Why are you blind to beauty?

[wolly.green]

@wolly.green - Oh, I want to read that book now. I've listened to some scientists talk about this and they (these particular scientists) say that humans can see color the way we do and therefore are attracted to plants with flashy colors because at one point during human evolution, humans were vegetarians. (PS: I should add that these scientists were not promoting vegan propaganda. It was actually a lecture on meat, survival, and the origins of the human wolf relationship.)


I stand by the logic that what makes music and art "beautiful" is, at it's roots, math and science based. Beethoven is more beautiful than a kid banging on a pot because that kid has no rhythm. Rhythm is math. We merely fine tune what we personally believe is beautiful with opinions. Beauty is really not entirely subjective. It's...lovely... to think so because that makers us all individuals, it's more "philosophical", and it detaches humans from nature, but it isn't.

Sure, you can describe art with math, colour and composition. But beauty is way more than just that. It is not enough for art to have a cool mathematical description. Nor is it enough to have crazy colours or some kind of composition. Its something ABOUT the math, the colours, the composition that make art beautiful. Just because you can describe Beethoven with calculus does not mean its calculus that makes it beautiful. In fact, mathematics can be used to describe everything, even ugly art. So it cannot be used to judge the beauty of art. The beauty comes from somewhere else.

 

[Lady Jolanda]

There is indeed a visual code that attracts bees to flowers. However, it is impossible that this signal is the same reason that flowers are beautiful to us, for the simple reason that bees perceive this code in ultra-violet light.

I think the explanation Asa puts forward is closer to the truth. As a species, we used to scavenge, hunt and gather nuts and fruits for food. Fruits come from flowering plants. But this is just speculation on my part.

 

[wolly.green]

There is indeed a visual code that attracts bees to flowers. However, it is impossible that this signal is the same reason that flowers are beautiful to us, for the simple reason that bees perceive this code in ultra-violet light.

I think the explanation Asa puts forward is closer to the truth. As a species, we used to scavenge, hunt and gather nuts and fruits for food. Fruits come from flowering plants. But this is just speculation on my part.

Hey, thanks for replying.

The fact that bees see in ultra-violate doesn't actually matter. The reason complex visual codes successfully signal across the communication gap is because they are hard to vary (I explained why above). One of the reason Mozart's music is beautiful is because it is also hard to vary (I also explained why above). Is this merely a coincidence? I don't think so, but most other philosophers believe otherwise.

The colourful fruits theory does not actually work as an explanation. This explains why we would be attracted to certain species of flower. Much like the code between bees and flowers, we have probably developed our own unique code. But this doesn't explain our attraction to flowers that we did not evolve around. Further, all fruit bearing trees have stems, branches and leaves. Yet we rarely ever sing songs, write poems and tell stories about them like we do with flowers. Why?

 

[Icedream]

Yet we rarely ever sing songs, write poems and tell stories about them like we do with flowers. Why?

I don't mean to be rude, but are you sure this is accurate?

 

[Asa]

Nor is it enough to have crazy colours or some kind of composition.

Crazy colors: color theory, which had a lot to do with human biology (our eyesight and brains).
Composition: math.

 

[wolly.green]

I don't mean to be rude, but are you sure this is accurate?

Heres a snippet of what I said earlier
We know why bees are [attracted to flowers], but why us? It may seem plausible to think that flowers are not really objectively beautiful, and that their attractiveness is just a cultural phenomenon. But we find flowers beautiful that we have never seen before, and which have not been known to any culture in human history. We sing songs, write poems and tell stories about them. "The same is not true of the roots of plants, or the leaves." (Deutsch, 2011). Well, sometimes a leaf can be beautiful; even the roots can be. But only very rarely! "With flowers it is reliable. It is a regularity in nature." (Deutsch, 2011)

Also yes, I am pretty certain of this claim. But im open to be shown otherwise.

 

[wolly.green]

Crazy colors: color theory, which had a lot to do with human biology (our eyesight and brains).
Composition: math.

We evolved to find colour attractive, sure. But that does not explain why we should find novel variations of colour attractive? Further, are there not combinations of colour that we evolved to find repulsive? Say, decaying meat or rotting fruit? Evolution explains certain colour combinations, but not random combinations that we have never seen before?

Have you seen a preschooler lather paint onto a large sheet of white paper? They splatter that stuff everywhere, in all kind of colours. Yet there is no sense in comparing the beauty in that with the beauty of Leonardo Da Vinci. There is clearly something that Da Vinci has done that the preschooler has not. It is not colour that makes art beautiful, its the way colour is used. Something about the way we use colour in art makes it beautiful.

Math also does not explain our attraction to art. Remember, math can be used to describe everything. So it, too, cannot explain why we find beautiful art so attractive. Further, are spiders not symmetrical? Yet most of us are completely repulsed by them. That doesn't mean they are ugly, but rather that symmetry cannot explain why something is attractive alone.

 

[John K]

There’s a lot of food for thought already in the thread. Just a couple of reactions off the top. I don’t think there is a complete congruence between art and beauty. Some great art is designed to disturb and shock us into seeing the world differently and may seem anything but beautiful. Another thought is that the law of entropy may give an metaphor for what is happening when something is aesthetically impactful. It may be when we recognise a particular kind of order, when the infinitely more natural state is disorder. I’m not sure that this reduces to something objective though because different people and different cultures seem to have different views on what qualifies. I find eastern music very beautiful for example but many people cannot take the alternative tonal scales and it just sounds like noise to them. I had to listen to it quite a lot before my ear became attuned to it.

