Beauty and the Brain: The Aesthetic Compass

By Robert W. Thatcher

Beauty and the Brain: The Aesthetic Compass; Where Consciousness and the Physics of the Universe Meet explores how we as a society perceive beauty.  This Fascinating text provides an explanation of how aesthetic appreciation occurs by a match of the structure of the brain and external forms, it als

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books to Life Marketing
• Release date: Jun 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798990576094

Robert W. Thatcher

Dr. Robert W. Thatcher earned a B.S. degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in Psychology with a major in Biopsychology. He is a world-renowned Neuroscientist and has published over 200 scientific papers and eight books. He is the recipient of numerous awards such as: The Hans Berger Award of Merit, Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, Neurofeedback Division; Lifetime Achievement Award in EEG and Quantitative EEG, International Society for Neurofeedback and Research, and the 2021 Pioneer in Medicine in Medicine Award, Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics. He is currently the founder and CEO of Applied Neuroscience, Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida.

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Endorsements

The Beauty and the Brain is a masterpiece. From the top neuroscience genius of our time, Dr. Thatcher combines philosophy, mathematics, and neuroscience in a fascinating new approach that reveals the secrets of genius and creativity. This book has forever changed the way I view the brain and gave me unique insight into human behavior.

—Richard D. Abbey, Ph.D., BCN, QEEGD

In this book, you find many mesmerizing patterns and universal laws shared by brains and nature in common. You will understand why mathematics is the language of the brain and on your discovery from Fibonacci numbers to the Golden Ratio and Friston’s principle of minimal entropy, you will acquire a deep understanding of how the brain really works. If you want to invite your Brain to a unique and divine banquet then you are served it in Dr. Robert Thatcher’s book The Aesthetic Compass.

—Georges.Otte, M.D.

Dr. Thatcher has once again enriched all of us who strive to live at the intersection of modern (i.e. computational) neuroscience and the Arts with this exciting and deeply thoughtful new book. To understand how physics, mathematics, biology, and the evolution of the nervous system are inextricably linked requires a depth of understanding few scientists or creatives have achieved. The reader will not be disappointed by this wonderful and illuminating new volume.

—William A. Lambos, Ph.D. Licensed Neuropsychologist, BCN Computational Neuroscientist

Beauty and the Brain: The aesthetic compass is another fascinating book released by Dr. Robert Thatcher- brilliant neuroscientist and futuristic mind. You will find this book being both enjoyable and insightful. Must read book for sure.

—J. Lucas Koberda, M.D, Ph.D., Neurologist 

It is an honor that I offer a few words about the upcoming release of Dr Thatcher’s new and paradigm-expanding book, Beauty and the Brain: The Aesthetic Compass." It does so much, not only to deepen our experiential relationship with this bottom-up/top-down dynamic of our drives and emotions, but it reveals the beauty evident before us in all spheres of life, further guiding us discovering the joys and wonder of the limitless treasures in the Golden Proportion and Variational Principle. For those of us in careers involving the study and healing of the brain, these words from a master educator, rich with years of experience in models of aesthetics, mathematics, philosophy, and neuroscience, you are in for a delightful journey further opening your eyes, psyche, and spirit to beauty and the brain."

—Robert P Turner, MD, MSCR, QEEGD, BCN

NeuroAesthetics and the Golden Proportion

Copyright © 2024 Robert W. Thatcher, Ph.D.

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The Aesthetic Compass

What Galaxies, Tornadoes and Snail Shells have in Common

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How do we perceive beauty?

Robert W. Thatcher, Ph.D.

