CONCEPT
Zahavian Signaling
Amotz Zahavi's handicap principle — the evolutionary argument that signals are reliable to the extent that they are costly to produce — applied by Dissanayake to human aesthetic behavior.
The handicap principle, formulated by Israeli evolutionary biologist Amotz Zahavi in 1975, holds that signals in biological systems are reliable precisely because they are costly to produce. A peacock's tail is metabolically expensive, aerodynamically disastrous, and conspicuous to predators. It persists in the population because it is an honest signal of the peacock's genetic fitness — honest because no unfit peacock could afford to produce it. The cost guarantees the truth. Dissanayake and subsequent evolutionary aesthetic theorists (notably Geoffrey Miller) extend this logic to human aesthetic behavior: making special is costly, and the costliness is constitutive of its communicative function. The effort cannot be faked. The investment is real. And social partners who detect the investment can trust it because of its cost.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The application to human aesthetic behavior has specific implications. The hours invested in carving a spoon handle or painting a cave wall are real costs, measured in calories and time that could have been directed toward immediate survival
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