Neurofilosofía y Pensamiento Actual Neurophilosophy and Contemporary Thought

miércoles, 3 de junio de 2026

El arte como espejo de los qualia: David Chalmers y el origen de la expresión humana

Bernabé Mallo

Doctor en Filosofía por la Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU)
Investigador en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte. / PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
Researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origins of art.

Una reseña sobre "Facing up to the problem of consciousness" (1995) y sus implicaciones para comprender el arte como expresión de la experiencia subjetiva

Introducción: ¿Qué siente un bisonte?

Imaginemos por un momento al artista paleolítico que, hace más de treinta mil años, pintó un bisonte en las paredes de la cueva de Altamira. No estaba fotografiando un animal. No estaba documentando científicamente su anatomía. Estaba haciendo algo mucho más extraño y, quizás, más humano: estaba intentando comunicar qué se siente al ver un bisonte.

Esta distinción —entre registrar un hecho y expresar una experiencia— es el núcleo de una de las cuestiones filosóficas más fascinantes de nuestro tiempo. El filósofo australiano David Chalmers la formuló en 1995 con una claridad que ha marcado la filosofía de la mente durante tres décadas: existe una diferencia radical entre los problemas "fáciles" de la conciencia (cómo el cerebro procesa información, discrimina estímulos, integra datos) y el "Problema Duro" (por qué y cómo ese procesamiento físico va acompañado de una experiencia subjetiva, de algo que se siente desde dentro).

A esas experiencias subjetivas e intransferibles se les llama qualia (en singular, quale): el "rojo" que vemos, el "dolor" que sentimos, la "melancolía" que nos embarga al escuchar una canción. Una máquina puede detectar la longitud de onda de la luz roja (650 nanómetros), pero no experimenta la rojez. Un robot puede registrar un impacto, pero no siente dolor. Y un algoritmo puede analizar una pintura, pero no vive la emoción que el artista quiso plasmar.

La tesis que exploraremos aquí es la siguiente: el origen del arte está intrínsecamente ligado a la necesidad humana de expresar y compartir los qualia. El arte no nació como un lujo cultural, sino como la primera tecnología que inventamos para romper el aislamiento de nuestras mentes privadas.

¿Qué es el "Problema Duro" de la conciencia?

Chalmers, en su influyente artículo "Facing up to the problem of consciousness" (publicado inicialmente en 1995 y ampliamente difundido desde entonces), propone una división metodológica que ha transformado el estudio de la mente.

Los problemas "fáciles"

Existen múltiples cuestiones sobre la mente que son abordables por los métodos estándar de la ciencia cognitiva y la neurociencia: ¿cómo discrimina un sujeto estímulos sensoriales? ¿cómo integra el cerebro información de diferentes fuentes? ¿cómo se verbalizan los estados internos? Estos son problemas complejos, pero no hay una razón de principio para pensar que la ciencia no pueda resolverlos.

Chalmers los llama "fáciles" no porque sean triviales, sino porque se ajustan al paradigma explicativo estándar: relacionan funciones cognitivas con mecanismos físicos. Una teoría del procesamiento de la información visual, por ejemplo, nos dice cómo el cerebro transforma ondas de luz en patrones de activación neuronal.

El Problema Duro

El Problema Duro es de una naturaleza completamente distinta. No se refiere a lo que el cerebro hace, sino a cómo ese hacer viene acompañado de una experiencia subjetiva. ¿Por qué la activación de neuronas en la corteza visual no se limita a procesar información, sino que además se siente como algo ver el rojo? ¿Por qué no somos todos "zombis filosóficos" —seres que se comportan exactamente como humanos pero carecen de toda vida interior?

Chalmers argumenta que los métodos reductivos —aquellos que intentan explicar la conciencia en términos puramente físicos— están condenados al fracaso porque dejan intacta la cuestión central: por qué existe la experiencia subjetiva en absoluto. No se trata de negar la relevancia de la neurociencia, sino de reconocer que, por sí sola, no puede cerrar la "brecha explicativa" entre el cerebro y la vivencia.

¿Qué son los qualia y por qué importan para el arte?

Los qualia son los ladrillos de nuestra vida interior. Son las cualidades fenoménicas de la experiencia: el picor de la picazón, la calidez del sol en la piel, la tristeza de una melodía menor. Son, como señala la literatura especializada, "la característica subjetiva de las experiencias, a la que solo se puede acceder directamente desde el sujeto que tiene la experiencia".

La ciencia puede describir la física del color, la fisiología del dolor, la acústica del sonido. Pero hay algo en la experiencia del rojo que se escapa a toda descripción objetiva. Ese "algo" es el quale. Y es, sostendremos aquí, el verdadero objeto del arte.

El arte no comunica información objetiva sobre el mundo —eso ya lo hace la ciencia. El arte comunica cómo se siente estar en el mundo. Una pintura rupestre no es una fotografía: es una proyección de la experiencia subjetiva del cazador, de su asombro, su miedo, su admiración ante la bestia. Una sinfonía no es un tratado de acústica: es la transferencia de un estado de ánimo de la mente del compositor a la mente del oyente.

El arte como puente entre mentes aisladas

Uno de los problemas filosóficos más perturbadores es el problema de las otras mentes. Nunca podré saber con certeza si tú ves el azul como yo lo veo, o si tu dolor se siente como el mío. Estamos, como dijo el poeta, "atrapados en la prisión de nuestro propio cráneo".

El arte, desde esta perspectiva, es la tecnología primitiva que inventamos para escapar de esa prisión. Es el intento de transferir mis qualia directamente a tu cerebro, sin pasar por el lenguaje frío de la ciencia. Cuando el artista pinta un atardecer, no está diciendo "hay una fuente de luz de 3000 grados Kelvin que se está poniendo tras el horizonte". Está diciendo: "mira, así es como se siente para mí ver el atardecer". Y cuando tú contemplas esa pintura y sientes algo similar, se produce un milagro: dos mentes se han encontrado en un espacio común, han compartido algo que, en principio, es incompartible.

