Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.

There are patterns because we try to find them. A desperate attempt at order because we can’t face the terror that it might all be random.

inner eye” as such.

The pattern recognition theory of mind that I articulate in this book is based on a different fundamental unit: not the neuron itself, but rather an assembly of neurons, which I estimate to number around...

Thus Milton refines the question down to a matter of faith,” said Coleridge, bringing the lecture to a close, “and a kind of faith more independent, autonomous – more truly strong, as a matter of...