You should note that there is a very
practical use for a
sense of beauty. Not only for
mate selection, which has been mentioned, but for determining
where to live and if a place is
safe. For instance, if you see
a whole lot of nothing, as in a
desert, you might think that it is very
inhospitable to life (
human life, at least). Or maybe you see
bones or
blood, which you would find
repulsive, and think to yourself,
"Hey, maybe I'm about to be eaten." Whereas the
colors of
plants, flowers, trees, and water would remind you on the
subconcious level that there is water, food, and some sort of
shelter nearby, even if you didn't have the ability to figure this out
rationally.
As for
romantic love, there is a lot of
evidence that chemicals called "
pheremones" help determine if you are
attracted to someone. I don't know much about the subject, but I think of this as being done
unconciously, in that we
sense these pheremones that generate some
funny reaction in us involving
sex hormones and
adrenelin.
A lot of us have
concious or
unconcious desire to
prove ourselves better than others. This would be
analogous to a
prehistorical social heirarchy, kinda like what we hear about the
social structure of animals that travel in packs like dogs (wolves), cats (lions and tigers), and
Windows users.
Updated: Oh right, and about that
music thing. Ever notice how
children can sleep better when there's
soothing music in the
background (ie. a mother singing or something
cliché like that)? My
theory is that there are certain sounds we are "
trained" to enjoy: the
voices of our family, the sound of
rushing water, or something. Apprecation of
modern music tends to be a
learned trait, rather than something
inherent in a person, but I think it developed from this. Also, ever have an
experience where a
song reminds you of where you were the last time you heard it? That happens to me with the
themes of movies, too, but the
weirdest thing is that there are certain songs that make me feel like it's a
completely different season. That seems to be
how our memory works.