Chalmers ha explorado estas ideas también en el contexto de las realidades virtuales. En su obra Reality+ (2022), argumenta que los mundos virtuales pueden ser tan reales como el mundo físico, y que la inmersión en ellos puede generar experiencias genuinas. Podríamos añadir que el arte siempre ha sido una tecnología de realidad virtual: la cueva pintada fue el primer visor de inmersión, la novela el primer mundo simulado, la sinfonía el primer paisaje sonoro artificial. El arte no es un sustituto de la realidad: es una expansión de la realidad, un nuevo territorio para la experiencia subjetiva.

Conexión con la investigación sobre el origen del arte (S/Y/C)

Esta reflexión sobre los qualia y el arte resuena profundamente con la investigación que venimos desarrollando sobre el modelo S/Y/C del funcionamiento neuronal y la Ley de coherencia biológica.

La dimensión Y (Symbolon) de nuestro modelo encuentra aquí su fundamento más profundo. El symbolon —la capacidad de crear y compartir símbolos como acto de reconocimiento— no es una habilidad cognitiva abstracta. Es, ante todo, la respuesta a una necesidad existencial: compartir lo incompartible, comunicar el qualia, romper el aislamiento de la conciencia.

El arte es el symbolon por excelencia porque no se limita a representar objetos, sino que encarna experiencias. Cuando el artista pinta, no solo dibuja formas: proyecta su interioridad. Cuando el espectador contempla, no solo reconoce formas: recibe una experiencia. El arte es el puente que tiende el cerebro humano entre dos subjetividades, utilizando los símbolos como materia prima.

Las dimensiones S (Supervivencia) y C (Completitud) también están implicadas. El arte, al permitirnos compartir qualia, cumple una función homeostática crucial: regula nuestras emociones colectivas, nos ayuda a procesar el dolor y la alegría en comunidad, y fortalece los lazos sociales que son esenciales para la supervivencia del grupo. Al mismo tiempo, la experiencia estética nos ofrece una sensación de completitud —una totalidad lograda, un significado emergente— que satisface la pulsión más profunda de nuestro sistema nervioso hacia la coherencia y la integración.

Consideraciones finales: el arte como testimonio de lo vivo

La teoría de Chalmers nos recuerda que la conciencia —y con ella, los qualia— sigue siendo uno de los grandes misterios de la ciencia. Pero quizás ese misterio no es un problema que debamos resolver, sino una realidad que debemos aceptar y, en el caso del arte, celebrar.

El arte existe porque los seres humanos no se conforman con procesar información. Los seres humanos sienten. Y lo que sienten es tan real como lo que miden los instrumentos científicos, aunque no sea reducible a ecuaciones. La pintura rupestre, la sinfonía, la novela, el poema: todos ellos son testimonios de que la vida interior importa, de que los qualia son el centro de nuestra existencia, de que compartir lo que sentimos es tan importante como compartir lo que sabemos.

Y ese es, quizás, el verdadero origen del arte: no la necesidad de representar el mundo, sino la necesidad de expresar el alma.

Referencias bibliográficas

Chalmers, D. J. (1995). Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2(3), 200–219. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203826430-11

Chalmers, D. J. (2022). Reality+: Virtual worlds and the problems of philosophy. W. W. Norton & Company.

López Mallo, J. B. (2023). La construcción neuro-simbólica. Una aproximación al funcionamiento del cerebro desde una perspectiva multidisciplinar [Tesis doctoral, Universidad del País Vasco - Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea]. Repositorio ADDI. http://hdl.handle.net/10810/62701

https://catalogo.sanchoelsabio.eus

López Mallo, J. B. (2026a). De la filosofía quirúrgica a la ley de coherencia biológica S/Y/C: Hacia una investigación sobre el origen del arte en la especie Homo. Lopez Mallo, Javier Bernabé. https://isbn.bibna.gub.uy/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=57196

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYGTJD5C

López Mallo, J. B. (2026b). From surgical philosophy to the law of biological coherence S/Y/C: Toward a study of the origin of art in the Homo lineage. Lopez Mallo, Javier Bernabé. https://isbn.bibna.gub.uy/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=57197

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GY89SZS1

Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, 83(4), 435–450.

Autor / Author

Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.

Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.

Enlaces / Links

Página de autor Amazon / Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/bernabemallo
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9002-9728
Plataforma EHUenRed / Link EHUenRed: https://www.ehu.eus/es/web/masterrak-eta-graduondokoak/red-latinoamericana-de-posgrados
Canal YouTube / Channel YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@neuroideas815
Canal YouTube / Channel YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBsf6OZ482NjST6QA-hvYtQ
Publicaciones y proyectos en desarrollo / Publications and projects:
https://www.amazon.com/author/bernabemallo
https://ehuenred.theglocal.network/ideas/el-origen-del-arte-en-el-cerebro-de-makapansgat-al-moma-del-primate-al-sapiens

Art as the Mirror of Qualia: David Chalmers and the Origin of Human Expression

Bernabé Mallo

A review of "Facing up to the problem of consciousness" (1995) and its implications for understanding art as the expression of subjective experience

Introduction: What does a bison feel?

Let us imagine for a moment the Palaeolithic artist who, over thirty thousand years ago, painted a bison on the walls of the Altamira cave. They were not photographing an animal. They were not scientifically documenting its anatomy. They were doing something far stranger and, perhaps, far more human: they were trying to communicate what it feels like to see a bison.

This distinction —between registering a fact and expressing an experience— lies at the core of one of the most fascinating philosophical questions of our time. The Australian philosopher David Chalmers articulated it in 1995 with a clarity that has shaped the philosophy of mind for three decades: there is a radical difference between the "easy" problems of consciousness (how the brain processes information, discriminates stimuli, integrates data) and the "Hard Problem" (why and how this physical processing is accompanied by a subjective experience, by something that feels like something from the inside).

Those subjective, incommunicable experiences are called qualia (singular: quale): the "redness" we see, the "pain" we feel, the "melancholy" that washes over us when we hear a song . A machine can detect the wavelength of red light (650 nanometres), but it does not experience redness. A robot can register an impact, but it does not feel pain. And an algorithm can analyse a painting, but it does not live the emotion the artist sought to convey.

The thesis we will explore here is this: the origin of art is intrinsically linked to the human need to express and share qualia. Art was not born as a cultural luxury, but as the first technology we invented to break the isolation of our private minds.

What is the "Hard Problem" of consciousness?

