Mental determinants of all kinds of preferences exist usually on the basis of evolution. Practically everything in our psyches has or has had an evolutionary purpose, yet things like aesthetic taste are a little more complicated. What is it that determines our audio and visual palates? Does it have an evolutionary intention?
Men like boobs because its a sign of fertility.
Stuff like that, all for reproduction
Yes, theres an evolutionary explanation for it. Theres a great chapter about part of the visual aesthetics in “The Adapted Mind”
“Environmental aesthetics. Evolved responses to landscapes” etc.
As to the audio i’ve read a lot of different claims, as a lot of musics tend to hit a lot of different notes and can inform people as to how accurate their hearing is working and etc.
Theres a bit of a mystery to these questions, but theres a lot of great theories put forward, some with surprising evidence.
books.google.ca/books?id=SxX4gRz … #PPA558,M1
chapter 15 and onward.
symmetry.
That does certainly explain things. That also explains the primordial iconography of our minds, i.e. why certain things inherently look scary or unappealing.
So it’s pretty safe to say that everything in our minds has or has had an evolutionary purpose, right?
No, just like the whiteness of bone or the red color of blood, theres byproducts or misfiring. That don’t serve any evolutionary purpose.
Though produced by evolved mental mechanisms or mental adaptations.
How can you tell the difference between evolutionary purpose and misfiring? Preference? 
- The Adapted Mind, -JOHN TOOBY AND LEDA COSMIDES
well,if humans lived in small bands for 99%+ of their time as a species, compassion would be advantageous to have for a lot of people, today, we live in environments we’re not adapted to live in, and show it to people we never meet again.
An adaptation that doesn’t work properly in a given situation because its out of sync with its environment. Thats basically what i mean, by misfiring.
Okay, I find this extremely interesting. I want to become a psychologist so I’m just fascinated by all of this.
I have a slightly more philosophical question pertaining to this. If our minds are adapted to live in specific survival elements, elements which we are no longer immersed in, does that not mean that a large majority of our instinctual framework is vestigial, i.e. meaningless? If things like war are byproducts of a vestigial system of thought processes which evolution, having been stunted by the obliteration of natural selection, has been unable to cut off, does that mean we ought to cut it off ourselves? If so, to what discretion; by what new determinants, if any? Natural selection is no longer applicable in modern day society; our minds are no longer adapting (at a biological level, at least); must we then self-evolve, that is force evolution upon ourselves?
If evolution’s main goal is genetic supremacy, and we’ve already long since reached such a standing, by what new system of determinants must we abide by, if at all?
Natural selection is still at work, just not so much physically because we’ve created so many tools to enhance what our bodies can do. But we’re still developing mentally. There will always be war, if not using bullets then by using butter. We’ve been forcing mental evolution upon ourselves for thousands of years now, ever since man conquered all other animals. There’s only one animal to conquer left, other men.
Vestigial structures or whatever are essentially non-functional, say, goosebumps, could allow our ancestors hair to fluff up making them appear larger or trapping heat, now they don’t do that for us. theres a lot of things I could point out, but, the main point is that vestigial loses almost all functionality.
What i’m talking about is a ‘misfiring’ as in a functional adaptation thats not matched to its current environment. In many situations, its still adaptive however, though the opposite can be true as well. Functionality is the difference, though.
They’re not vestigial but rather ‘out of sync’ its not that natural selection has been stunted (though in some ways it is/isn’t compared to hunter-gatherer ways) but rather that, evolution couldn’t hope to work on the time-frame in which humans have changed environments (well, it might, just not radically changing mental adaptations like we’d need to be fully adapted to our environments now)
Mental evolution is happening pretty fast actually. ‘fast’ by any kind of standard of evolution, I mean.
Whether humans\ should use genetic engineering to help take out some evolutionary baggage, well, probably if the technology is ever safe.
Is there any formula that would allow one to know absolutely the difference between evolutionary purpose and misfiring?
If so, what is it? If not, how does one know?
Ask yourself whether a particular thing is selective. The ring structure of heme is selective because it offers a nice way of transporting blood. Since it has to be flat, it has a lot of double bonds. That tends to lead to a colored compound, and blood just happens to be red. Heme’s structure is useful, heme’s color is not. So color isn’t selected for. Another example is Barium. Over the course of evolutionary time, it is incredibly unlikely that humans would have encountered barium, let alone enough for it to be selective in some way. Yet, if one were to eat barium, it tastes sweet (it is also potently toxic). This is an accident. Our taste buds don’t really know what to do with it, but it does trigger a sweet response. Accidental, but interesting.
As for distinguishing what is likely to be non-selective vs. what is likely to be selective, it is usually a matter of abductive reasoning.
i posted a reply to that myself, not sure what happened to it though.
Usually it’s evolutionary and relies on factors like if the potential mate is healthy and will breed well, but this isn’t always the case at all. You can’t really ask this question objectively because everyone’s psychology is conditioned. I think for a lot of people it’s acceptable to make what qualifies as “beautiful” a cultural thing that’s determined by fashions and customs of their people and deter away from how we would naturally go about selecting to breed. I think it’s sorta fucked up because people, especially women, in places (and I speak of most) who aren’t attractive by normal standards can get plastic surgery or, oddly enough, make their neck longer or something to make them more desirable which deceives natural selection and breeds weaker, uglier people.
Standards of beauty are pretty standard across cultures actually.
The only reason that beauty is still somewhat universal is because our instincts can sometimes smartly overlay what our culture’s standards may tell us.