We like many things that seem to have no practical value. Why? "Fashion and cognition" -- RECOGNIZABILITY, "because familiar styles make it easier for us to recognize and classify the things we see"; UNIFORMITY, "by adopting uniform styles, we protect ourselves from distractions"; PREDICTABILITY, "societies need rules that make no sense for individuals." (NB: This begins to remind me of work in social cognition on the utility of stereotypes, in order to provide some economy of cognitive processing.)
"I do not mean to say that fashion, style, and art are all the same -- only that they often share this strategy of using forms that lie beneath the surface of our thoughts." (Question: Is Minsky trying to establish negative connotations to push a non-stereotyped view of mind?)
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