Is neuroculture a new cultural revolution?
Are we at the birth of a new culture in the western world? Are we on the verge of a new way of thinking? Both humanistic and scientific thinkers suggest as much.
Beauty and the brain
Can you imagine a concert hall full of chimpanzees sitting, concentrated, and feeling ‘transported’ by the beauty of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony? Even harder would be to imagine a chimpanzee feeling a certain pleasure when standing in front of a beautiful sculpture. The appreciation of beauty and its qualities, according to Aristotle’s definition, from his Poetics (order, symmetry, and clear delineation and definiteness), is uniquely human.