- Time for a poll …
- Who thinks he did?
Does anyone remember Keats’ poem (we read it in high school) “Ode to a Grecian Urn”?
Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats | Poetry Foundation
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
I certainly never really understood that poem–some say he was being bitter about the urn, and complaining that it wasn’t realistic.
In a way, while what happens is not beautiful, all that is truth needs a truthsayer–someone who can interpret truth so that we can approach it right. Such a translator might be called beautiful, I guess.
Interesting thoughts.
Thanks.
Then, there’s good old Mark Twain, who I don’t agree with, but who puts a smile on my face:
“Lying is universal - we all do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others’ advantage,
and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling.”
4 Likes
not so much a smile on my face
lying is at the heart of mental illness and evil
if we all do it then this only speaks to the pervasiveness of mental illness and evil.
mental illness really? lying to ourselves, yes. But the practice of lying to others leads to this because we lie best when we believe the lies we tell. But when we begin to believe our own lies then we become detached from reality… from which we wander farther and farther into a wonderland of inconsistencies and delusion. This is at least one road to insanity… likely it is not the only one.
4 Likes
Indeed.
And to say that “Truth is beautiful” is not the same as saying that everything that is true or truthful is beautiful. There is a difference.
The things you mentioned are all matters of perception and preference, that is, subjective. They tell us nothing about beauty (whatever it is) in itself. And certainly not about the amorphous concept - beauty - in relation to evidence for God or Intelligent Design.
And by the way, the Great Lakes are the best water.
2 Likes
A dictionary tells that beauty is
- the quality or group of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or the mind
- something that is beautiful or excellent
- an excellent or appealing quality
- a person who is beautiful
Subjective, yes, but I assume that there are common patterns or rules in what gives a sense of beauty within brains. Such patterns or rules can change in the evolutionary process, especially if beauty becomes associated with features that are beneficial for the fitness.
Much of the experience of beauty can be a reflection of the way how brains process signals. For example, I enjoy watching a beautiful painting that shows the skill and insight of the painter. The painting probably has nothing to do with fitness but it may contain patterns that are similar to those that my brains are wired to consider beautiful.
As you can guess from my answer, my thinking is molded by natural sciences, not humanistic sciences or humanistic thinking. For me, beauty is an interpretation brains make of the signals provided by senses. That does not make the pleasure I feel when sensing beauty anyhow less but it gives a view that helps to put the pleasure in the correct frame. Beauty may give some pleasure but that is just a temporary feeling within brains that (hopefully) does not drive my behavior. I would not pay millions of bucks from a painting, even if I would consider it very beautiful.
Beauty in behavior and attitude is another aspect of the concept of beauty. I value it much higher than the external beauty of an object or human.
1 Like
Of course if what we valued most was the beauty of behavior and attitude, enactments might be enough to satisfy. Or if what dictionaries say about beauty is what we value most then perhaps what we really value most is truth. Beauty as such has no pay off or purpose beyond itself. That makes it distinct from truth and goodness.
Essentially, they encode “How long does it take to prove that this point is not a member of the set?”
2 Likes
The answer from evolutionists that beauty exists is just stunning when they have long said with great pride and assurance that natural selection can explain what we find in all living things.
I’m missing it. Why are you stunned?
3 Likes
It is a peculiar method of rhetoric which invents a claim for which there is no evidence whatsoever in order to exclude all the abundant evidence of something. And then what more bogus argument can there be to use such a claim to make all this excluded evidence into evidence of something else. To call an argument like this circular is too polite.
how about some examples to show just how absurdly dishonest this is.
Cats lack the intelligence to catch mice so supernatural entities must be using them to reduce the rodent population.
Balls of gas cannot produce heat and light so the god Apollo (a.k.a. Ra) must be supplying the light and heat of the sun.
Things cannot move through metal, so electrons are all made up nonsense, and electronics all works because of thaumaturgy.
Expecting anyone to disprove such nonsense is ridiculous.
2 Likes
Ron, it is not me who is stunned but the evolution mob.
The video argument is that extreme beauty defies survival of the fittest. Some researchers argue that certain features evolve primarily for pleasure in the observer and the individual displaying the trait. This perspective challenges the traditional view that all characteristics must have a clear survival advantage. Richard Prum, in his book “The Evolution of Beauty,” suggests that some traits evolve for the sheer pleasure they bring, and these traits can be extreme and distinct.
For example, in peacocks, males compete to attract mates by the beauty of appearance or behaviour, leaving females free to choose whom to mate with, a process called female choice (Darwin 1871; Fisher 1930). Darwin developed the concept of sexual selection because he realized that natural selection could not explain the evolution of a male peacock’s array of long tail feathers, which, despite its beauty, almost annihilates its possessor’s ability to escape from predators (Darwin 1871, vo1. 2, p. 97).
Hi, read my posting above about peacocks tails. Extensive research has been done on those since Darwins time, and it has been shown that the elaborate features of the tail do indeed correlate with fitness, via typical evolutionary mechanisms of sexual selection and mate selection. I’ve read Prums book and its clear he doesn’t incorporate sexual selection into his narrative…he’s regarded with suspicion by most of the ornithological community for his naive views in the book.
Cheers
6 Likes
By what we interpret as the beauty of appearance – the diversity of display is merely an evolved indicator of fitness to them. I doubt if the birdbrains have an opinion about aesthetics!
You should consider rephrasing that.
That is sooo churchy. Do you really think that any biologist is stunned? Caught off guard? Never heard of sexual selection? If so, you need to get to know some actual biologists, let alone a mob of them.
Natural selection and sexual selection are simple and inescapable concepts. To pass on genes, one must mate. To mate, you have to beat the competition, whether by display, dance, song, or naked aggression. To compete to begin with, you have to make it to maturity alive. You yourself descend from an outstanding lineage, in that not one generation of your ancestors failed to complete this essential task.
4 Likes
My older brother had a T-shirt he got while at Berkeley:
Having children is hereditary: if your parents didn’t have any, you aren’t likely to either.
7 Likes
More on the sunfish example: In some species, there are as many as 3 morphs of males.
Standard males that build and defend nesting areas and have color patterns used in display.
Tiny males that hide around the edges of nesting areas and zip out and try to fertilize some of the eggs when a female is impressed with a standard male and starts laying eggs for him to fertilize.
Males that look like females and so aren’t chased away by territorial males, but when a female is impressed with a standard male and starts laying eggs for him to fertilize, the female-looking bystander starts releasing milt instead of eggs, trying to fertilize some of the female’s eggs.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Evolution doesn’t really explain why we would think that a peacock’s tail is beautiful. But it explains why the tail is the way it is for the peacock.
4 Likes
If I’m not too late here are a few general takes on beauty I read recently:
Art is how humans have expressed their sense of beauty, but it is the route to an understanding of what cannot appear as an object of knowledge. Rather we come to acquaint ourselves with something unique that may be understood only by experience. So, Tarkovsky says,
Some say that art helps man to know the world, like any other intellectual activity. I don’t believe in this possibility of knowing … Knowledge distracts us from our main purpose in life. The more we know the less we know; getting deeper our horizon becomes narrower. Art enriches man’s own spiritual capabilities, and he can then rise above himself …144 And elsewhere, The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good. 145
From The Matter With Things by Iain McGilchrist
The final citation seems to be a comment from the film maker in regard to this movie of his which I haven’t seen myself. He is best known for the original version of Solaris. Pretty good review so maybe I’d better not put it off:
speaking of beholders, here is a great source on a weird sort of beauty:
This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.