In his influential paper "Facing up to the problem of consciousness" (originally published in 1995 and widely disseminated since then), Chalmers proposes a methodological division that has transformed the study of the mind.

The "easy" problems

There are multiple questions about the mind that can be addressed by the standard methods of cognitive science and neuroscience: how does a subject discriminate sensory stimuli? how does the brain integrate information from different sources? how are internal states verbalised? These are complex problems, but there is no reason in principle to think that science cannot solve them.

Chalmers calls them "easy" not because they are trivial, but because they fit the standard explanatory paradigm: they relate cognitive functions to physical mechanisms. A theory of visual information processing, for example, tells us how the brain transforms light waves into patterns of neural activation.

The Hard Problem

The Hard Problem is of a completely different nature. It does not refer to what the brain does, but to how that doing is accompanied by a subjective experience. Why does the activation of neurons in the visual cortex not only process information but also feel like something to see red? Why are we not all "philosophical zombies" —beings who behave exactly like humans but lack all inner life?

Chalmers argues that reductive methods —those that attempt to explain consciousness in purely physical terms— are doomed to failure because they leave intact the central question: why does subjective experience exist at all. This is not to deny the relevance of neuroscience, but to recognise that, by itself, it cannot close the "explanatory gap" between the brain and lived experience.

What are qualia and why do they matter for art?

Qualia are the building blocks of our inner life. They are the phenomenal qualities of experience: the itchiness of an itch, the warmth of the sun on the skin, the sadness of a minor melody. They are, as the literature notes, "the subjective characteristic of experiences, which are only directly accessible from the subject having the experience" .

Science can describe the physics of colour, the physiology of pain, the acoustics of sound. But there is something about the experience of red that escapes all objective description. That "something" is the quale. And it is, we will argue here, the true object of art.

Art does not communicate objective information about the world —science already does that. Art communicates how it feels to be in the world. A cave painting is not a photograph: it is a projection of the hunter's subjective experience, of their wonder, fear, and admiration before the beast. A symphony is not a treatise on acoustics: it is the transfer of a mood from the composer's mind to the listener's mind.

Art as a bridge between isolated minds

One of the most disturbing philosophical problems is the problem of other minds. I can never know for certain whether you see blue as I see it, or whether your pain feels like mine. We are, as the poet said, "trapped in the prison of our own skulls".

Art, from this perspective, is the primitive technology we invented to escape that prison. It is the attempt to transfer my qualia directly to your brain, bypassing the cold language of science. When an artist paints a sunset, they are not saying "there is a 3000-degree Kelvin light source setting behind the horizon". They are saying: "look, this is what it feels like to me to see the sunset". And when you contemplate that painting and feel something similar, a miracle occurs: two minds have met in a common space, have shared something that is, in principle, unsharable.

Chalmers has explored these ideas also in the context of virtual realities. In his work Reality+ (2022), he argues that virtual worlds can be as real as the physical world, and that immersion in them can generate genuine experiences . We might add that art has always been a virtual reality technology: the painted cave was the first immersive headset, the novel the first simulated world, the symphony the first artificial soundscape. Art is not a substitute for reality: it is an expansion of reality, a new territory for subjective experience.

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

This reflection on qualia and art resonates deeply with the research we have been developing on the S/Y/C model of neuronal functioning and the Law of Biological Coherence.

The Y (Symbolon) dimension of our model finds its deepest foundation here. Symbolon —the capacity to create and share symbols as an act of recognition— is not an abstract cognitive ability. It is, above all, the response to an existential need: sharing the unsharable, communicating qualia, breaking the isolation of consciousness.

Art is symbolon par excellence because it does not merely represent objects, but embodies experiences. When the artist paints, they do not just draw forms: they project their interiority. When the spectator contemplates, they do not just recognise forms: they receive an experience. Art is the bridge that the human brain builds between two subjectivities, using symbols as raw material.

The S (Survival) and C (Wholeness) dimensions are also involved. Art, by allowing us to share qualia, fulfils a crucial homeostatic function: it regulates our collective emotions, helps us process pain and joy in community, and strengthens the social bonds essential for group survival. At the same time, aesthetic experience offers us a sense of wholeness —an achieved totality, an emergent meaning— that satisfies the deepest drive of our nervous system toward coherence and integration.

Final considerations: art as testimony of the living

Chalmers's theory reminds us that consciousness —and with it, qualia— remains one of the great mysteries of science. But perhaps that mystery is not a problem we need to solve, but a reality we must accept and, in the case of art, celebrate.

Art exists because human beings are not content to process information. Human beings feel. And what they feel is as real as what scientific instruments measure, even if it cannot be reduced to equations. The cave painting, the symphony, the novel, the poem: all of them are testimonies that inner life matters, that qualia are the centre of our existence, that sharing what we feel is as important as sharing what we know.

And that, perhaps, is the true origin of art: not the need to represent the world, but the need to express the soul.

References

Chalmers, D. J. (1995). Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2(3), 200–219. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203826430-11

Chalmers, D. J. (2022). Reality+: Virtual worlds and the problems of philosophy. W. W. Norton & Company.

López Mallo, J. B. (2023). La construcción neuro-simbólica. Una aproximación al funcionamiento del cerebro desde una perspectiva multidisciplinar [Doctoral thesis, University of the Basque Country - Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea]. ADDI Repository. http://hdl.handle.net/10810/62701

https://catalogo.sanchoelsabio.eus

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYGTJD5C

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GY89SZS1

Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, 83(4), 435–450.

Autor / Author

Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.

Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.

Enlaces / Links

martes, 2 de junio de 2026

El error de pensar que el arte es un lujo: La teoría biológica de António Damásio.

Bernabé Mallo

Una reseña sobre El extraño orden de las cosas (2017) y sus implicaciones para la comprensión del origen del arte

Introducción: ¿Por qué creamos arte?

Durante siglos, filósofos y teóricos del arte han intentado responder a una pregunta aparentemente sencilla: ¿por qué los seres humanos crean arte? Las respuestas han sido variadas: por placer, por imitación de la naturaleza, por expresión de emociones, por búsqueda de la belleza, por necesidad de comunicar lo inefable. Sin embargo, ninguna de estas explicaciones ha logrado responder a una cuestión más profunda: ¿qué necesidad biológica satisface el arte?

