What is Beauty?

[John K]

I would argue that clouds are not objectively beautiful since if they were, Beethoven would have been mistaken that he made real errors in his waste paper pile. He would have been wrong that he was making real improvements to his music. Do you see the problem?

I do - and there is profound truth in what you are saying. I see it acutely in my photography where a very slight change in a composition can make the difference between complete success and miserable failure. But that doesn’t mean that there can’t be forms of beauty where this doesn’t hold. I certainly have a profound perception of beauty in many things that are constantly changing - like the weather - and other people too seem to find them beautiful so it isn’t purely solo subjective. But this goes back to my earlier post where I suggest that beauty is only present when internal and external events are brought together in a personal perspective. Many people do not like Beethoven’s music and don’t find it beautiful at all in whatever variant (death’s too good for them of course ). I think there may be an objective meta-system that is operating, but what it outputs as a perception of beauty is critically dependent on what it is fed.

 

[wolly.green]

But this goes back to my earlier post where I suggest that beauty is only present when internal and external events are brought together in a personal perspective.

Oh this is where we disagree. I'll assume you are right for a moment. What I think you are trying to say is that there are forms of beauty that do not have to be created or fussed over like Beethovens symphonies. These forms, like clouds, can come together without intelligent intervention or creative oversight. I also believe this must be true! But my point was not that ONLY intelligent agents can create beauty. My point is that beautiful things are hard to vary. "Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace on phrase and the structure would fall apart"

You could argue that clouds are objectively beautiful given the above criterion, I do not know. But again, let's suppose that beauty is not hard to vary. Suppose that a child splashing paint on a canvas is ALWAYS beautiful. Not sometimes beautiful, but ALWAYS. If all forms of art are equally beautiful, then improvement is not really objective. But if this is true, then you have to explain why every person that thinks they are objectively improving an artistic standard of beauty is actually not. Why are all these people wrong?

Your argument implies that these people are wrong because all things are beautiful given the right internal and external events are brought together in a personal perspective. But this raises a further problem. Why should anyone believe that randomly banging pots and pans is as beautiful as Mozarts 5th. This is what requires explaining. Although you might be right, an explanation is due. Why are pots and pans equal to Mozart?

 

[ThomasJ79]

I see where you are going. But let us assume that there are such aliens, and that they do have completely different standards of beauty than humans. Would whatever they experience still be "beauty"? If it is, then it seems to me that humans on the one hand, and aliens on the other, having different standards of beauty presupposes the existence of a unified and objective concept of beauty from the viewpoint of which the different 'local' standards (human, alien, etc.) may be derived.

I think another way to express this idea is the following: when we say that beauty is "subjective", it seems to me that we are not really defining beauty. We are just saying that whatever beauty is, happens to be mediated subjectively. But plausibly, all experiences of beauty, no matter how varied, have something in common. What this thing is is one of the interesting leads here, I think; though the question is by no means easily answered.

I would think that if it wasn't beauty, as we understand it, they were experiencing, it would be analogous to it. I don't think we can make the leap from the subjectivity of beauty to an objective one just because the experience of beauty is present. It is an experience and not something that is built into objects from a higher standard of beauty. Where would that higher standard come from? A deity? S separate plane of existence?

I don't really think beauty exists outside of our minds, it is a product of complex brain states, an experience. An object isn't beautiful, it is perceived as beautiful. It is how certain qualities affect the perceiver which creates beauty. It is like the experience of hot or cold. There is no absolute, objective coldness or hotness, but a range of what is generally considered hot and cold by humans. It may not apply to other species or aliens; they may have something similar to hot and cold experiences, but at different temperatures. Now beauty may be reduced to certain things like symmetry and proportions, but beauty can exist in its opposites as well. An asymmetric, disproportionate looking creature or object can be beautiful is well. Beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder, but it isn't entirely subjective either; our brains are wired with certain limitations in common. We can say that humans have a mean as a group that is dependent on the wider culture they belong too, but that is beauty by consensus. We can't say that beauty is only what the average number, or even most people agree on. The people who differ on it aren't any more wrong, just different. One person's bath being 'too hot' is another's 'just right'.

