neuroaesthetics.doc

The 10 Problems in Neuroaesthetics


ABSTRACT


The main object of this paper is to discuss the philosophical problems
that arise once the presuppositions which support Neuroaesthetics, are
recognized: The Technology Limitation, The Language of the Machine, The
Ambiguity Problem, The Problem of Hermeneutics, The Aesthetic Problem, The
Cultural Influence Problem, The Subject Problem, The Problem of Mind/Body
Continuity, The Solipsism Problem, and the Problem of Incommensurability of
Beauty.
A second goal of this paper is to highlight the limitations of
studying the aesthetic experience under the constraints of the rigors of
science, showing how essential it is to allow the participation of other
disciplines like art and philosophy in the Neuroaesthetic field.


"Aesthetics, like all other human activities, must obey the rules of
the brain of whose activity it is a product, and it is my conviction that
no theory of aesthetics is likely to be complete, let alone profound,
unless it is based on an understanding of the workings of the brain". (Zeki
1999, 94)


He who does not know the assumptions he supports runs the risk of
professing a religion that he does not know.
Neuroaesthetics understands art as an activity that can be explained
in terms of the physiology of the brain, and more specifically, it
understands aesthetic pleasure as a predetermined faculty by the
configuration of the brain. But not only this, it also presupposes the
existence of a brain area whose activation occurs automatically, without
distinction of gender, age, or culture: a universal idea of beauty. That
is, it presupposes the existence of a "natural mechanism" that recognizes
certain visual patterns linked to an idea of beauty, outside any cultural
or collective context[1].
Moreover, until the emergence of neuroscience and its images, thoughts
just "appeared" in the form of language or art. Now, according to
neuroaesthetics, images obtained through machines like EEG or MRI will
account for our most private thoughts, as well as our aesthetic taste[2].
Apparently, thoughts have a new way of acquiring "body" through MRI images
and the "text" produced does not require the difficult process of artistic
interpretation as the range of colors is identified irrefutably by the
doctor with a determined "brain activity".
That is, neuroaesthetics presupposes that it can find public evidence,
objective and irrefutable, of a private experience, not just subjective but
directly involved with a bodily mechanism as the transfer of oxygen to
different parts of the brain or the record of electrical impulses in a
manner identical for all individuals.
Moreover, neuroaesthetics presupposes that our aesthetic sense can be
translated into neurons and synapses and that it would suffice to decode
the message they convey to know what we like. But where does this leave our
free will and cultivating our aesthetic sense when it all comes down to
triggering a natural mechanism? Is it that the idea of beauty does not
require our expertise and therefore a wandering through the world that
modifies it and turns it personal? However, neuroaesthetics insists in
proposing a universal and subjective model of beauty that arises as a
result of the activation of a particular brain area.
Furthermore, neuroaesthetics states that most of our brain activation
during an aesthetic experience is unequivocal proof of the quality of the
work, and therefore its market price. Furthermore, according to
neuroaesthetics, winners of a Biennial of Art may be distinguished by the
judges' MRI. Then, there would be no need to find a consensus, as
neuroaesthetics assumes that all images would be identical when finding the
winner of the race. According to neuroaesthetics, there is a "natural " and
"obvious" tendency to prefer the " most beautiful." However, any contest of
contemporary art seems to contradict this, especially since the emergence
of surrealism, art brut or arte povera, in which aesthetic pleasure or the
idea of beauty is no longer relevant. Neuroaesthetics seems to affirm that
painters like Van Gogh or Modigliani would not have passed through the
mishaps of an adverse art market, but that instead they would have been
immediately recognized. Furthermore, neuroaesthetics guarantees immediate
recognition of the talent of Picasso, although many people, even today,
confess not to understand him.
These assumptions imply, at least, ten very difficult problems,
philosophically speaking. In the first place, we say that neuroaesthetics
presupposes that there is a machine capable of detecting a "thought", this
we will refer to as neuroaesthetics' "Technology Limitation" problem. In
second place, neuroaesthetics states that a machine is capable of decoding
the contents of our mind, or at least that it can produce a "text" to
inform us of its content in a reliable way, that ideas can be " identified
" and " decoded " by a machine in a specific manner, to be understood
through explicit language for both the patient and physician. This will be
treated as the problem of "The Language of the Machine" in neuroaesthetics.
In third place, the suggestion is that there is a single body reaction
associated with each idea, to this we will refer as the problem of "
Ambiguity" of body reaction in neuroaesthetics. After having been able to
translate the images produced by the machine in terms of language, we shall
encounter all the problems inherent to the interpretation of the text
produced by the machine and the thought that it reveals, this we will refer
to later as the fourth, or "Hermeneutics", problem of neuroaesthetics.
Fifth, neuroaesthetics suggests that there is a valid idea of beauty for
any individual; we will call this the "Aesthetic" problem of
neuroaesthetics. The sixth problem of neuroaesthetics is that it assumes
the aesthetic experience as a "natural" mechanism that tends to prefer the
most beautiful and that does not include any contribution of culture, this
is the "Cultural Influence" problem. The seventh problem of neuroaesthetics
is that the aesthetic experience is a natural and automatic mechanism,
which implies the absence of participation of any personal subject, and
therefore the question might be: Who is responsible for the aesthetic
experience? We will refer to this as the problem of the "Subject" in
neuroaesthetics. The eighth problem of neuroaesthetics is that it assumes
as evident that ideas are rooted in the body, and that there is a
preeminence of the body over the mind, i.e. it assumes that every mental
event has a root in the body that precedes and determines it. This is what
we will refer to as the "Mind / Body " problem applied to neuroaesthetics.
The ninth problem facing neuroaesthetics is "Solipsism" because it suggests
that the body reaction (or brain activity) can be created or corresponds to
an event of the outside world even though it shows no evidence of such an
approach. The tenth problem arises when it is assumed that the aesthetic
experience can be translated into scientific terms. This problem we will
refer to as the "Incommensurability of Beauty."
In any case, any of the above statements would have caused a stir in
the most liberal philosophical atmosphere but what is at stake here is not
to dismiss the field of neuroaesthetics but to give it new limits to allow
finding a safe ground in order to continue with the investigations and be
aware of the premises we are assuming before reaching wrong conclusions[3].
Let's consider each problem mentioned in the statements above.

