---In [email protected], <seerdope@...> wrote :
Curtis: Other than strict Platonists, I don't ever hear people talking about
beauty this way. For most of us it is seen as a personal evaluation based on
all the factors you list below.
SD: I am saying that there is no such thing as a beautiful woman, a beautiful
sunset, beautiful art, even beautiful minds. That there is no objective basis
of defining beauty.
C: I believe some of the research in our preference for symmetry in faces and
our attraction to certain proportions in the opposite sex that are associated
with fertility my suggest a biological basis for what we find "beautiful." I
don't believe that an objective basis is necessary, just an evaluation of the
likely subjective patterns. For some reason we do find the natural world
beautiful pretty universally. When it comes to art it gets more squirrelly
since our cognitive interaction complicates ideas like visual balance as
desirable or undesirable in context of the artist's intention or point. In art
something that shocks you with its ugliness can have a purpose so all bets are
off for beauty as even being a goal.
S: Its subjective, arbitrary and thus may be leading to nowhere. Which begs
the question -- what is the point of art, music, literature, films, even
fashion and style, etc? More broadly, what is the meaning and purposefulness
of anything in the world beyond the meaning we give it?
C2: I don't see a need for anything more meaningful that what we give our
creative expressions. I may be missing your point here. The point of all that
stuff is what the artist intends and that works for me.
S: This for me also applies to defining who and what we are. You mentioned in
a prior post that you liked the idea of your identity being a bundle of past
memories and future hopes. (For me, that would also include past regrets and
future fears). The future doesn't exist. And memories are notoriously
unreliable. Particularly autobiographic memory. And distortion is amplified
when autobiographic memory streams through the ego filter. And its all
changing. Not a stable thing. Personally, for me (not a critique of your
personal views) , I find memories and hopes as arbitrary and unsubstantial as
"beauty".
C2: I don't know if we need to assume stability as an important criteria for
self identity. It may change in all sorts of ways and that has served me very
well in my life. The organizing principle is the illusion of a stable self
throughout. That also works well so far.
Curtis: I am guessing that you are drawing a parallel with a belief in God,
but I don't think they are in the same category unless you use it in the
Platonic sense. In which case it has been rejected by modern philosophers as
assumptive in the same way most God beliefs are.
I don't think you are ever testing out the hypothesis that beauty exists by
noticing what appeals to you as beautiful in the world. You are just evaluating
what you experience through your own criteria. God beliefs are not like that at
all IMO. They are not just an evaluation through your personal taste. They are
a statement of what actually exists ontologically based on reasons that we can
evaluate as strong or weak ones.
SD: My post was not specifically using beauty as a stand-in for God. However,
if I chose to use my concept of God as a framework, a filter, through which to
view that which appears to exist, (which I am not particularly inclined to do),
I don't see that as fundamentally different than using beauty as a lens. I
realize that any filters that I impose on what exists in the present moment may
or not bring meaning to life or identity.
C2: I think linguistic philosophers might object to this paring of the words,
meaning with life or identity. I don't share that assumption that it
meaningful, and am not sure it is a proper use of word combinations. Just
because we can pair words doesn't mean they are meaningful or refer to actual
things. For example I don't believe that the phrase "the meaning of life" is
meaningful in itself. I think it is a misuse of language. Life needs no
meaning. Our personal life can be guided by the meaning we chose for it. But on
its own, I don't believe life needs or has a meaning. Same with identity, It
needs no intrinsic meaning. You are just lucky to be conscious of having one
for a certain period of time so party on! Choose a great purpose and meaning
for your life and start swinging for the fences. Or not. It doesn't matter
except for you. I don't know what having beauty as a lens for experience would
mean. Does it mean looking for things in the world that you find beautiful?
That sounds delightful.