This is similar to concepts such as "good" and "bad". They can be defined in very general way, such as everyone has their own concept of them, but they can't be said to be objective. Language; it's a beautiful thing, is it not? :

 

[John K]

Oh this is where we disagree. I'll assume you are right for a moment. What I think you are trying to say is that there are forms of beauty that do not have to be created or fussed over like Beethovens symphonies. These forms, like clouds, can come together without intelligent intervention or creative oversight. I also believe this must be true! But my point was not that ONLY intelligent agents can create beauty. My point is that beautiful things are hard to vary. "Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace on phrase and the structure would fall apart"

You could argue that clouds are objectively beautiful given the above criterion, I do not know. But again, let's suppose that beauty is not hard to vary. Suppose that a child splashing paint on a canvas is ALWAYS beautiful. Not sometimes beautiful, but ALWAYS. If all forms of art are equally beautiful, then improvement is not really objective. But if this is true, then you have to explain why every person that thinks they are objectively improving an artistic standard of beauty is actually not. Why are all these people wrong?

Your argument implies that these people are wrong because all things are beautiful given the right internal and external events are brought together in a personal perspective. But this raises a further problem. Why should anyone believe that randomly banging pots and pans is as beautiful as Mozarts 5th. This is what requires explaining. Although you might be right, an explanation is due. Why are pots and pans equal to Mozart?

Ah, I'm not saying that all things seem beautiful to me. But are you saying there are no naturally beautiful people because they haven't been crafted to a fine perfection like a work of art? I don't think all scenery is beautiful, nor all cloud landscapes. Nor do I think all random noise is beautiful either. I'm just saying that I find many natural things intensely beautiful, and many things that are changing and reconfiguring with some element of randomness manage to retain the beauty that I experience - it is the source of inspitation for much of my photography. Some pots and pans sounds can be good too - the jazz pianist Oscar Peterson recorded some of his best music in cafes, and the sound of people eating in the background of these recordings adds immeasurably to their atmosphere for me, though taken on it's own it would not be of any aesthetic value.

But I'm in danger of sounding far more definite about this than perhaps I am - it's just that that my personal experience of beauty in nature does not seem to present itself to me differently to how I experience it in something exquisitely crafted. Maybe the difference here is one of semantics and the beauty in nature should actually be treated as a different thing to the beauty in a human created work of art?

 

[wolly.green]

Ah, I'm not saying that all things seem beautiful to me. But are you saying there are no naturally beautiful people because they haven't been crafted to a fine perfection like a work of art? I don't think all scenery is beautiful, nor all cloud landscapes. Nor do I think all random noise is beautiful either. I'm just saying that I find many natural things intensely beautiful, and many things that are changing and reconfiguring with some element of randomness manage to retain the beauty that I experience - it is the source of inspitation for much of my photography. Some pots and pans sounds can be good too - the jazz pianist Oscar Peterson recorded some of his best music in cafes, and the sound of people eating in the background of these recordings adds immeasurably to their atmosphere for me, though taken on it's own it would not be of any aesthetic value.

But I'm in danger of sounding far more definite about this than perhaps I am - it's just that that my personal experience of beauty in nature does not seem to present itself to me differently to how I experience it in something exquisitely crafted. Maybe the difference here is one of semantics and the beauty in nature should actually be treated as a different thing to the beauty in a human created work of art?

Oh no, human beauty is hard to vary because it was created by natural selection. Which is creative force of its own. That's the reason things in nature of are also hard to vary, because they were created by a process of variation and selection. The beauty in flowers has been excavate slowly over thousand of years by the co-evolution of flowers and bees which makes them hard to vary. Human beauty has been excavate slowly over millions of years by a sexual arms race between man and woman which makes it hard to vary also.