El neurocientífico portugués Antonio Damásio ha propuesto una respuesta radicalmente novedosa en su obra El extraño orden de las cosas: la vida, los sentimientos y el origen de las culturas (publicada originalmente en inglés en 2017 como The Strange Order of Things). Su tesis es sorprendente y, a la vez, profundamente convincente: el arte no nació como un pasatiempo o un accidente evolutivo, sino como una necesidad biológica absoluta al servicio de la homeostasis.

¿Qué es la homeostasis y por qué es clave para entender el arte?

La homeostasis es, en su definición clásica, el conjunto de procesos mediante los cuales los organismos vivos mantienen su equilibrio interno —temperatura, pH, niveles de glucosa, presión arterial— frente a las variaciones del entorno. Pero Damásio va mucho más allá. Para él, la homeostasis no es solo un mecanismo fisiológico de autorregulación, sino el principio organizador fundamental de toda la vida, desde las bacterias hasta las culturas humanas más complejas.

"Homeostasis", escribe Damásio, "es la fuerza que asegura que la vida se regule dentro de un rango que no solo es compatible con la supervivencia, sino también conducente al florecimiento, a una proyección de la vida hacia el futuro de un organismo o una especie". En otras palabras, no solo queremos sobrevivir: queremos prosperar, florecer, trascender.

El salto conceptual que propone Damásio consiste en extender este principio homeostático del dominio puramente biológico al dominio cultural. Así como el cuerpo regula su temperatura para mantenerse vivo, la mente regula sus estados afectivos mediante la creación de objetos, prácticas e ideas que denominamos cultura. El arte, la música, la literatura, la religión, la filosofía, la ciencia y la tecnología son, en última instancia, instrumentos homeostáticos.

Los sentimientos como portavoces de la homeostasis

Para comprender cómo opera la homeostasis cultural, António Damásio introduce un principio central: los sentimientos son los representantes mentales y los portavoces de la homeostasis en la mente consciente. Los sentimientos no son meros epifenómenos, efectos secundarios o adornos de la vida mental, sino señales biológicas e imágenes fundamentales que nos informan en tiempo real sobre el estado de nuestra regulación vital.

Cuando sentimos bienestar o placer, el organismo nos indica, mediante una química interna coordinada, que estamos en un estado homeostático favorable de eficiencia y salud. Por el contrario, cuando sentimos dolor, tristeza o malestar, el cerebro nos advierte que algo amenaza nuestro equilibrio y supervivencia. Esta lógica evolutiva simple —buscar lo que expande la vida y alejarse de lo que la daña— ha guiado la evolución de los organismos vivos durante miles de millones de años.

Lo que hace únicos a los seres humanos es que hemos aprendido a externalizar y expandir esta regulación mediante la homeostasis cultural. No solo reaccionamos biológicamente ante el miedo, el duelo o el asombro: construimos rituales para conjurarlos, creamos elegías, esculturas funerarias, filosofías, sistemas de justicia y cosmologías para responder colectivamente a esas alarmas biológicas.

El arte, las ciencias y la cultura, desde esta perspectiva neurobiológica, son auténticas tecnologías homeostáticas. Son herramientas refinadas que nuestra mente ha desarrollado para regular sus propios estados afectivos, procesar la pérdida, celebrar la cohesión social y, en última instancia, buscar no solo la supervivencia básica, sino un estado de bienestar floreciente.

La evidencia neurobiológica: el cerebro que narra y siente

Las investigaciones de Damásio y su equipo en el Brain and Creativity Institute de la Universidad del Sur de California han proporcionado evidencia empírica fascinante sobre esta capacidad humana fundamental. En experimentos recientes, se ha demostrado que el cerebro humano posee una arquitectura neuronal narrativa —conjuntos de estructuras cerebrales, especialmente la Default Mode Network— que responden de manera similar a historias contadas en diferentes idiomas.

Esto significa que la capacidad de construir narrativas no es un añadido cultural, sino una característica fundamental de la arquitectura cerebral humana. Los seres humanos no solo cuentan historias: están hechos para contar historias, porque las historias son el vehículo mediante el cual procesamos nuestras experiencias emocionales y regulamos nuestro equilibrio homeostático.

La obra de arte —una pintura rupestre, una sinfonía, una novela, un poema— no es sino una externalización de este proceso narrativo interno. Cuando el cavernícola pintaba un bisonte en Altamira, no estaba simplemente decorando una pared: estaba proyectando su mundo interior, sus temores y esperanzas, sus experiencias de caza y supervivencia, en una imagen tangible que le permitía procesar y regular sus estados afectivos.

El arte como instrumento homeostático

Quizás la formulación más potente de esta teoría sea la siguiente: el arte funciona como un instrumento de regulación biológica. Así como los fármacos actúan sobre procesos bioquímicos para restaurar el equilibrio fisiológico, las experiencias artísticas actúan sobre procesos neuronales y afectivos para restaurar el equilibrio psicológico y social.

Un ejemplo paradigmático es la música. Escuchar una pieza melancólica cuando estamos tristes no es un acto masoquista: es una forma de homeostasis. La música nos permite sentir nuestra emoción desde una distancia segura, procesarla, darle forma y, finalmente, integrarla en nuestra experiencia vital. La música alegre, por su parte, no solo expresa alegría: la induce, regulando al alza nuestro estado afectivo.

Lo mismo ocurre con las artes visuales, la literatura, el teatro o la danza. Todas ellas son tecnologías afectivas que hemos desarrollado para modular nuestro estado homeostático, para procesar el sufrimiento y potenciar el bienestar, para conectar con otros y construir lazos comunitarios.

La dimensión social: arte, empatía y cohesión grupal

Damásio no se limita a considerar la homeostasis individual. La homeostasis social es igualmente fundamental. Los seres humanos somos animales profundamente sociales, y nuestro equilibrio homeostático depende de nuestra inclusión en grupos, de nuestra capacidad para cooperar y de la calidad de nuestros vínculos afectivos.

El arte juega un papel crucial en esta homeostasis social. Las celebraciones comunitarias, los rituales compartidos, las narraciones colectivas —mitos, epopeyas, tradiciones— son tecnologías de cohesión grupal que sincronizan los estados afectivos de los miembros de una comunidad, generando confianza, cooperación y sentido de pertenencia.

