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To: general_re
As discussed above, having an aesthetic sense about potential mates allows one to choose better, healthier mates, and thereby contributes to propagation

Uh huh. How does that work with sunsets or paintings?

1,044 posted on 07/29/2003 3:31:06 PM PDT by exmarine
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To: exmarine
One-off side-effects like that happen all the time. Written languages are one such effect, finding beauty in a sunset is quite likely another. The human brain didn't evolve in order to create computer networks - there weren't any before about forty years ago, after all, long after the brain reached its current state of development - and yet here we are, typing away. There's no particular reason that you should prefer ice cream to rice cakes - a million years ago, there were neither rice cakes nor ice cream - but you do, and there's a good general explanation for why you would be expected to choose ice cream over rice cakes.

You have a highly developed visual cortex, comparatively well developed three-dimensional color vision, a large brain that allows you to reason analogically about the past, present and future, and that gives you an awareness of the self and its relationship to the larger world, while also allowing you to manipulate that larger world to suit you. Why should we be surprised to find that such a complex being has complex tastes in its everyday life?

1,047 posted on 07/29/2003 3:44:26 PM PDT by general_re (Trust is a trick that dogs play. They don't want you to know how delicious they are.)
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