NeuroAesthetics: Where Consciousness and the Physics of the Universe Meet

Contents

Acknowlegements

Chapter 1    The Story of Aesthetic Feeling

Chapter 2    NeuroAesthetics

Chapter 3    The Aesthetic Compass

Chapter 4    Models of Aesthetics

References

Index

Acknowlegements

Special thanks to Eric Schwartz for his penetrating insights into sensory to cortical mappings and the Golden proportion. Also special thanks to E. Roy John who supported Eric Schwartz and my abstract explorations of the brain while we were faculty members in the Department of Psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine where many of the ideas expressed in this book germinated. Last but not least, I want to thank all the members of the Neuroguide EEG internet forum for their feedback to improve the science and clinical applications. I want to express a special thank s to Dr. Alexei Berd for his access to an abundance of scientific knowledge from which we all benefit. I wish to thank Dr. Donald Pettit, Alfredo Toro, and George Chaiken for their inspirational contributions and germinal ideas supplied during our many conversations. Lastly, I especially acknowledge the editorial assistance of Dr. Rebecca McAlaster.

Chapter 1

The Story of Aesthetic Feeling

In every man’s heart there is a secret nerve answers to the vibrations of beauty.

—Christopher Morley

The human feeling of beauty transcends words because its origin is subconscious. The conscious aesthetic moment begins as both an awareness and a feeling of beauty. Among the many questions are: Why is a sunset or a child’s smile universally beautiful? Why are aesthetic feelings a driving force in the world economy? Why are cost/benefit choices often based on simplicity? Why does beauty to the mind’s eye help us decide on lifestyle issues? Why is aesthetic feeling a driving force behind human creativity of architecture, engineering, mathematics, athletics and art?

In this book, the argument is made that the answers lie in the unconscious matching of the anatomical structure of the human brain to Ideal mathematical forms in the Universe itself, similar to Plato’s philosophy of a separate mathematical ideal Universe that humans can only approximate. Plato’s ancient hypothesis has recently been tested and confirmed when it comes to the human brain. For example, modern Neuroscience discovered that the mapping of the retina (a disk) to the visual cortex (a rectangle) is a logarithmic spiral, the same as a snail shell, a galaxy or a tornado (Schwartz, 1977a; 1977b; 1980).

The human cochlea is another example of this spiral form which maps sound to the cortex and sensory mapping of the skin via a spiral mapping to a straight line in the cortex. Why is there a common logarithmic spiral mapping of our senses? What evolutionary advantage is there to a logarithmic spiral sensory-cortical map and aesthetics?

Also, why is the mathematical logarithmic spiral form of a snail shell, a spiral galaxy, and a hurricane, the same logarithmic spiral mapping of the retina to the cortex, the skin and the human cochlea? There must be a deeper meaning. One goal of this book is to explore the deeper meaning of the Platonic ideal mathematical Universe, and the human brain’s approximation to this ideal, with simplicity and minimal energy forms guided by the aesthetic feeling arising from brain networks. A search of the deeper meaning of the match between brain anatomical mappings and the spiral mappings of the Universe is where this book begins.

First, let us begin with the hypothesis that modern neuroscience measurement of the aesthetic moment begins with sensory input (visual, touch, sound) and an approximate 200 msec–500 msec delay before the sensory cortex measures the aesthetic impact. This is an approximate match to a universal Golden Proportion spiral form of brain anatomy (like a snail shell) followed by human frontal-limbic loops which give rise to the feeling of aesthetic appreciation and iterations of thoughts and memories. Next, let us test this hypothesis, based on published science, showing a universally beautiful spiral mapping of the retina, cochlea, and skin to the human cortex, which is fundamentally involved in high level processing at each moment of time just by virtue of the spatial mappings themselves.

In short, this book is about a subconscious phylogenetic force which begins as an immediate aesthetic activation produced by log spiral sensory maps in about 100 ms to 200 milliseconds. This is followed (200 msec to 1 sec) later by cortical-limbic iterations for the deeper emotion of the aesthetic context of our perceptions. This all happens in a continuous sequence of brief frames of time that constitute the spacious present (Thatcher and John, 1977; Thatcher, 1977; 2016). The proposition is that human consciousness is a phylogenetic force giving rise to an immediate aesthetic feeling, using cortical loops and iterations for the deeper emotion of the aesthetic context of our perceptions.

To experience the shared ground truth of beauty, pause and close your eyes and take a deep breath and imagine a Beautiful Sunset or a Beautiful Flower. If you were successful and sustained the image of a sunset or flower, then you shared an aesthetic moment of the feeling