What can synergetics contribute to embodied aesthetics?

Abstract

I deal with perception and action (e.g., movements) using results from synergetics, a comprehensive mathematical theory of the self-organized formation (emergence) of spatial, temporal, or functional structures in complex systems. I illustrate basic concepts such as order parameters (OPs), enslavement, complexity reduction, circular causality first by examples of well-known collective, spontaneous modes of human behavior such as rhythmic clapping of hands, and so forth, and then by face recognition. The role played by OPs depends on context. In the case of face (or pattern) recognition an OP represents the concept of an individual face (action of mind) and it enslaves the action (firing rates) of neurons (body). This insight allows me to interpret syndromes as order parameters playing their mind/body double role. I present criteria for the identification of OPs and discuss their general properties including error correction and remedy of deficiencies. Contact is made with a recent paper by Sabine Koch on embodied aesthetics. My approach includes the saturation of attention at various time scales (ambiguous figures/fashion). Adopting a psychological perspective, I discuss some ingredients of beauty such as proportionality and symmetry, but also the importance of irregularities.