to do it over again I would not waste my time or money on this one.
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1 person found this helpful