1) The "Technology Limitation" Problem in Neuroaesthetics:
Neuroaesthetics wants us to consider as obvious the "ideas" that reach
us through the log that the machine produces of the "brain activity".
Therefore, neuroaesthetics assumes that "idea" and "brain activity" are
equivalent terms, or at least that every brain activity is associated with
a particular idea. This statement involves several problems, the first one
is discerning whether the bodily reaction corresponds to a thought and the
second one is whether it is possible to identify unequivocally a "brain
activity" with an "aesthetic idea".
So far, the most sophisticated machines only give us a record of the
area and intensity of brain activity but none of these data reveal anything
about mental content, so there is no way to know if what has been detected
corresponds to an idea, and particularly if it corresponds to an aesthetic
idea. To say with certainty that the machine is capable of capturing an
aesthetic idea, we should succeed in producing a clearly differentiated
image, first, of several types of ideas, then of several levels of
apprehension of these ideas, and finally of various aesthetic ideas. That
is, achieving different pictures of different ideas, such as getting
pictures of scientific ideas that are clearly distinct from the images of
aesthetic ideas. Then, in terms of the levels of apprehension of ideas, we
should be able to differentiate in the images if the ideas were originally
conceived or intended by the individual or if the individual believes he
understood the idea that someone told him. As for the different aesthetic
ideas, images obtained viewing a particular work, for example Picasso,
should be different from the images obtained seeing other works, for
example, Kandinsky.
The correspondence between brain activity and mental content is
already quite thick but it is even worse to assume that all brain activity
finds itself reduced to producing mental contents without asking how they
are produced. One wonder: Can a machine distinguish between a memory, the
perception of an image and the deduction of a math problem? Can it
discriminate between its own reasoning and an acquired habit? Between a
prayer, a poem we recite and an original thought? Then you also have to
submit to testing if the machine is able to discriminate between different
mental contents such as the perception of an image, a feeling or an idea,
and among the ideas: a pondered idea (product of reason), a dreamt idea
(product of the unconscious), a remembered idea (product of memory), a
practical idea (product of some activity).
For some philosophers, when we have an aesthetic experience we are
reconciling what we see with an idea or a pattern of beauty (see Plato).
Yet for others, the aesthetic experience is not always considered an idea
but an aesthetic "enjoyment" (see Kant, Schiller) which places us in the
level of the most sublime feelings, it can even be described as
"involvement" which ultimately changes our "taste" and our system of
references (Heidegger). It can also be described as "empathy" which allows
us to come in contact with the emotion felt by the artist or the
acquisition of a "way of seeing" (Gadamer).
For the purposes of this paper we shall understand the aesthetic
experience as a way of perceiving and appreciating a work of art, which
means that on the one hand, we understand the image, we recognize its
aesthetic qualities (shape, color, size, etc.) and furthermore we approach
it "emotionally", we like it. Then, overcoming the technical problem
implies that the machine can produce different images for any perceived
aesthetic qualities, as shape, color, size; and for different degrees of
aesthetic pleasure, from savoring an ice-cream, to admiring a work of art.
Thus, the technical problem of neuroaesthetics will be resolved if the
machine is capable of fully putting on record an aesthetic experience in
its entirety, in its various degrees of involvement, either as pleasure or
displeasure of the thing, specifically, if it manages to distinguish an
aesthetic experience from one that is not.


