[Fis] The genesis of art, love and wellbeing--three roots

[William Miller]

Dear All, 




I have followed thisfascinating thread with great interest. Pedro's comment on getting tothe 'root' of the reason for art and the appreciation of beauty hasmotivated me to comment now, rather than previously, since the priorthrust of the discussion has focused on our human sensibilities, andmy work is about cells. However, any discernment of a 'root' of anaesthetic impulse must eventually include consideration of how cellsoperate, since we are all cellular constructs. I hope you will findthis alternative take on the matter interesting and not off-topic.

I have published about theempirically verified behaviors of all cells. Those observations andexperiments confirm that cells operate within a compact narrative ofconsistent behaviors since their origin as their means of dealingwith their obligatory context of the ambiguity of biologicalinformation (previously presented with Mike Levin).

All cells are intelligentand engaged in measuring ambiguous environmental cues asinfocomputation for (value) and valence (subjective experiences atscale ). I defend that cells have experiences at scale because allcells have defined homeorhetic preferences that they maintain butalso adjust in context as differential rates of dynamic flux. Kanthad intuited that all learning derives from experiences and cells arecertainly learning systems.

Cells consistently displaysix behavioral attributes: collaboration, cooperation, co-dependence, generally mutualizing competition, respect for the self-integrity ofother cells, and they consistently abide by the principle that eachis served best by serving others. The proof is seamlessmulticellularity, enabling you to read this now. None of this isconjectural and is easily observable. Indeed, cancer is destructivesince it does not follow those rules with normative cells, only withlike-kind cancer cells (as a different form of selfhood).

Notably, cells act in thesepatterns because this is how they form their sense of the world,i.e., glean at their scale some understanding of the status of theirinterior versus the external environment, essential to maintainingtheir preferential states and naturally implicit to their survival.This is how they form their grasp of reality, from which allproblem-solving must issue. After all, cells are not programmedrobots: they are decision-making and problem-solving agents.

I would offer that thedeepest root of art is an expression of our cellular selves as asearch to find answers to our yearning questions and doubts aboutreality, on the one hand, and as an explicit expression of a state ofpreference in context on the other. These two cellular imperativesmerge as our expression of art and govern our need to create it. Thisalso explains why some art is beautiful to some and execrable toothers, and some art is seen as illuminating to one individual andridiculous to another. It is always an individual, subjectiveassessment that reflects an exclusive interior state.

Our consciousness consistsof doubts and preferences. As I often say, 'being is doubt', and Inow offer that 'life is preferences'. Art is each individual'sidiosyncratic attempt to resolve personal doubts, expressivelyillustrate its effect on the artist, and satisfy a preferentialstate. Furthermore, since art is shared with others almost withoutexception, it is a communal activity, conforming with the innatecellular root behavior of 'you serve yourself best by servingothers'.

We are cellular beings, andall of evolution is a narrative of the continuous exaptation ofunicellular traits channeled and repurposed at successive scales . Ineach instance, it serves to enhance the deployment of information toproblem-solve in our unending struggle to grasp external reality.These exaptations are tools of continuous cellular natural learning,which requires an unending exploration the environment throughalternative paths. Art is one means by which this deeply rootedimpulse, so essential to life, is satisfied.

After all, isn't thisexactly what we are currently engaged in within this forum and is itnot its own form of Art?

Best, 

Bill 


    On Friday, January 30, 2026 at 01:18:08 PM MST, Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> wrote:  
 