El neurólogo ha identificado mecanismos neuronales específicos que subyacen a esta dimensión social. La oxitocina y la vasopresina, neurotransmisores implicados en el vínculo social y la formación de parejas, se liberan durante experiencias estéticas compartidas. El arte nos conecta literalmente con los demás, modulando nuestra neuroquímica para facilitar la empatía y la cooperación.

La crítica al "error de Descartes" revisitada

Damásio es famoso por su crítica al "error de Descartes": la separación radical entre mente y cuerpo, entre razón y emoción. En su obra anterior, El error de Descartes (1994), ya argumentó que la racionalidad humana depende crucialmente de las emociones. En El extraño orden de las cosas, lleva esta crítica un paso más allá.

El "error" que ahora combate es la creencia de que la cultura —incluyendo el arte, la filosofía, la ciencia— es producto exclusivo de la razón desencarnada. Damásio demuestra que los sentimientos y las emociones no son obstáculos para la creación cultural, sino su motor principal. No creamos arte a pesar de nuestras emociones, sino gracias a ellas. El arte es la expresión más elevada de nuestra necesidad biológica de regularnos afectivamente.

Esta perspectiva tiene implicaciones radicales para la filosofía del arte. Si el arte es un instrumento homeostático, entonces su valor no reside solo en su belleza formal o en su capacidad de representar la realidad, sino en su función biológica: ayudar a los seres humanos a sobrevivir, prosperar y encontrar significado en un mundo caótico e incierto.

Conexión con la investigación sobre el origen del arte (S/Y/C)

Esta teoría de Damásio resuena profundamente con la investigación que venimos desarrollando sobre el modelo S/Y/C del funcionamiento neuronal y la Ley de coherencia biológica.

La dimensión S (Supervivencia) de nuestro modelo encuentra en la homeostasis damasiana su fundamento biológico: toda experiencia estética, por elevada que parezca, está enraizada en mecanismos de regulación vital que aseguran la persistencia del organismo.

La dimensión Y (Symbolon) —la capacidad de crear y compartir símbolos como acto de reconocimiento— se corresponde con la capacidad humana de externalizar los estados homeostáticos en objetos, imágenes y narrativas. El arte no solo expresa emociones: las simboliza, las hace comunicables y compartibles.

La dimensión C (Completitud) —la pulsión hacia la totalidad y la coherencia— encuentra su equivalente en la búsqueda homeostática del equilibrio y el florecimiento. La belleza no es solo placer formal; es la experiencia subjetiva de un estado homeostático logrado, de una integración exitosa de las partes en un todo coherente.

Damásio ofrece, así, una base empírica y teórica robusta para nuestra hipótesis: el arte no es un lujo cultural, sino una expresión de la función única del sistema nervioso, que necesita sobrevivir (S), simbolizar (Y) y completar (C) para mantener su coherencia biológica.

Consideraciones finales: el arte como testimonio de lo vivo

La teoría de Damásio nos invita a abandonar la vieja dicotomía entre naturaleza y cultura. El arte no es ni puramente biológico ni puramente cultural: es la encrucijada donde ambos dominios se encuentran y se potencian mutuamente.

El arte, como la medicina, la filosofía o la ciencia, es una respuesta homeostática a los desafíos de la existencia humana. Nace del dolor y busca el alivio; nace de la pérdida y busca la trascendencia; nace de la soledad y busca la conexión; nace del caos y busca la forma.

Comprender esto no disminuye el misterio del arte, sino que lo profundiza. Porque si el arte es un instrumento de regulación homeostática, entonces crear y contemplar arte no es un escape de la vida, sino la forma más humana de vivirla. Es la manera que hemos encontrado, después de millones de años de evolución, de sentirnos en casa en un universo que no fue hecho para nosotros.

Referencias bibliográficas

Damasio, A. (2018). El extraño orden de las cosas: La vida, los sentimientos y el origen de las culturas. Destino. (Obra original publicada en 2017)

Damasio, A., & Damasio, H. (2016). Making minds and cultures: The neurobiology of storytelling and art. En The Strange Order of Things (pp. 293-318). Pantheon Books.

https://catalogo.sanchoelsabio.eus

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYGTJD5C

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GY89SZS1

Autor / Author

Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.

Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.

Enlaces / Links

The Mistake of Thinking That Art Is a Luxury: António Damásio's Biological Theory of Art.

Bernabé Mallo

A review of The Strange Order of Things (2017) and its implications for understanding

the origin of Art

Introduction: Why do we create art?

For centuries, philosophers and art theorists have tried to answer a seemingly simple question: why do human beings create art? The answers have varied —for pleasure, for imitation of nature, for emotional expression, for the pursuit of beauty, for the need to communicate the ineffable. However, none of these explanations has managed to answer a deeper question: what biological need does art satisfy?

Portuguese neuroscientist Antonio Damásio has proposed a radically novel answer in his work The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feelings, and the Origin of Cultures (originally published in English in 2017). His thesis is surprising and, at the same time, profoundly convincing: art was not born as a pastime or an evolutionary accident, but as an absolute biological necessity in the service of homeostasis.

What is homeostasis and why is it key to understanding art?

Homeostasis is, in its classical definition, the set of processes by which living organisms maintain their internal balance —temperature, pH, glucose levels, blood pressure— in the face of environmental variations. But Damásio goes much further. For him, homeostasis is not just a physiological self-regulatory mechanism, but the fundamental organising principle of all life, from bacteria to the most complex human cultures.

"Homeostasis", writes Damásio, "is the force that ensures that life regulates itself within a range that is not only compatible with survival but also conducive to flourishing, to a projection of life into the future of an organism or a species". In other words, we do not just want to survive: we want to prosper, flourish, transcend.

Damásio's conceptual leap consists of extending this homeostatic principle from the purely biological domain to the cultural domain. Just as the body regulates its temperature to stay alive, the mind regulates its affective states through the creation of objects, practices, and ideas that we call culture. Art, music, literature, religion, philosophy, science, and technology are, ultimately, homeostatic instruments.

