musing about expectations and Poetics
Aristotle points out that as humans we really like to build models of things and we derive pleasure when these models match up with the real world in as much as we can perceive the real world. In *Poetics* he points out that we like to do this and its the reason we like plays, literature, art, etc. I don't know if he actually touches on Why we like it. Just that we do.
Is this the action of establishing certain expectations -- building the models -- in a way we are having those expectations met when we witness the fulfillment of a prediction made using the model. That seems plausible, anyway.
We have a range of negative emotions when the predictions begin to fail or when the expectations are not being met anymore.
I need to make notes on Poetics. I had picked it up a few years back as a result of repeatedly reading about Aristotle's in Heinrich's Thank you for arguing. Actually, I think I have some notes on dead trees, I need to go get those and put them in here. I'm gong to have to resort to re-reading the source material to find the thread I was thinking about.
Tags: journal
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