  Dear Laszlo, Paul, Francesco... --and FIS Colleagues, 
  For the sake of bringing some coherence to the 'underground' ideas on art that have been produced lately, let me try sort of a scheme that may parallel what Laszlo has presented on the "externalized" art. He has brought order and clarity on a phenomenon full of complexities and pseudo-complications. The fact that Krassimir has successfully connected it with his own approach to Info Theory is revealing. Could we now draft an accompanying something on the interiors? If we follow the metaphor of a tree, the three proposed vectors of creativity (originality), communication, and experience seem to capture the main 'branches' of the observable art experience, of the art phenomenon. What about the 'roots'? Some of us have argued on the biological factors,  three of them could be: 
  --Sense of play. Plenty of behavioral/evolutionary studies... "Animal play remains a complex and variable behavioral phenomenon across a wide range of mammals, and their mechanisms and functions are not yet ... an enigmatic phenomena" It extends to multiple species of birds, reptiles, etc. Human neoteny has potentiated and enlarged this sense in adults and at the whole social level. The artist plays, listen to Picasso, or to any modest practitioner. 
  --Emotional engagement. As discussed, my take is that the intense emotions related to human pair bonding, essentially love, are conflated with the above playing with forms, sounds, words, narratives, etc. Let us remember Clynes' sentics (thanks, Jerry). It is a gradation, from the superficial to the extreme.  
  -- Aesthetic impulse. I completely agree that Nature is full of Beauty, that in plenty of species we can appreciate elegance, majesty, gracefulness... Why so much beauty in nature?? No response. In science we have to look for plausible explanations, or accepting we don't have them, and not parroting the selectionist dogma. Well, the aesthetic impulse, in our species, looks again conflated with the pair bonding complex. In our societies, beauty and elegance --or their surrogates-- are looked for, and played with, so intensely in all the relational world...   
  Far more should be worked out, but these three initial pills at the 'root' may help a little to cohere with the 'branches'. 
  Best --Pedro 
  ---Helas! Laszlo and colleagues, one of the conditions of the New Year Lecture is the January term... Better if concluding comments appear during next days.   
 
  
  Antonyms of ELEGANCE: flamboyance, El 29/01/2026 a las 18:00, Paul Suni escribió:
  
 
Dear Pedro, 
  You opened a wonderfully complex topic connecting art, love and wellbeing and challenged us to think about it in the context of biological capabilities. Whereas László's mathematical approach to art no doubt has value, the messy good stuff of interiors including love and individual wellbeing, also remains under-explored, in courageous ways.  
  The Satin Bower Bird is an amazing artist, whose creations of bowers exceeds the aesthetic creative capacities of most individual humans, in my personal opinion. Science says that the Bower Bird creates its elaborate and aesthetically complex formations because of evolutionary sexual selection, but I strongly disagree with Science.  
  I assert that the male Bower Bird engages in its sustained and extremely focused artistic activity, because it provides a rich and fulfilling interior experience for the individual bird, which could be partly substantiated through chemical analyses of its neurotransmitter metabolism. It  is a meticulous labor of love that has absolutely nothing to do with reproduction.  
  After all, the birds do not participate in scientific discourse concerning reproduction or evolutionary theory, at all.  Furthermore, I hypothesize that the bird enjoys the specific degree of difficulty of his creation, which is a biochemically testable hypothesis, I claim. This raises the question of the bird's " human potential." The bird spends 9 months of the year toiling with its creation, and it sticks to his aesthetic project for as long as 30 years, like a true artist - a veritable Leonardo. There are easier ways to get laid, but toiling away is far more deeply meaningful for the bird. 
  The artistic activity of the Bower Bird nourishes its little bird soul with expansive, love-like feelings ostensibly not entirely unlike Zohran Mamdani experiences when he engages with his idea of the " warmth of collectivism." In its creative love state, the bird is surely as oblivious to the genetic implications of its artistic activity as Mamdani is to the demonstrably potential genocidal implications of his love for collectivism. This state of ignorance is extremely relevant to our discourse on art. I do not mean to offer the analogy as a joke. 
  Young male Bower Birds have the biopsychological capacity to develop their personal aesthetic sensibilities through sustained independent study of the works of senior Bower Birds. This can be seen from the countless sketchy assemblages that must be produced during their artistic development, before the first satisfactory bower is produced, and female birds care to take a discerning  look, which requires an aesthetic sensitivity, no doubt! 
  That brings me to the delight that the male Satin Bower Birds bring to the female Satin Bower Birds, who spend considerable time enjoying and carefully assessing the aesthetic merits of beautiful bowers as well as admiring the cognitive and practical prowess of their sensitive male suitors. I emphasize to scientists that most of what I say could be scientifically substantiated, if science adopted a mature attitude towards sentience, and regarded the rich and fulfilling experiences of Bower Birds as important. 
  Thank you Pedro and FIS colleagues for tolerating some of my surely annoying repetitions. I have received encouragement for them in private communications, and hope that the academic trance in which we are supposed to be held may begin to lift slightly, in my lifetime. Unfortunately, it is the way of academia to protect its psychopathic hold on its intellectual hegemony by shifting content in and out of the same old frames only to change the race, gender, politics and sex organs of its victims, while disseminating its toxicities into society at large. 
  Cheers, Paul 
  
  
  
  
   

 
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