A desire for parsimony

Abstract

An understanding of wildness is being developed as a quality of interactive processing that increases survival opportunities in nature. A link is made between the need to improve interactive quality for wildness, and cognitive desires and interests in art, music, religion and philosophy as these can also be seen as attempts to improve interactive quality internally and externally. Interactive quality can be improved through gains in parsimony, that is, simplifications in the organisation of skills. The importance of parsimony in evolution is discussed, along with indicators of an internal parsimony desire that experiences joy if achieved through processes such as insight and understanding. A mechanism for the production and measurement of the parsimony desire is proposed, based on the number of subcortical pleasure hotspots that can be stimulated at once within the 'archipelago' available in the limbic system.