Above you said "I don't think all scenery is beautiful, nor all cloud landscapes." However, above you also said "I find beauty in other examples of apparent randomness - the scattering of the stars, the pattern of waves on a shoreline or out at sea, the sound of wind in the trees". The key word here is "apparent". Are you appreciating randomness or not?

If you are, then you have to ask yourself 'what is it about this randomness that I like? Is it merely an intellectual curiosity, or is there something within the randomness that I am perceiving as beautiful'. Is it just that you like anything randomly, or is there some combination of elements in nature that come together in very specific ways to make something beautiful. If the former, then you must concede that EVERYTHING is beautiful. If the latter, then you agree with my criteria. You appreciate features in nature because they are hard to vary. In which case, there really aren't two kinds of beauty. This is only one kind.

Suppose you do agree with my criteria. The next question to be asked is: can one thing be more beautiful than another. If not, then mozart really was wrong that there are real mistakes in his waste paper pile. Are you willing to commit to this. Are you willing to say that mozart is completely and utterly wrong?

 

[John K]

Oh no, human beauty is hard to vary because it was created by natural selection. Which is creative force of its own. That's the reason things in nature of are also hard to vary, because they were created by a process of variation and selection. The beauty in flowers has been excavate slowly over thousand of years by the co-evolution of flowers and bees which makes them hard to vary. Human beauty has been excavate slowly over millions of years by a sexual arms race between man and woman which makes it hard to vary also.

Above you said "I don't think all scenery is beautiful, nor all cloud landscapes." However, above you also said "I find beauty in other examples of apparent randomness - the scattering of the stars, the pattern of waves on a shoreline or out at sea, the sound of wind in the trees". The key word here is "apparent". Are you appreciating randomness or not?

If you are, then you have to ask yourself 'what is it about this randomness that I like? Is it merely an intellectual curiosity, or is there something within the randomness that I am perceiving as beautiful'. Is it just that you like anything randomly, or is there some combination of elements in nature that come together in very specific ways to make something beautiful. If the former, then you must concede that EVERYTHING is beautiful. If the latter, then you agree with my criteria. You appreciate features in nature because they are hard to vary. In which case, there really aren't two kinds of beauty. This is only one kind.

Suppose you do agree with my criteria. The next question to be asked is: can one thing be more beautiful than another. If not, then mozart really was wrong that there are real mistakes in his waste paper pile. Are you willing to commit to this. Are you willing to say that mozart is completely and utterly wrong?

Ah I understand what you are saying OK about your criteria. I think this is akin to what I described as a feeling of 'rightness' about something that is beautiful, but of course you are adding a lot of extra detail on what determines that rightness.

It might be easier to show rather than describe some of the things I experience as beautiful, but which contain elements of randomness, contingency, or transience. These are all fairly recent photos I've taken. I love the textures and colours of the different elements in some of these and the contrasts between them. In this context, I think it's important to emphasise that what I am picking out here is the beauty I saw in the original situation. People may or may not find my particular photographic expressions have some beauty, but I'm showing you what inspired me rather than what I made of it.

Spoiler

 

[Ren]

@wolly.green @John K

Wow, there seems to be quite the aesthetic debate going on!

I hope you don't mind if I join in at some point

 

[John K]

@wolly.green @John K

Wow, there seems to be quite the aesthetic debate going on!

I hope you don't mind if I join in at some point

Please do Ren ... very much ok with me!

 

[Ren]

Things are beautiful if they are hard to vary.

OK, I read your entire argument and I would have — quickly — two possible objections to offer to begin with.

First, it seems to me that by defining the beautiful as "what is hard to vary", you are begging the question about the nature of beauty. Because to define the beautiful as "what is hard to vary" really means: "what is hard to vary without no longer being beautiful". But then, you are saying the following: "The beautiful is what is hard to vary without no longer being beautiful". You are covertly defining the beautiful in terms of the beautiful, and so you get trapped in a circle.

