How Our Neurological Wiring Informs Our Aesthetic Taste

“Scientific evidence suggests that most of what we think we see comes from visual processing, perhaps just 20% comes from the actual input to the retina. Again, what is the evolutionary purpose of this? If we encounter a predator and had to construct what we’re seeing from scratch each time, we’d get eaten. So the brain searches the closest match that is already constructed in memory and modifies it with new input from the eye so we can figure out fast if we need to run for it. Looking at art exercises our ability to innovate images.”