Who Made the Rules?

There aren't many questions that I find on forums that haven't already been asked and in most cases answered. Recently, while reading on a relatively small forum, I came across a thread titled 'Photo Authorities' . The topic poster was asking who decided what made a photo look good and how could anyone justify what comments they made when criticising other peoples' photos?

It was an interesting question and it got me thinking. It seems fairly well established that the human brain naturally likes to see certain patterns, one of the most relevant to photography being odd numbers. From an education in catering I know that, for the most part, chefs build plates using odd numbers. As a student of photography I know that good composition can most often be made by following the rule of thirds. The tower in the photo below shows a composition that obviously follows the rule of thirds.

This seemed like an interesting pattern and one that had been 'discovered' 800 years ago in Italy. Fibonacci created the Fibonacci Sequence or the Golden Ratio, a sequence which from what I understand splits things into three. Artists and architects since the Renaissance have proportioned their work in line with the Golden Ratio and the golden rectangle. I may not understand the maths but I can see the results of his work.

I'm sure there are ways to explain other aspects of photography in over complicated ways, I'm content with just this.