Apes, Art, and Pulling Levers

In The Origin of Stories, Brian Boyd cites studies conducted on primates, noting that "an isolated monkey will repeatedly pull a lever with no other reward than to glimpse another."

Similarly, when engaging with art, we find ourselves in a comparable pursuit. We tap on our phones, drive to far away buildings, and pay for the privilege of looking through a frame crafted by someone else. It's not about a literal frame or seeing the mere surface of a person though, because these externalities lack obvious insight. People looked at the sun rise and fall for millennia before they realized the earth was rotating. Sensory information and knowledge are not the same thing, so what is all this lever pulling for?

At its pinnacle, art can afford individuals a profound trace into what reality is and can be. It draws ontological outlines that distinguish and conceptualize the world in ways that makes things graspable. It lets us shape and reshape how we connect to things and others. Through this process, we hope to walk away with insight into possibilities and affordances that are floating all around us in space. 

Not all art is visionary though, and much is rightfully forgettable, akin to the majority of proposed scientific ideas. Moreover, it's feasible that art, like bad philosophies, can cloud or destroy one's ability to derive positive meaning. When you're a hammer everything looks like a nail, so discernment about when to avoid morphing your mind into a hammer is pertinent if you're not dealing with any nails. Bad knowledge can be crippling and make us inept at figuring out how or when to use a different tool–or invent a new one altogether! But, there is no principle that dictates we have to stay stuck with outmoded or harmful ideas. Pulling levers to see what’s on the other side is part of how we do this.

Human creativity is boundless, ensuring a perpetual exploration of us and everything we touch. Art makes up part of the inexhaustible and infinite in a universe with people; so, the hope is that we never stop pulling levers in order to glimpse. The other critical half of this equation is that we create levers to be pulled as well. The more carefully constructed they are the better.