2) The Problem of "The Language of the Machine" in Neuroaesthetics:
Neuroaesthetics assumes that the images produced by the machines (MRI,
EEG, etc.) realize the contents of our mind.This statement also implies
several problems. First, the fact that registering a bodily reaction
reveals a mental content, and second, assuming that the machine produces an
unmistakable record of our brain activity. It is difficult to ascertain
whether this new "text" or image is not also susceptible of interpretation
by the physician who reads it. In both cases, we are faced with the problem
of language mediating between the scientific image and the understanding we
have of it. That is, unless the person subject to examination explicitly
confirms it, we will not know what the mental content corresponding to the
brain activity was. In other words, we face the problem that the machine
does not have its own language and we depend on validation of the meaning
of the images through the language of the patient or the doctor, and
therefore, this implies that the reading of the scientific image faces all
the problems related to the philosophy of language, mind and aesthetics.
Some of these problems can be stated as follows: What does the patient mean
when s/he speaks of beauty? What is our understanding of his/her idea of
beauty? Does this understanding depend on our sharing the same internal
experience, or on how language gives expression to an inner experience or
feeling? We can then say that the images produced by the machine have a
content whose meaning depends solely on a "language" common to both doctor
and patient, otherwise it will mean nothing beyond the physiological fact
that it records.
In the case that we cannot find the mental correlation corresponding
to the images produced by the machine, either because the patient is
comatose or has a brain injury that prevents him/her from communicating
his/her thoughts, the images will only show the physiological mechanism to
which they are associated, either the amount of oxygen in the blood flowing
through the activated brain areas or the electrical impulses that occur
when performing a mental process, but the interpretation of the mental
content of that process is inevitably reduced to the "verbal" communication
with the patient. One possibility would be to perform the same evaluation
in patients with normal speech functions and in patients with impaired
speech ability, and where there is a match with the same reaction,
extrapolate the meaning given by patients who can speak and by those who
cannot.
Wittgenstein (1966, 112-113) also calls for a mode of communication by
which both speakers are capable of reproducing the same "gesture" and
therefore the feeling of pleasure or displeasure implied. This happens when
both individuals belong to the same culture and they, in addition, share
one same "corporeity", in Merleau-Ponty's terms, which manages to reproduce
the other's gesture without the need of a mirror or the use of coordinates,
as a machine would have to do. The bodily reaction that is measured by the
machine does not acquire a sense of immediate form, nor is it associated to
a meaning within a linguistic game, it is a measure or an image that needs
to "reconstruct" a context that may give it sense. An EEG is not a human
"gesture", it does not describe the experience automatically, it does not
reproduce it internally, it does not make it explicit to another speaker,
and it does not evidence what is "felt" by the patient, it is only the
record of a physiological fact and nothing else.
Wittgenstein for his part considers that thought is limited by
boundaries imposed by language and our understanding of the images produced
by the machines will always be reduced to words and hence all the problems
discussed in the philosophy of language. On the other hand, by its being
involved with the language problem, bodily reaction cannot be understood
either without considering transit through the world, culture and others.
Then the problem at hand is to decode brain activity in terms of
thought and language, but to begin to do so, we need to establish that such
a task can be accomplished without ambiguity, that is, without the
temptation to reach results that can be interpreted in more than one way.

3) The Problem of "Ambiguity" in Neuroaesthetics:
To exclude the problem of ambiguity, neuroaesthetics should assure us
that there is a unique relationship between the image produced by the
machine and the bodily reaction. To ascertain whether this is possible we
would, first of all, have to ensure that there is no possibility of a
stimulus producing more than one bodily reaction or that two different
stimuli could produce the same bodily reaction, and hence the same image.
If we fail to establish the uniqueness in both cases, this would lead to
inconclusive results regarding the accurate approximation of the meaning we
are looking for.
Recent experiments (Ishizu, Zeki, 2011) show that romantic love and
the experience of beauty activate the same zone in the brain (caudate
nucleus). This means that two different stimuli can produce the same
response and thus there is not a one-to-one relationship between them and,
consequently, the image is not conclusive.
The only way for the relationship between words and meaning to be the
same for any individual is that it occur automatically, without the
mediation of any thought, i.e. depending on established social habits, or
as a natural mechanism that has been replaced by a word, as when something
hurts us, our reaction is not to scream but to use the word "pain", but
even so social practices are different among different cultural groups and
established habits may differ slightly.
The other possibility is the existence of a "correct" interpretation
that should lead us skillfully towards the exact content of our mind when
viewing the artwork; in this case we are faced with several hermeneutical
problems.

4) The "Hermeneutics" Problem in Neuroaesthetics
Neuroaesthetics presupposes that the machine can account for the
content of our mind, but as we discussed previously in the "Second
Problem", the machine does not have its own language with which to
communicate its content to us; it only produces an image that has no
meaning other than the physiological fact it records.
For the purposes of this paper we will reduce the hermeneutical
problems trying to overcome the opacity of language, that is, understanding
how words mediate between our experience and the other, how they describe a
shared reality with another, how we manipulate them to assemble a meaning
with which we are satisfied and are understood even though they can
articulate more than one meaning simultaneously. The problem then reduces
itself to how we communicate our inner experience to another, through words
and images in a "transparent" manner, that is, unequivocally.
To address the hermeneutical problem, we shall start setting aside for
a moment the issue of whether the patient "understands" the work of art, or
if the work of art has a sense inherent to itself and we shall concentrate
on the linguistic problem of translating feelings into words. Let us
consider only the problem of whether the patient can express "properly" the
"experience" that he has experienced seeing the work of art, and if the
words chosen to describe his aesthetic experience do really adapt to what
he has felt. Then let us consider whether the doctor is capable of
understanding the experience described by the patient or if the images
acquire the same meaning for anyone who reads them. We find here four
different hermeneutical problems. First, whether the patient fully
understands "his/her" experience, second, if s/he communicates it properly,
third, if the doctor understands the patient correctly and fourth, if the
images produced by the machine have the capability to correctly render the
aesthetic experience of the patient.
To ensure that the patient has chosen the "appropriate" words to
describe his/her experience, these words should reproduce in the doctor the
same aesthetic experience, be it because the words have the virtue of being
carriers of a single meaning, because patient and doctor belong to the same
linguistic community or because the beauty of the work is universal. Again,
neuroaesthetics is not able to prove by itself, which of the various
approaches is the true one.
We may ask, on the other hand, whether there is a beauty that affects
us regardless of "who we are", that is, a type of beauty that is not
affected by our personal tradition. In this case, the experience would
depend only on the aesthetic object, because the object evokes the same
experience in any observer. Then the experience talks to the qualities of
the object and not to the preparedness of the subject. Let us analyze then
the problem of whether the sense of the aesthetic object is strictly
inherent to it, that is, whether the object has a universal quality that
affects everyone in the same way.

