Theorycraft: Architecture and Superstimuli
Earlier today I watched a TED talk by philosopher and cognitive scientist Dan Dennett. He was lecturing on the evolution of cute, sexy, sweet, and funny. Watch here. The basic premise is that these qualities are not inherent in the object that is cute, say for example a baby, but that we have evolved to believe babies are cute because it is evolutionarily advantageous for our species to find babies cute. The value is assigned by us onto the object. This is why babies are cut