Feelings as the Mental Representatives of Homeostasis

To understand how cultural homeostasis operates, António Damásio introduces a central principle: feelings are the mental representatives and spokespersons of homeostasis within the conscious mind. Feelings are not mere epiphenomena, secondary effects, or ornaments of mental life. Instead, they are fundamental biological signals and mental images that inform us in real time about the state of our vital regulation.

When we experience well-being or pleasure, the organism indicates—through a coordinated internal chemistry—that we are in a favorable homeostatic state of efficiency and health. Conversely, when we feel pain, sadness, or distress, the brain warns us that something threatens our equilibrium and survival. This simple evolutionary logic—seeking what expands life and avoiding what damages it—has guided the evolution of living organisms for billions of years.

What makes human beings unique is that we have learned to externalize and expand this regulation through cultural homeostasis. We do not merely react biologically to fear, grief, or awe; we construct rituals to conjure them. We create elegies, funerary sculptures, philosophies, justice systems, and cosmologies to respond collectively to those biological alarms.

Art, science, and culture, from this neurobiological perspective, are authentic homeostatic technologies. They are refined tools developed by our minds to regulate our own affective states, process loss, celebrate social cohesion, and, ultimately, pursue not just basic survival, but a state of flourishing well-being.

The neurobiological evidence: the brain that narrates and feels

Research by Damásio and his team at the Brain and Creativity Institute of the University of Southern California has provided fascinating empirical evidence of this fundamental human capacity. In recent experiments, it has been shown that the human brain possesses a narrative neuronal architecture —sets of brain structures, especially the Default Mode Network— that respond similarly to stories told in different languages.

This means that the capacity to construct narratives is not a cultural addition, but a fundamental characteristic of human brain architecture. Human beings do not just tell stories: they are made to tell stories, because stories are the vehicle through which we process our emotional experiences and regulate our homeostatic balance.

The work of art —a cave painting, a symphony, a novel, a poem— is nothing other than an externalisation of this internal narrative process. When the cave painter painted a bison in Altamira, he was not simply decorating a wall: he was projecting his inner world, his fears and hopes, his experiences of hunting and survival, onto a tangible image that allowed him to process and regulate his affective states.

Art as a homeostatic instrument

Perhaps the most powerful formulation of this theory is the following: art functions as an instrument of biological regulation. Just as drugs act on biochemical processes to restore physiological balance, artistic experiences act on neural and affective processes to restore psychological and social balance.

A paradigmatic example is music. Listening to a melancholic piece when we are sad is not a masochistic act: it is a form of homeostasis. Music allows us to feel our emotion from a safe distance, process it, shape it, and finally integrate it into our life experience. Cheerful music, on the other hand, does not just express joy: it induces it, regulating our affective state upward.

The same applies to the visual arts, literature, theatre, and dance. All of them are affective technologies that we have developed to modulate our homeostatic state, to process suffering and enhance well-being, to connect with others and build community ties.

The social dimension: art, empathy, and group cohesion

Damásio does not limit himself to considering individual homeostasis. Social homeostasis is equally fundamental. Human beings are deeply social animals, and our homeostatic balance depends on our inclusion in groups, our capacity for cooperation, and the quality of our affective bonds.

Art plays a crucial role in this social homeostasis. Community celebrations, shared rituals, collective narratives —myths, epics, traditions— are technologies of group cohesion that synchronise the affective states of members of a community, generating trust, cooperation, and a sense of belonging.

The neurologist has identified specific neural mechanisms underlying this social dimension. Oxytocin and vasopressin, neurotransmitters involved in social bonding and pair formation, are released during shared aesthetic experiences. Art literally connects us with others, modulating our neurochemistry to facilitate empathy and cooperation.

The critique of "Descartes' error" revisited

Damásio is famous for his critique of "Descartes' error": the radical separation between mind and body, reason and emotion. In his earlier work, Descartes' Error (1994), he argued that human rationality depends crucially on emotions. In The Strange Order of Things, he takes this critique one step further.

The "error" he now combats is the belief that culture —including art, philosophy, and science— is the exclusive product of disembodied reason. Damásio demonstrates that feelings and emotions are not obstacles to cultural creation, but its main engine. We do not create art despite our emotions, but because of them. Art is the highest expression of our biological need to regulate ourselves affectively.

This perspective has radical implications for the philosophy of art. If art is a homeostatic instrument, then its value resides not only in its formal beauty or its capacity to represent reality, but in its biological function: helping human beings survive, prosper, and find meaning in a chaotic and uncertain world.

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

This theory of Damásio resonates deeply with the research we have been developing on the S/Y/C model of neuronal functioning and the Law of Biological Coherence.

The S (Survival) dimension of our model finds its biological foundation in Damásian homeostasis: every aesthetic experience, however elevated it may seem, is rooted in mechanisms of vital regulation that ensure the persistence of the organism.

The Y (Symbolon) dimension —the capacity to create and share symbols as an act of recognition— corresponds to the human capacity to externalise homeostatic states into objects, images, and narratives. Art does not only express emotions: it symbolises them, makes them communicable and shareable.

The C (Wholeness) dimension —the drive toward totality and coherence— finds its equivalent in the homeostatic pursuit of balance and flourishing. Beauty is not merely formal pleasure; it is the subjective experience of an achieved homeostatic state, of a successful integration of parts into a coherent whole.

Damásio thus offers a robust empirical and theoretical basis for our hypothesis: art is not a cultural luxury, but an expression of the single function of the nervous system, which needs to survive (S), symbolise (Y), and achieve wholeness (C) to maintain its biological coherence.

Final considerations: art as testimony of the living

Damásio's theory invites us to abandon the old dichotomy between nature and culture. Art is neither purely biological nor purely cultural: it is the crossroads where both domains meet and enhance each other.

Art, like medicine, philosophy, or science, is a homeostatic response to the challenges of human existence. It is born from pain and seeks relief; born from loss and seeks transcendence; born from solitude and seeks connection; born from chaos and seeks form.

Understanding this does not diminish the mystery of art, but deepens it. Because if art is an instrument of homeostatic regulation, then creating and contemplating art is not an escape from life, but the most human way of living it. It is the way we have found, after millions of years of evolution, to feel at home in a universe that was not made for us.

