Week 2 blog on videos

1)  From the Aesthetics video I learned that the idea of aesthetics has developed over time and has had contradicting information from different philosophers.  Aesthetics is also an internal idea that varies from person to person on how intense they feel it.  One of the concepts that I feel that I learned from Changeux is that as we as a human raced developed so did our art in correlation.  From Ramachandran I learned that works of art can have huge reactions on human brains and emotions that one develops from them.

 2)  I feel that Francis Hutchinson’s theory, in the 18^th century, on aesthetics is the most important theory that was created.  This is because this is the first time that a person has been able to describe how art is taken in visually and gives a person a sense of happiness internally.  This explains how beauty and harmony can be felt by every person and that it occurs spontaneously as needed by everyone.  This is done by not relying on higher powers such as god as previous theorists such as Anthony Cooper had done.

3)  In the Changeux and Ramachandran video they both present very important speeches.  The most interesting point that I feel Changeux brings up is that where in our brain we visual see things is also where we store emotions so it appears that visual things can easily affect our emotions.  In Ramachandran’s lecture one of the facts I found interesting is that he feels art is created not so much for a direct copy of life but created to please a person’s brain.  Both speakers present very strong points in their speeches.

4)  The videos relate to the class because they discuss the topics in the beginning chapters.  These videos talk about what art is, how it is appreciated, and different kinds of art to name a few things.  All of these subjects are talked about in our book in depth. 

5)  By adding these videos into our lecture we receive multiple points of view on the topics that both our books and the videos cover.  It is beneficial to receive different points of view on topics because if you only rely on one person’s ideas, such as just our text book, then you may be obtaining one persons biased opinions.  Also it helps if to have both the text and the videos because it elaborates on the same topics so if you are having a tough time grasping them then you have a better chance by receiving more education on the topic.  I feel that the videos were well put together and are very beneficial in this topic.