Now, the second objection is linked to the first. One possible way out of the circle would be to say: "The beautiful is what is hard to vary without no longer being attractive", or at least "without losing in attractiveness". (In many of your quotations from Deutsch, it is attraction and not beauty that is referred to). But it seems that this greatly weakens the argument, for it comes at the price of conflating attractiveness and beauty, which are not the same thing. In any case, the onus would be on you to demonstrate that they are.

 

[Reverist]

Beauty is that which pleases the senses.

I think beauty can be experienced both internally and externally like extraverted and introverted sensing and can be seen, heard, felt, etc., through the five physical senses (Se), or through positive impressions of one’s own personal experience (Si).

 

[wolly.green]

of course you are adding a lot of extra detail on what determines that rightness.

Such as? I'm going to guess at what you mean. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

What I think you mean is that you are not deliberately choosing which elements in nature look beautiful together, and which do not. There is almost no conscious deliberation in bringing together just the right elements, in just the right way to make your photo beautiful. You merely see something and feel inspired. It is that which is beyond your comprehension that draws you towards it, the beauty in nature that inspires you to capture the moment and keep it forever. I 100 percent believe that this is how you engage with photography. Through moments of pure brilliance. However, as you already know, natural selection is not a deliberative either. It has no conscious oversight that guides it towards objective standards of beauty. Yet it gets there all the same.

My point is not that 'hard to vary' implies you must engage deliberatively to find beauty in nature. It is not that one must creatively seize nature to find those little nuggets of beauty. Far from infact. My point is that, conscious or not, you are perceiving a kind of order. A structure that is beyond comprehension, yet completely apparent. And in that incomprehensible structure, beauty emerges because the elements composed within are 'hard to vary'. Does this clear everything up? Am I understanding you correctly?

It might be easier to show rather than describe some of the things I experience as beautiful, but which contain elements of randomness, contingency, or transience. These are all fairly recent photos I've taken. I love the textures and colours of the different elements in some of these and the contrasts between them. In this context, I think it's important to emphasise that what I am picking out here is the beauty I saw in the original situation. People may or may not find my particular photographic expressions have some beauty, but I'm showing you what inspired me rather than what I made of it.

Oh wow, beautiful! I love them! Are they taken close to where you live?

 

[wolly.green]

First, it seems to me that by defining the beautiful as "what is hard to vary", you are begging the question about the nature of beauty. Because to define the beautiful as "what is hard to vary" really means: "what is hard to vary without no longer being beautiful". But then, you are saying the following: "The beautiful is what is hard to vary without no longer being beautiful". You are covertly defining the beautiful in terms of the beautiful, and so you get trapped in a circle.

I'm don't really understand what you're asking me. It's obvious you can see a circular argument, so I'm going to guess what it is.

I said that something is beautiful because it is hard to vary. Yet in the same breath I have said 'things are hard to vary because they are beautiful' . I've put myself in a situation that looks something like the following.

A because B
B because A

Its a circular argument right? Not exactly, and here's why. I never meant that something is hard to vary because it is beautiful. I don't believe that at all. Good scientific explanations are also hard to vary, yet they are not aesthetically beautiful. I mean you could debate whether a scientific theory is beautiful. But to be honest, I don't really care because that's not the point.

Now, the second objection is linked to the first. One possible way out of the circle would be to say: "The beautiful is what is hard to vary without no longer being attractive", or at least "without losing in attractiveness". (In many of your quotations from Deutsch, it is attraction and not beauty that is referred to). But it seems that this greatly weakens the argument, for it comes at the price of conflating attractiveness and beauty, which are not the same thing. In any case, the onus would be on you to demonstrate that they are.

I don't understand this either. I'm sorry but could you please reword what you said so I can engage with you on it.