References (APA7)

Damasio, A. (2018). The strange order of things: Life, feeling, and the making of cultures. Vintage. (Original work published 2017)

Damasio, A., & Damasio, H. (2016). Making minds and cultures: The neurobiology of storytelling and art. In The Strange Order of Things (pp. 293-318). Pantheon Books.

https://catalogo.sanchoelsabio.eu

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYGTJD5C

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GY89SZS1

Autor / Author

Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.

Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.

Enlaces / Links

lunes, 1 de junio de 2026

Robot or Artist? Artificial Intelligence Facing the Mirror of Human Creativity A commentary on Hengran Yang's article (2025): Artificial intelligence art robots

Bernabé Mallo

Introduction: a question that is not new, but urgently needs an answer

Can a machine be an artist? Does the future of art belong to robots programmed to generate beauty, or will creativity remain an exclusively human domain? These questions, which a decade ago sounded like science fiction, now occupy the front pages of philosophy journals, cultural studies, and increasingly, artificial intelligence laboratories.

Hengran Yang's 2025 article, Artificial intelligence art robots: the future of technological art or the end of the human artist?, published in the International Theory and Practice in Humanities and Social Sciences, addresses precisely this debate. Yang offers a historical overview of AI-generated art, analyses its philosophical and ethical implications, and concludes that, although these technologies can produce formally complex works, they lack human emotional expression and cultural sensitivity. He thus proposes a complementary role for AI in the artistic ecosystem, not a substitutive one.

From the perspective of my research —which integrates neuroscience, philosophy, and anthropology within the framework of Surgical Philosophy and the Law of Biological Coherence S/Y/C— Yang's work is valuable as a starting point. But it also reveals a fundamental limitation: his analysis operates at the level of traditional philosophy of art and cultural studies, without addressing the neurobiological and evolutionary basis of aesthetic experience. That is the gap our research attempts to fill.

What does Yang say?

Yang structures his work around several key sections. First, he reconstructs the historical evolution of AI art, from algorithmic experiments in the 1960s to contemporary developments such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and robot artists like Ai-Da, capable of drawing and painting using deep learning algorithms.

Next, he analyses the philosophical and ethical questions this phenomenon raises: who is the author of an AI-generated work? Can a machine be considered creative? What happens to the value of human artistic work when a machine can produce thousands of works in seconds?

Yang's conclusion is nuanced. He acknowledges the technical capabilities of AI —its ability to generate images, music, or texts with impressive formal complexity— but emphasises that these systems possess neither consciousness, nor intentionality, nor subjective experience. Therefore, AI cannot replace the human artist, but should be understood as a collaborative tool. Future artists, Yang suggests, will need to develop technical skills to work with AI, not to compete against it.

Surgical Philosophy: excising the confusion between product and process

From the Surgical Philosophy I develop in my work, the first step in addressing a poorly posed problem is to make a precise analytical cut. In the debate on AI and art, the fundamental confusion consists of equating two radically different things: the formal product (an image, a symphony, a poem) and the embodied process that, in human beings, gives rise to that product.

An AI can generate an image that, viewed externally, is indistinguishable from a human painting. But what it lacks is:

A body that feels: AI has no autonomic nervous system; it does not experience a racing heart in the presence of beauty, nor shivers before tragedy, nor stillness before the sublime.
An evolutionary history: AI does not descend from primates who, over millions of years, learned to detect patterns, avoid predators, and collaborate in groups.
A personal biography: AI has not suffered loss, has not loved, has not feared death. In short, it has no self that unfolds over time.

The error that Surgical Philosophy helps to excise is believing that, because the product is similar, the process is equivalent. It is not. And that difference is what matters for understanding art as a human phenomenon.

S/ Y/ C: why AI cannot (yet) be an artist

My Law of Biological Coherence S/Y/C holds that neuronal functioning is based on a single function subdivided into three concatenated subfunctions that operate as a single unit: S (Survival), Y (Symbolon), and C (Wholeness). These three constitute the substrate of all human experience, including artistic experience. Let us examine each one in the human being and ask whether artificial intelligence can even approximate its unfolding.

The S dimension, survival. In human beings, aesthetic emotion does not float in an abstract void: it is rooted in biological mechanisms for detecting favourable environments, resources, and safety signals. Art mobilises the autonomic nervous system —it quickens the heart, bristles the skin, holds the breath. It is not a superimposed cultural ornament; it is a deep activation of the living body that must preserve itself. Artificial intelligence, by contrast, has no body to preserve. It experiences no fear, pleasure, wonder, or nostalgia. Its "response" to a stimulus —if it can be called that— is not an experience but a mathematical function that lacks the embodied texture of feeling.

The Y dimension, symbolon. Human beings create and share symbols from a shared cultural history. Art is, in its essence, symbolon: an act of recognition through common codes, a bridge connecting one interior to another through a shared form. Artificial intelligence can manipulate symbols with impressive efficiency: it processes language, generates recognisable images, composes texts that imitate discursive coherence. But it does not inhabit the symbol. There is no one "inside" the machine who recognises or is recognised, who shares the tremor of a discovered meaning, who celebrates the encounter between a sign and its interpretation. AI handles the symbol from the outside; the human being lives it from within.

The C dimension, wholeness. The human brain seeks to close forms, reduce uncertainty, integrate parts into a coherent whole. Beauty is, to a large extent, the subjective experience of an achieved wholeness: a form that closes, a rhythm that resolves, a meaning that emerges as an organic totality. Artificial intelligence can generate formally "closed" objects —rhymed sonnets, symmetrical images, structured melodies— but it does not experience the drive toward wholeness. There is no subject who feels relief when the pattern closes, nor anguish when it fragments, nor longing when a totality is intuited but not yet reached. There is form, undoubtedly. But there is no experience of form.

The conclusion is clear: artificial intelligence can imitate the product of art —the formally finished work, the image, the text, the melody— but it cannot generate the living process that gives meaning to that product. It lacks the S substrate of a body that feels because its survival depends on it. It does not inhabit the Y dimension of the symbol as an act of shared recognition. It does not feel the C drive toward wholeness as a biological and existential need.

Human art is not just a matter of form. It is a matter of a body that feels, a symbol that is inhabited, and a wholeness that is yearned for. And that, for now, remains the exclusive patrimony of the living.