 

[Asa]

We evolved to find colour attractive, sure. But that does not explain why we should find novel variations of colour attractive? Further, are there not combinations of colour that we evolved to find repulsive? Say, decaying meat or rotting fruit? Evolution explains certain colour combinations, but not random combinations that we have never seen before?

Have you seen a preschooler lather paint onto a large sheet of white paper? They splatter that stuff everywhere, in all kind of colours. Yet there is no sense in comparing the beauty in that with the beauty of Leonardo Da Vinci. There is clearly something that Da Vinci has done that the preschooler has not. It is not colour that makes art beautiful, its the way colour is used. Something about the way we use colour in art makes it beautiful.

Math also does not explain our attraction to art. Remember, math can be used to describe everything. So it, too, cannot explain why we find beautiful art so attractive. Further, are spiders not symmetrical? Yet most of us are completely repulsed by them. That doesn't mean they are ugly, but rather that symmetry cannot explain why something is attractive alone.

I've made my point. I have a degree in this. My husband has a degree in this. There are hundreds of books you could read about music theory and art theory, color theory, composition, science in art and aesthetics, etc.

It's fun to think about, though, so happy journey. And I mean that sincerely.

 

[ThomasJ79]

I have no idea. I have always been really sensitive to aesthetic beauty. Some people just have that ability.

 

[ThomasJ79]

Beauty has some elements that are objective, like symmetry, harmony, etc, but have elements that are subjective, where the perciever is influenced on an emotional level. So, it is both. Beauty is an idea and isn't just one thing, but many things, like archetypes. Beauty is a range; it is variation, which is beautiful.

 

[Skarekrow]

Why is the assumption made that people cannot see beauty around them?


Sounds like a subjective opinion.

 

[ThomasJ79]

I feel like people are stuck between beauty is completely subjective and in the eye of the beholder, and the more objective, Platonic form of beauty. These are limiting a third choice, a blend between the two. This would capture the duality of beauty. There aren't clear answers here and that's okay.

 

[wolly.green]

I've made my point. I have a degree in this. My husband has a degree in this. There are hundreds of books you could read about music theory and art theory, color theory, composition, science in art and aesthetics, etc.

It's fun to think about, though, so happy journey. And I mean that sincerely.

I don't have a degree, but I studied piano for many years outside of Uni. If you did not want to talk about this, you did not have to be so condescending. You could have just left politely. Have fun.

 

[ThomasJ79]

Not all flowers are beautiful. Some I find kind of ugly. I don't think we pay much attention to most flowering species. Much of the beauty we see is tied to a larger web of meaning to the flowers we have genetically enhanced to be more appealing, like roses. The ones we as humans find beautiful are the ones that enhance our stories, our love lives, and please our senses.

You can try and reduce a flower to aesthetic components, which on their own aren't beautiful. Taken together they create something unique and pleasing to the senses. It creates meaning and a feeling of purpose. We create beauty and perceive it in our expressions of life. It is another layer of existence our neurons are capable of perceiving, another perspective.

 

[John K]

Beauty has some elements that are objective, like symmetry, harmony, etc, but have elements that are subjective, where the perciever is influenced on an emotional level. So, it is both. Beauty is an idea and isn't just one thing, but many things, like archetypes. Beauty is a range; it is variation, which is beautiful.

I think that’s right- at least that’s the way I seem to experience it.

I’m not convinced by an appeal to evolution by way. I don’t mean I think it’s incorrect but it must be a lot more complex than looking at the way flowers and insects evolved jointly (a process that itself has great beauty). As far as I can see, a bee probably has the same relationship to flowers that I have to Tesco supermarkets in the UK. Their buildings have a common house style that tells me I can get groceries there, but they certainly don’t appeal to me aesthetically lol.

 

[TheFool]

Because most of us don’t actually look at the object we observe but focus on the idea of that object created in the mind.

When you see a tree your mind creates your own unique version of the concept of a tree. Then instead of looking at that tree you focus inwards on that more universal idea of a tree. This helps you to function on an autopilot mode when less mental effort is needed to do the daily routines.

Once this autopilot mode is altered by meditation or psychoactive substances people tend become highly interested in their surroundings. The patterns, colors, sounds, smells, etc are now observed as they are without the distractions of the conceptual mind that translates every sense sensation we experience. This process is so subtle that most of us are never aware of it. In fact it is quite small amount of “external stuff” that we actually are aware of once you start to pay attention to yourself and your habits.

 

[Asa]

I don't have a degree, but I studied piano for many years outside of Uni. If you did not want to talk about this, you did not have to be so condescending. You could have just left politely. Have fun.

My intention wasn't to be condescending. I did want to talk about it. It's fun. I'm happy you are interested in such a topic and I find your questions and point of view interesting and valid.
However, I do have a degree and career that is associated with your topic, so I have answers that come from an educated and professional point of view on the topic. (Just like if the historians here said something about history I'd listen, or if the psychologists said something about psychology, I'd listen because they know more about the topic than others.) If it were another topic it would be easier to consider that the person with such credentials had valid information, but the topic of beauty is so personal to us that it is intertwined forever with our image of who we are and what we think and feel as individuals.

 

[Korg]

This thread is terrible.

 

[noisebloom]

This thread is terrible.

hahaha this guy