 

[OK007]

The joy I have had in reading these wonderful posts reinforces what the true meaning of beauty is. That is if we chose to give it a label very basic as beautiful or attractive or even intriguing we are only grasping at the word we chose to describe what moves us. If I were to attend a symphony with a pre-defined notion of beauty and limit myself to just enjoying the amazing sounds that radiate towards me I would fail to see the intention of those playing the music. Maybe if I
closed my eyes and felt that violinist as he or she performed their solo...yes I think then I might start to be moved by the "Beauty" that can't be defined. It is interesting that there is but twelve individual notes all "Beautiful" as they stand alone, but in varying combinations they produce infinite melodies that bring us to laughter and tears...they move us. So I choose to define beauty as the positive energy that is all around us. We all have paint brushes and all are masters of melody.

I have enjoyed all the amazing thoughts on this subject and it is a genuine joy to be able to be exposed to this level of insight. Thank you all.

"The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble." - Blaise Pascal

 

[wolly.green]

So I choose to define beauty as the positive energy that is all around us. We all have paint brushes and all are masters of melody.

Have you been watching The OA?

Anyway, I remember Dave from Objective Personality talking about how he uses his feelings to help him find the keys. It's such a bizzare thing to do, yet it is so common. That one statement is actually a gem that has helped me immeasurably to understand Feeling types more deeply. It now makes sense why feelers would say things like "your heart speaks the truth" or "beauty is the positive energy around you." It's truly such an alien way to percieve the world, yet it makes perfect sense! Actually, your comment has helped me connect more dots, so thanks for that.

 

[John K]

Such as? I'm going to guess at what you mean. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

What I think you mean is that you are not deliberately choosing which elements in nature look beautiful together, and which do not. There is almost no conscious deliberation in bringing together just the right elements, in just the right way to make your photo beautiful. You merely see something and feel inspired. It is that which is beyond your comprehension that draws you towards it, the beauty in nature that inspires you to capture the moment and keep it forever. I 100 percent believe that this is how you engage with photography. Through moments of pure brilliance. However, as you already know, natural selection is not a deliberative either. It has no conscious oversight that guides it towards objective standards of beauty. Yet it gets there all the same.

My point is not that 'hard to vary' implies you must engage deliberatively to find beauty in nature. It is not that one must creatively seize nature to find those little nuggets of beauty. Far from infact. My point is that, conscious or not, you are perceiving a kind of order. A structure that is beyond comprehension, yet completely apparent. And in that incomprehensible structure, beauty emerges because the elements composed within are 'hard to vary'. Does this clear everything up? Am I understanding you correctly?

Yes that’s a great expression of how I experience beauty . I think perhaps the main difference between how we understand the process of perceiving it is that for me it is a just-right feeling that I haven’t deconstructed and don’t really feel any need to. So it seems to me that your concept of beauty being tied to a great precision in the way a beautiful object is expressed represents the kind of things that might be inside that box if I were to open the lid. I have to add that the expression ‘just right’ really doesn’t do justice to how I experience it. There is a numinous quality to something or someone beautiful that is part of that feeling - inferior Se gives them a magical glow sometime.

Oh wow, beautiful! I love them! Are they taken close to where you live?

I’m glad you like them . They are all in England - first two from the Yorkshire coast, the next two from the Cornish coast, next three were from around my home (including the moon ) and the last from Yorkshire. I hope they show how I appreciate the beauty in things that have a random element to them - it’s easier than trying to explain it. There certainly is considerable precision in the selection and presentation of each composition (apart from the moon shot). The random elements are contrasted either with something very non-random, or are structured precisely between each other by the composition. Slight differences can make or break the success of the photo, and all of these could be improved in some way. The beauty I saw in the original situations is rather different and isn’t so sensitive to modification. The same location and it’s ambience can be beautiful through all the changes in light and weather and time of year, and from many different viewpoints but of course that beauty is different as the changes unfold.

 

[wolly.green]

I think perhaps the main difference between how we understand the process of perceiving it is that for me it is a just-right feeling that I haven’t deconstructed and don’t really feel any need to.