And if AI developed consciousness? A note on the future

A recurring argument among proponents of "AI art" is that machines might develop consciousness in the future. If that happened —if an AI had sensations, emotions, a biography, and a sense of self— then the question would be completely reformulated.

But that is not the current state of technology, nor even a near horizon. Today, AI systems are statistical machines that process vast amounts of data and generate probabilistic outputs. There is no one home. There is no self contemplating the result of its own generation and finding it beautiful or empty. And without that self, there is no art in the fully human sense.

As Yang rightly notes, AI is a complementary tool. It can amplify human creativity, offer unexpected variations, accelerate technical processes. But it cannot replace the artist, because the artist is not just a generator of forms. The artist is an embodied, situated, mortal being who uses art to survive symbolically, to construct meaning, and to achieve, even if only for an instant, the sensation of wholeness.

Conclusion: art as testimony of the living

Hengran Yang's article has the merit of posing the right questions and offering a balanced analysis, far from both uncritical technological enthusiasm and conservative rejection. However, from the perspective of my research —which integrates neuroscience, philosophy, and anthropology within the framework of Surgical Philosophy and the Law of Biological Coherence S/Y/C— his analysis falls short in one crucial aspect: it does not address why human art matters biologically, not just culturally.

Art is not a luxury of the cerebral cortex. It is an expression of the single function of the nervous system: a function that needs to survive, symbolise, and achieve wholeness. AI can imitate form, but it cannot generate the living substrate from which that form emerges. That is why the future of art is not the replacement of the human by the machine, but collaboration between the two, provided we do not forget who brings the body, the history, and the meaning.

And that, perhaps, is the true philosophical challenge of our time: to distinguish the tool from the craftsman, the algorithm from embodiment, simulation from lived experience. Surgical Philosophy offers us the tools to make that cut with precision. Applying them is the task of those who still believe that art is, above all, an irreplaceable testimony of the living.

References

López Mallo, J. B. (2026). De la filosofía quirúrgica a la ley de coherencia biológica S/Y/C: Hacia una investigación sobre el origen del arte en la especie Homo. Lopez Mallo, Javier Bernabé. https://isbn.bibna.gub.uy/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=57196

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYGTJD5C

López Mallo, J. B. (2026). From surgical philosophy to the law of biological coherence S/Y/C: Toward a study of the origin of art in the Homo lineage. Lopez Mallo, Javier Bernabé. https://isbn.bibna.gub.uy/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=57197

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GY89SZS1

López Mallo, J. B. (2023). La construcción neuro-simbólica. Una aproximación al funcionamiento del cerebro desde una perspectiva multidisciplinar [Tesis doctoral]. Universidad del País Vasco - Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. Repositorio ADDI. http://hdl.handle.net/10810/62701

https://catalogo.sanchoelsabio.eus

Yang, H. (2025). Artificial intelligence art robots: the future of technological art or the end of the human artist? International Theory and Practice in Humanities and Social Sciences, *2*(1), 243–251. https://doi.org/10.70693/itphss.v2i1.85

Autor / Author

Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.

Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.

miércoles, 3 de junio de 2026

El arte como espejo de los qualia: David Chalmers y el origen de la expresión humana

Bernabé Mallo

Una reseña sobre "Facing up to the problem of consciousness" (1995) y sus implicaciones para comprender el arte como expresión de la experiencia subjetiva

Introducción: ¿Qué siente un bisonte?

¿Qué es el "Problema Duro" de la conciencia?

Los problemas "fáciles"

El Problema Duro

¿Qué son los qualia y por qué importan para el arte?

El arte como puente entre mentes aisladas

Conexión con la investigación sobre el origen del arte (S/Y/C)

Consideraciones finales: el arte como testimonio de lo vivo

Referencias bibliográficas

Autor / Author

Enlaces / Links

Art as the Mirror of Qualia: David Chalmers and the Origin of Human Expression

Bernabé Mallo

A review of "Facing up to the problem of consciousness" (1995) and its implications for understanding art as the expression of subjective experience

Introduction: What does a bison feel?

What is the "Hard Problem" of consciousness?

The "easy" problems

The Hard Problem

What are qualia and why do they matter for art?

Art as a bridge between isolated minds

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

Final considerations: art as testimony of the living

References

Autor / Author

Enlaces / Links

martes, 2 de junio de 2026

El error de pensar que el arte es un lujo: La teoría biológica de António Damásio.

Bernabé Mallo

Una reseña sobre El extraño orden de las cosas (2017) y sus implicaciones para la comprensión del origen del arte

Introducción: ¿Por qué creamos arte?

¿Qué es la homeostasis y por qué es clave para entender el arte?

Los sentimientos como portavoces de la homeostasis

La evidencia neurobiológica: el cerebro que narra y siente

El arte como instrumento homeostático

La dimensión social: arte, empatía y cohesión grupal

La crítica al "error de Descartes" revisitada

Conexión con la investigación sobre el origen del arte (S/Y/C)

Consideraciones finales: el arte como testimonio de lo vivo

Referencias bibliográficas

Autor / Author

Enlaces / Links

The Mistake of Thinking That Art Is a Luxury: António Damásio's Biological Theory of Art.

Bernabé Mallo

A review of The Strange Order of Things (2017) and its implications for understanding

the origin of Art

Introduction: Why do we create art?

What is homeostasis and why is it key to understanding art?

Feelings as the Mental Representatives of Homeostasis

The neurobiological evidence: the brain that narrates and feels

Art as a homeostatic instrument

The social dimension: art, empathy, and group cohesion

The critique of "Descartes' error" revisited

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

Final considerations: art as testimony of the living

References (APA7)

Autor / Author

Enlaces / Links

lunes, 1 de junio de 2026

Robot or Artist? Artificial Intelligence Facing the Mirror of Human Creativity A commentary on Hengran Yang's article (2025): Artificial intelligence art robots

Bernabé Mallo

Introduction: a question that is not new, but urgently needs an answer

What does Yang say?

Surgical Philosophy: excising the confusion between product and process

S/ Y/ C: why AI cannot (yet) be an artist

And if AI developed consciousness? A note on the future

Conclusion: art as testimony of the living

References

Autor / Author

Enlaces / Links

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