Idiomatic expressions indicate that we find time to be an unarousing concept, in need of association with exciting things to make it more amusing. — “What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack and minutes capons and clocks the tongues of bawds and dials the signs of leaping-houses and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason…

Concepts related to form are mixed in aesthetic expressions with those related to excitement, indicating that form belongs to a mental category of less exciting things. — “From bodies various form’d, mutative shapes.” — Ovid, Metamorphoses Contents ∘ Concepts of Form ∘ Combinations of Less Excitement ∘ Why This is Interesting ∘ Heat (11) ∘ Fluidity (22) ∘ Dynamism and Speed (32) ∘ Disorder (22) ∘ Brightness (8) ∘ Upwardness (37) ∘ Outwardness (39) ∘ Loudness and High-Pitch…

The hue-heat effect, interpreted as a universal preference for darker colors in hotter environments and brighter colors in colder environments, is the simplest explanation for the ecogeographical effect known as Gloger’s rule. — “Consequently, the closer the skin is to the Equator, the darker and more melanized it is. The closer the skin is to the pole, the lighter and less melanized it is” (Cibangu 2015).

Rapid, random eye movements during sleep are probably related to increased temperature in eye-connected parts of the brain, or the speed and randomness of the molecules making it up. — “While for over 50 years, it was thought that only mammals and birds have these distinct neurological sleep stages, exciting new research has shown that reptiles, fish, drosophila, octopus, and other invertebrates also display sleep states with analogous features.”

Humans are strangely obsessed with the perceptual and conceptual disruption of round things, especially eyes. Evidence for this is available in art, idiomatic language, fictional literature, the poetry of Medium and elsewhere. Other animals feel the same way. — Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance…

Thousands of popular, idiomatic expressions have been selected for aesthetically in languages due to the amusing, contradictory way in which they reference psychologically opposite (more and less arousing) perceptual phenomena. — Contents ∘ Aesthetic Dualities ∘ Deriving Aesthetic Structures ∘ Mixture Lists ∘ Heat ∘ Fluidity ∘ Dynamism ∘ Disorder ∘ Brightness ∘ Upwardness ∘ Outwardness ∘ Multiplicity (Many and Few) in Language ∘ Roundness, Length and Spikiness in Language ∘ Longer Aesthetic Sequences and Degrees of Excitement ∘ Works Cited

Consciousness is probably related to the liquid crystalline physical state of animal brains. — “In this scheme of things consciousness is an emergent property of the liquid crystal, which need be no more mysterious than the ‘wateryness’ of water or the ‘colour’ associated with a wavelength.” — R. K. Mishra, “The ‘Mind’ — Brain Relation: A Physical Analogy” (1965) Contents ∘ States of Matter ∘…

Animals probably like the texture of soft things such as breasts and tongues because we have similarly soft brains. — “I scarcely closed my eyes all night long. Goodness knows what was in my bed. I lay upon something hard, so that I am black and blue all over. It is quite dreadful!” — H.C. Anderson, The Princess and the Pea (Scudder 1909) There’s nothing soft, or very little softness…

The proximity disruption effect is defined as the increased use of references to relatively exciting perceptual qualities between individuals as we approach each other more closely. “By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Open, locks, Whoever knocks!” — Shakespeare, Macbeth (Open Source Shakespeare 2021) Contents ∘ Inwardness…