5) The "Aesthetic" Problem in Neuroaesthetics:
Neuroaesthetics suggests the existence of a natural and automatic
mechanism that prescribes a tendency to always prefer the most beautiful.
This mechanism is defined by a bodily reaction, which recognizes the
quality of the work, the standards of beauty and the universal principles
of art or, as Ramachandran (1999) states, art can be reduced to 8 universal
principles. What neuroaesthetics seems to be suggesting here is that the
aesthetic experience should be equal to all persons, but it is worth asking
oneself whether said reaction is due to a property that depends exclusively
on the object, in this case we would be talking about the universal beauty
of a work of art.
To analyze this problem, let us remember for a moment the famous
anecdote of the customs agent in the United States (1928) who did not
recognize a work of Brancusi as a work of art, ordering a tax that did not
correspond to it. Obviously, the agent had no clues to suggest to him that
that metal piece wrapped in paper, inside a box, was a work of art. It was
not signed, it was not on a pedestal, nor was it placed in a museum hall
with a technical card next to it. In any case, one has to possess a well-
trained eye to "find an object" (objet trouvé) in the style of Duchamp.
But, if beauty is universal why did he not recognize the piece? Or, maybe,
was it due to the fact that he had had no aesthetic experience? First, what
this anecdote shows is that the aesthetic experience did not take place. To
begin, I can think of two reasons: either the art piece requires a context
to be understood or the customs agent requires previous experience to
understand the piece; in other words, the customs agent has not been
introduced to the tradition of appreciating works of art. The first part of
my argument leans more towards a physical or environmental context, such as
an appropriate place. The second leans more towards a context inherent to
the subject as a background of meaning or towards a context typical of the
culture in which the custom agent lives. In both cases, the reaction
(aesthetic experience) seems to depend on the concourse of contextual
factors more than on factors inherent to the art piece itself. In fact, it
was necessary that a US court intervene to make customs acknowledge the
piece as a work of art and such exempt from any customs tariff or tax.
This anecdote tells us that modern art increasingly requires a cultural
context to be understood, that is, before surrealism, no one would have
contemplated a urinal as a work of art, thanks to " The Fountain" of
Duchamp now we have doubts regarding which are the artifacts belonging to
the collection of the museum.
In this sense, we can affirm that the aesthetic experience, especially
the comprehension of the meaning of the art piece, depends on various
factors such as contextual factors, both external and internal to the
subject. Within factors external to the subject we can highlight the
physical environment or the aspects addressed by the discipline of
museography, as well as the cultural and social environment, even the
temporal environment since the way art is understood is specific to each
era. Within the factors internal to the subject we can highlight emotional
state, sensitivity, taste, academic preparation, age, exposure to art
pieces, which relates to a greater willingness to understand art or to a
systematically matured taste, etc.
As we have seen, there are contextual factors which affect
comprehension of the art piece, thus contradicting the possibility of a
universal beauty and therefore of a natural and automatic mechanism which
strictly relates to the aesthetic object. However, we still need to find
out how the influence of culture and of the subject invalidate the
presupposition of an "automatic" and "natural" aesthetic experience.
6) The Problem of "Cultural Influence" on the Aesthetic Experience
To explore the influence of culture on the aesthetic experience I will
limit myself to study the involvement of language in understanding a work
of art. As mentioned above, the aesthetic experience needs to be translated
into words that will allow to understand, communicate and remember it. The
aesthetic experience, which cannot be translated into words, remains in the
field of ineffable experiences that cannot be shared unless there is a
common subjectivity, an issue discussed in the next point.
Let us recall that neuroaesthetics assumes that we have a kind of
aesthetic instinct, an automatic and natural mechanism that makes us prone
to recognize beauty spontaneously, which implies that neuroaesthetics does
not consider the influence of culture in the grasping of the work.
But let us consider for a moment how language is able to "articulate"
the aesthetic experience in order to understand it and to remember it each
time we mention it. We have an aesthetic experience when we think "how
beautiful!". The experience is contained in the words that describe it, all
those interjections (beautiful, sublime, fantastic) which derive from the
use established by culture. So the socially acquired habit (language),
according to Wittgenstein, cannot be separated from the natural mechanism
that occurs in the aesthetic experience, i.e. the bodily reaction is part
of the capture of the work through language. Then, how can we exclude
culture from comprehension of the work of art if we cannot access the
experience through language? Also, how can we have an aesthetic experience
without taking into account contact with others and cultural institutions
like museums and literature? That is, even though there is an automatic and
natural reaction, the way we understand the work requires the "cultural"
and "personal" effort of articulating said understanding through language,
usually learned from others and which is used in a context that includes
them. Regarding this, we are not alone when we talk about art, or refer to
a timeless experience; we are embedded in a tradition that we share with
others and that reunites our natural and cultural mechanisms.
As we mentioned previously, the only way to know we are having an
aesthetic experience is through words, and the way in which we express
ourselves about the aesthetic object describes our culture. Following this
reasoning, what matters most are the situations in which the aesthetic
experience happens more than the separation into subject and aesthetic
object or the definition of a subject or will that determine the aesthetic
fact. In short, the bodily reaction is not separate from how we understand
the work, and we understand it through words we learn in a social context.
Let us now see in more detail if such bodily reaction depends exclusively
on a capacity (innate faculty) of the individual who experiences beauty.

