Today cognitive neuroscience has the tools to shed new light on the aesthetic quality of human nature and its natural creative inclination. This new research field can help us understand how and why works of art best express our human nature. The discovery of mirroring mechanisms in the human brain and the functional hypothesis modeling these mechanisms offer the opportunity to shed new light on the variety of possible worlds human beings do inhabit.
This lecture is part of Art and Science: Insights into Consciousness, the third annual Watermill Summer Workshop which brings together high-profile scientists and artists to investigate the nature of creativity and how ideas change our perception of reality and come into consciousness. This workshop series is generously supported by the Mortimer D. Sackler Family Foundation.
Vittorio Gallese, MD, is Professor of Physiology at the Dept. of Neuroscience of the University of Parma, Italy, and a trained neurologist.
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