This is exactly what was meant when I said "you are not deliberately choosing which elements in nature look beautiful together, and which do not. There is almost no conscious deliberation in bringing together just the right elements, in just the right way to make your photo beautiful. You merely see something and feel inspired." So no, there is no disagreement or difference here.

 

[Ren]

I'm don't really understand what you're asking me. It's obvious you can see a circular argument, so I'm going to guess what it is.

I said that something is beautiful because it is hard to vary. Yet in the same breath I have said 'things are hard to vary because they are beautiful' . I've put myself in a situation that looks something like the following.

A because B
B because A

Its a circular argument right? Not exactly, and here's why. I never meant that something is hard to vary because it is beautiful. I don't believe that at all. Good scientific explanations are also hard to vary, yet they are not aesthetically beautiful. I mean you could debate whether a scientific theory is beautiful. But to be honest, I don't really care because that's not the point.

Very good. But then, it seems to follow that being hard to vary is a necessary but not sufficient condition for beauty. (Otherwise, good scientific explanations, etc. would also be beautiful). But if being hard to vary is not a sufficient condition for beauty, then the properties in virtue of which something is hard to vary, are not the ones — or at least not the only ones — that explain why that thing is beautiful. So it is not quite true that something is beautiful "because" it is hard to vary. Being hard to vary cannot be the cause of something's beauty, otherwise everything that is hard to vary, would be beautiful. But this is not the case.

At best, you could say: being hard to vary is one of the essential properties of beautiful things; something must have that property in order to be beautiful. But it does not capture the essence of beauty as such. There must be something else.

I don't understand this either. I'm sorry but could you please reword what you said so I can engage with you on it.

I meant that resorting to the concept of attractiveness might provide a way out of the circle, but would pose its own set of problems. Obviously you can't define beauty in terms of beauty, but you could perhaps define beauty in terms of a certain "high" degree of attractiveness, defined biologically or otherwise; which is itself hard to vary. And you could say that just this is the essence of beauty: high attractiveness that is hard to vary. But the problems that would crop up, I think, would have to do with how to define the "high degree" of attractiveness at which it becomes beauty, and why/how a such a qualitative leap happens.

 

[wolly.green]

At best, you could say: being hard to vary is one of the essential properties of beautiful things; something must have that property in order to be beautiful. But it does not capture the essence of beauty as such. There must be something else.

This is exactly what I wanted to say. Whatever it is that beauty might be, we know it MUST be hard to vary

I meant that resorting to the concept of attractiveness might provide a way out of the circle, but would pose its own set of problems. Obviously you can't define beauty in terms of beauty, but you could perhaps define beauty in terms of a certain "high" degree of attractiveness, defined biologically or otherwise; which is itself hard to vary. And you could say that just this is the essence of beauty: high attractiveness that is hard to vary. But the problems that would crop up, I think, would have to do with how to define the "high degree" of attractiveness at which it becomes beauty, and why/how a such a qualitative leap happens.

No I wouldn't say that either. Actually youve given me an idea. We know that beautiful things must be hard to vary and must be attractive? We also know it has something to do with your senses. Maybe a thing is beautiful if it is both hard to vary, and induces you to observe longer. And by observe, I mean with your eyes, ears, hands, tongue, nose or whatever other sensing device is able to observe reality. Ill have to think about it.

 

[Ren]

No I wouldn't say that either. Actually youve given me an idea. We know that beautiful things must be hard to vary and must be attractive? We also know it has something to do with your senses. Maybe a thing is beautiful if it is both hard to vary, and induces you to observe longer. And by observe, I mean with your eyes, ears, hands, tongue, nose or whatever other sensing device is able to observe reality. Ill have to think about it.

Sounds promising! Let me know if/when you have arrived at an expression of this idea that we can discuss together in turn.

 

[Elis]

Beauty is simple. It's nailing the core principles that play to our values.