7) The Problem of the "Subject" in Neuroaesthetics
Neuroaesthetics assumes that the aesthetic experience is a natural
mechanism, apparently distant from any deliberate imposition of a personal
subject. Rather, it would seem to be an inherent automatic reaction or a
capacity (innate faculty) of the individual who experiences beauty, as if
it were an instinct or a reflex action. This assumption excludes two
fundamental elements that determine human experience: free will and the
personal tradition of each individual, that is, this assumption implies
that the aesthetic experience occurs without the active participation of a
subject nor does it occur in a temporal horizon.
Both factors are relevant in understanding the experience that has
been affected by personal decisions like choices and beliefs, value
judgments, and hence by a sequence of attitudes that are the result of our
wandering around the world. The reaction of the subject to the work is
exempt from understanding it and thus is not an immediate and spontaneous
response, but rather the result of a process of maturation of taste, of a
personal journey through the world that manifests itself spontaneously.
Let us explore how some philosophers tackle this theme.
According to Merleau-Ponty ([1945]1994), the aesthetic experience is
carried out by a corporal subject that activates an anonymous and pre-
personal sensibility. Merleau-Ponty ([1964]1986) suggests that the painter
"lends" his body to the world thus promoting the passing of the aesthetic
experience. Briefly he proposes a pre-personal subject from whom things and
meanings emerge. This subject is characterized as an intermediary of the
world, that is, by having content (feelings) that gives meaning to things
by a kind of suspension of consciousness. Merleau-Ponty suggests an
intersubjective field defined by an anonymous sensitivity, by a flow of
sensations to which everyone has access, but the way we understand this
defines a personal access. We are pierced, invaded by a sensible tradition,
the vision is activated without the mediation of any thinking subject, but
the use of that color, that figure depends on the will of the painter who
uses it. Similarly, when we fall asleep, we do not decide at which time we
fall asleep, but rather our personal involvement is to adopt a comfortable
position conducive to its arrival.
According to Heidegger ([1927]1998) that subjectivity can be
understood as a personal "disposition" (Befindlichkeit) that opens to us a
way to orient ourselves affectively to the world. This "openness" uses the
body as an intermediate, which allows us to achieve what is available at
hand and in sight. And therefore, according to Heidegger, despite its being
an affective orientation, the individual is always responsible for his
actions.
Instead, Wittgenstein ([1958]1988) suggests that communication between
speakers is guaranteed when they both share the same language games. The
language games referred to are those socio-culturally established and
subject to certain rules that a linguistic community shares. Similarly, we
are not the authors of a language, but rather use the words we learned from
others, but finally it is us who will decide the final meaning of our
discourse. That is, we are not responsible for the social practices that
crowd the language but we can use them in our own way. In other words, the
above philosophers suggest that while we cannot change the intersubjective
field that is offered us, we can decide on its access. Even when the work
of art functions as a device capable of promoting the same body reaction in
different individuals, it is always their decision to surrender to the
aesthetic experience that the work demands.
In this sense, we can say that the bodily reaction is not a natural,
anonymous or indifferent response to cultural and personal influences, but
depends on whether a subject decides to be "open" and "permeable" to the
influences of an intersubjective field. In other words, having seen that
there are two subjects participating in the aesthetic experience, one may
wonder whether the machine is able to register both the pre-personal or
physical subject, as well as that other personal subject that we possess
individually, or whether one is contained in the expression of the other.
According to Wittgenstein both subjects act simultaneously, but he
establishes that one cannot be understood on the basis of the other. That
is, there is no corporal reaction without the acquisition of sense provided
by the work. The corporal reaction, as for example laughter, supposes
having gotten the joke, but the problem is that here it is intended to
understand the quality and content of the joke through only methodically
observing the smile. In other words, the corporal reaction manifests our
reaction to the work, but it does not tell us anything about the notion of
beauty that the individual possesses.
According to Wittgenstein, the aesthetic experience and the bodily
reaction are only two concurrent events. Trying to understand the aesthetic
experience as a mechanism is a transgression, as is trying to find its
cause in a physiological fact. The main problem that Wittgenstein attacks
is to assume that the aesthetic experience is an "effect" of the work of
art and therefore can be reproduced regardless of the presence of the work,
it can as well be replaced by a pill or an electric shock in a laboratory.
That is, that even if there is a bodily reaction, it cannot be understood
separately from the aesthetic object that produces it. The "meaning" is not
something that "accompanies" the work, it is the work. In other words,
while we can replicate the same reaction in a laboratory, it will not have
the same meaning, the isolated electrical impulse is no longer an aesthetic
experience, it does not mean anything because its meaning depends on the
work.
But even more important, understanding the aesthetic experience as
an automatic and natural bodily reaction leaves aside the temporal
background in which the experience develops. According to this, the
aesthetic experience must be studied within a temporal horizon. This means
on one hand, understanding painting tradition, how works influence one
another, how Velasquez was reinterpreted by Picasso and Millet by Van Gogh,
how their sense of composition was understood and improved. This translates
into comprehension of a visual grammar, a grammar of colors and lines that
acquires meaning for those who have seen one and the other, for those who
inhabit that culture. On one hand, the piece requires a context, which
even though it can be perceived in an instant (Augenblick), it requires
sensitive maturation and therefore extension in time. Art pieces are rooted
to their history; however, the beauty that now characterizes them seems to
have always been a step ahead of the sensitivity of the public in whom they
emerged. Critic Louis Voixcelles called beasts (fauves) painters who like
Matisse, exhibited his work in the Autumn Salon (Paris, 1911), Duchamp;s
fountain was censored by the organizing members of the Society of
Independent Artists in 1917. Picasso hid Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in his
workshop for ten years. All these examples show that comprehension of the
work of art requires a process of sensitization, more than the automatic
activation of an instinct or a reflex action. Needless to say,
Ramachandran's eight universal principles do not lend themselves to works
belonging to the Dada, Arte Brut or conceptual art movements
We can add that art appreciation is as automatic as the acquisition of
a language; that is, even though we have a natural inclination to learn it
and after a certain age we use language automatically, this does not
contradict the idea that we need a learning process which in the end is no
more than a socially acquired habit. In other words, language may be rooted
in natural actions such as screaming, but it is also true that language is
the result of a cultural process.

8) The "Mind / Body" Problem in Neuroaesthetics:
Neuroaesthetics assumes that the aesthetic experience is subject to
the activation of a brain area, as if the brain were the organ responsible
for artistic sensitivity, as if it could act alone and as if the blood flow
were not more than the evidence of its unique participation in the
aesthetic fact.
Rephrasing this, neuroaesthetics assumes that the aesthetic experience has
an organic seat that precedes and determines it. This seems to suggest that
the rootedness of the ideas to the body is obvious, and that there is a
preeminence of the body over the mind. In other words, that every mental
process is preceded by a corporal process. This involves several problems,
namely problems of continuity. The first is as an external reality we could
call "object" which affects us in a way to produce an inner reality, or
call it bodily reaction (continuity of the experience). The second is, how
the bodily reaction becomes a mental content, or how this starts to be an
aesthetic experience. In other words, how the body understands art, or art
affects our body; how one derives from the other (mind/body continuum), and
the third, how the body precedes and determines this experience, or
"preeminence of the body over the mind". Up to now, neuroaesthetics has not
fully explained any of the three problems posed.
The first problem, continuity (inside/outside) of the experience, will
be treated as the "Solipsism" problem later on. For the second problem, the
transition between mind and body, neuroaesthetics does not follow the
internal mechanisms that mediate between sensations and ideas, it rather
awards the faculties of the individual to an organ of his body. This is
referred to as the Homunculus fallacy by Kenny (1984) [4]. The fallacy
resides in stating that the activation of a specific part of the brain
automatically triggers the aesthetic experience. Were this true, it would
be sufficient to trigger the same point in different individuals to produce
the same experience regardless of the work of art, the subject or his
circumstances. For philosophers like Wittgenstein, this is unacceptable
because it implies separating the art work from the experience we have of
it.
The second problem, or the problem of the mind/body continuity goes
back to classical philosophy. For Plato, for example, the body was no more
than an empty shell inhabited by the soul. Likewise, for Descartes, the
transition between one and the other was inadmissible. However,
philosophers like M. Heidegger or M. Merleau-Ponty have found elements to
believe that said transition is not only possible, but real.
For his part, Heidegger ([1927]1998) thinks that there is a basic
comprehension of things expressed in the way we manipulate them. There is
another comprehension that emerges when things are no longer available to
be used, then, we start to "see" them deliberately and it is then when
their physical attributes appear. The hammer we used automatically becomes
heavy and awkward to operate. That is, when the underlying familiarity is
broken, we can refer to the object as such and even more importantly, think
about it. Here we have, in few words, the mind/body continuity.
To Merleau-Ponty ([1964]1986), for his part, sensible ideas are not
intellectual ideas or pure ideality, but those ideas that cannot be
separated from their sensitive appearances, that is, ideas that are
displayed through colors and sounds and which require the experience in
order to be accessed. Such ideas appear as a logical frame that is shared
by the parts of the body and the world. Merleau-Ponty claims that these
ideas have the possibility of being reversible, that is, of having a
simultaneous existence in and out of our body. This makes us feel and
apprehend what is felt as an experience that is both internal and external
simultaneously. Merleau-Ponty defines the flesh as that limit which joins
and separates.
For Merleau-Ponty there is also an innate spatiality that allows us to
orient ourselves without the need for numeric measurements, numbers emerge
later as the representation of said space. This is another explanation of
the already mentioned continuity.
For both philosophers, there is a transition from a practical
comprehension mode to a theoretical comprehension mode, from an innate
spatiality of the body to a theoretical spatiality based on coordinates and
numbers. From an object rooted to the body, as extension of the hand, to an
independent object which we can see intentionally. In other words, from a
corporal subject to a thinking subject. To both philosophers, the corporal
subject precedes the thinking subject, but does not determine it, and, in
no way do these philosophers claim that the simple activation of a body
organ may be responsible for thinking.
As for the third problem, how the body precedes and determines the
aesthetic experience, recent studies rather show the opposite, that
experience modifies deep structures in the brain. According to Jeffrey
Swartz (1997) patients suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder could
change their brain chemistry after ten weeks of behavioral treatment.
The high plasticity of the brain and high connectivity of its parts
suggests that the brain is able to repair any damaged connections given the
opportunity of the experience, i.e., it is the mind that creates new
connections and not the other way around.
Then, even though the mind/body problem has been extensively analyzed
in philosophy, neuroscience does not evidence any signs of continuity
between bodily reaction and thought.

9) The Problem of Solipsism in Neuroaesthetics:
The problem of solipsism arises, philosophically speaking, when we
doubt that there is a direct relationship between our inner experience and
the outer world. That is, while there is an external object, we have no
assurance that our idea of the object is more than a mental representation
of it.
This idea seems to be supported by some studies. The first study we
will mention is that of Laureys and Adrian Owen (2006), which compares the
MRI of a 23-year-old woman in vegetative state, who thinks she walks, with
those of another patient who actually walks. In both cases, activation of
the brain area was identical, that is, the brain reacts in the same way
whether it makes the movement or whether it imagines it. The second study
was done by Aideen Flinkler (2010). The author measured the reactions of
patients who were requested to repeat some phonemes. The Flinker hypothesis
is that the auditory cortex would be active during the listening portion
but suppressed during the speaking portion of the test, to the author's
surprise, the auditory cortex was active while they spoke and while they
listened. Flinker realized that this notion was incorrect and that while
some areas of the auditory cortex were maintained suppressed while talking,
others showed high levels of activity. He thinks that our brain cannot
differentiate between internal and external voices, between us and others.
These experiments indicate that the machine does not discriminate between
the experience of listening and speaking, in both cases brain activation is
indifferent to whether the stimulus comes from an internal or external
reality
It has also been proven that the recording of the brain activity of those
observing an activity is similar to that of those who perform it. In
another study, Calvo Merino (2005) is able to identify that there is
greater activation between dancers and spectators who share the same
culture, i.e., the brain reacts not only to what is perceived but also
identifies the culture to which it belongs. Such is the study by Calvo-
Merino (2005), in this case, areas of the brain associated with planning
and making movements were observed and the same image was obtained in the
dancers even though they did not move their feet, i.e. their brain could
not differentiate if the movement was taking place or not.
In addition, a third study realized by Professor B. Pasley and R.
Knight (2014) shows that both perception and imagination activate similar
brain areas. As Anne Pinckard (2012) says: "imagining a sentence will
trigger neurons similar to those that fire when we listen to the words or
try to understand them"(12).
From here we can deduce that the machine cannot differentiate between
bodily reactions produced by a real object and those produced by an
imaginary object, which casts a doubt upon whether brain activation
corresponds to an external stimulus, i.e. there is no way of determining
whether the aesthetic experience recorded by the machine is the product of
something seen or imagined by the individual. With this, neuroaesthetics
shares the same problem raised by Kant and many other philosophers on the
existence of a reality beyond the subject, or put another way, about a real
connection with the outside world and other minds.


10) The Problem of the Incommensurability of Beauty:
The problem of the incommensurability of beauty leads us to the
following question: Can beauty be measured? Can it be compared with the
bodily reaction it produces? These questions would not be necessary if
there were a measure common to beauty and brain activation but what we are
dealing with here is trying to find a common measure between two
incompatible areas.
On the one hand, we face the problem of how to evaluate an aesthetic
judgment and secondly, how to compare two areas that do not have a common
measure. The first problem involves ascribing a numerical measure to a
value judgment, giving a number to our satisfaction or measuring our smile.
To compare the aesthetic experience to a corporal reaction is to reduce the
aesthetic experience to a physiological mechanism that explains it.
Wittgenstein would say that both are incompatible language games because
what happens in the aesthetic experience is the achievement of a degree of
satisfaction that is expressed through language and what happens in the
bodily reaction is the activation of neural connections, which require
another explanation and are due to other "reasons". According to this, one
cannot compare beauty with the bodily reaction it produces.
On the other hand, according to Heidegger, the work of art is truly
beautiful when its sensitive traits become irrelevant, that is, when its
beauty goes beyond the amount of red or the number of strokes. That is,
despite the fact that the machine produces an image or a number, this
record contains all the opacity of the subject involved because said record
is no more direct or authentic than our own word. The record of the
machine, it we interpret it correctly, has all the shortages and all the
failures of our comprehension and of what we feel when we try to express
our experience.
Apparently, this is not a problem for neuroaesthetics since it assumes
that man is a machine whose inner workings can be traced to its most human
condition, the perception of beauty. However, to numerically evaluate the
aesthetic judgment is to assume that we know the "mechanism" by which we
tend to give meaning to the aesthetic object, whereas what we are really
doing is comparing the electrical impulses that occur during the
experience. Again, neuroaesthetics errs when it assumes that the body is
the "cause" of the experience and the record produced by the machine is
"evidence" of that fact.
The problem of how to measure beauty seems to be part of an even
larger problem that consists in how to measure the human mind, put another
way, how can the human mind be studied scientifically. Thus, to carry out a
scientific study of the human mind entails understanding it before-hand as
delimited, predetermined, and lacking free will and creativity.


From this, it follows that the scientific method sets limits that
distort a proper study of the mind, especially of the aesthetic experience.
Let us see what these limits are and how they distort the aesthetic
experience. According to the scientific method, you can only study
scientifically what might be:
1) observed, recorded
2) expressed in words
3) expressed in numbers and thus, may be measured, calculated,
4) anticipated in the form of hypothesis to be later confirmed or
rejected
5) studied as a cause-effect relationship, e.g. between the artwork and
the viewer


This implies that if we scientifically study the aesthetic experience
it is because we consider that:
1) It can be observed, this means that a subjective and inner experience
like aesthetics has an obvious external manifestation; up to here we
might agree but what a scientist considers is that the image produced
by the machine is a faithful representation of that experience. For
this to be true a scientist would need to show first that there is a
mind / body continuity.
2) It can be explained to somebody else in a clear and evident form. If
this were true, a whole branch of philosophy (aesthetics) intended to
discuss the aesthetic experience would be useless.
3) It is equivalent to the image produced by the machine, and can be
reduced to a number. This is equivalent to saying that the aesthetic
experience can be reduced to the physiological reaction that the
machine records. Again, we run into the fact that the mind / body
continuity has not been scientifically proven.
4) It can be anticipated and prefigured, which means it lacks surprise
and novelty, and therefore lacks creativity.
5) It can be reduced to the physiological aspects triggered by the
contemplation of the work, discarding the intellectual and emotional
aspects involved in such contemplation.


All these considerations are very difficult to salvage due to the
nature of the aesthetic experience and hence we can conclude that the
neuroaesthetics field will give us an outcome restricted to:
1) laboratory conditions
2) basic and universal principles
3) preset mechanisms (nervous tics, reflexes, instincts) of human
behavior

On the other hand, one cannot extrapolate the basic principles of
visual perception to the comprehension of a model of beauty, again
disregarding how the brain translates electrical impulses into thoughts.
That is to say that neuroaesthetics cannot prove anything beyond the fact
that we are endowed with a basic equipment that allows us to feel and
recognize elementary beauty patterns. This stems from the fact that the
machine can only record a typical sequence of images corresponding to
visual perception during the aesthetic experience without showing with
certainty whether this was produced by a notion of beauty or by a
particular aesthetic object. This rules-out any hypothesis postulating
that the brain can be used to "measure" the quality of a work of art in a
transparent manner.
In summary, we can say then that the field of neuroaesthetics is
limited to the study of bodily reactions that can be recorded and measured
during the aesthetic experience, which excludes more complicated abilities
such as rational thought or aesthetic appreciation, which does not mean
that man is unable to perform them.
Because of the problems outlined here, we conclude that the record of
brain activity during the aesthetic experience tells us nothing of its
contents, magnitude or significance; we can only assert that a record
occurs "during" the aesthetic experience.
We believe that the erroneous assumptions incurred in by
neuroaesthetics are caused by the distortions brought about by the
scientific method when applied to an area of knowledge, which is not
scientific such as Aesthetics. Part of the confusion shown from
neuroaesthetics results originates from what can really be proven
scientifically, that is, which are the "causes" that provoke a noticeable
"effect" on a "known" object under "controlled" circumstances. However, the
aesthetic experience, as we have seen, cannot be subjected to the
scientific method without falling into the error of understanding it only
from its physiological dimension.
We also intend to extrapolate the basic principles of visual
perception to the understanding of a model of beauty, again disregarding
the fact of how the brain translates electrical impulses into thought. That
is, neuroaesthetics cannot prove anything beyond the fact that we are
provided with a basic equipment that enables us to feel and recognize basic
standards of beauty. This originates from the fact that the machine can
record a characteristic sequence of images corresponding to a visual
perception during the aesthetic experience without actually having a well-
founded relation that this is produced by a notion of beauty or by a
particular aesthetic object, thus ruling out any hypothesis alleging that
the brain is an instrument capable of measuring the quality of a work of
art in a transparent manner.
In order to conclude we can say that neuroaesthetics is not able to
meet all the issues raised in its own field, that is, it cannot omit
philosophy if it tries to understand how the body's reaction depends on the
notion of beauty of the individual and cannot do without Art if it pretends
to understand the nuances of meaning that make human expression a work of
art.
So, let us set limits on what can be said through science and let art and
philosophy speak themselves their own truth.

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[1] This notion of neuroaesthetics was proposed in the year 2002 and is
endorsed by doctors and by Semir Zeki Vilayanur S. Ramachandran.
[2] It is understood that I do not consider the aesthetic appreciation to
be the recognition of a pattern of beauty but the acquisition of a way of
seeing.
[3] Since this is an interdisciplinary text, I will not use technical terms
that might hinder reading to non-specialists in some of the areas treated,
for example, I shall call "machine" any medical device with which brain
images are obtained. In the case of "mental content" I will just mention
ideas or artistic ideas so as not to delve into issues of aesthetic
appreciation.
[4] Neuroaesthetics falls in Homunculus fallacy, pointed out by Kenny
(1984), which consists in thinking that the brain is a small person that
receives and processes the image, adjudicating thus human faculties to an
organ of the body. Stating that the brain understands is admitting that
inside a person there is another person that translates the electrical
impulses into behavior, but the truth is that scientists fail to explain
mind-body continuity.