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what is it?
Originally posted by loop quantum gravity
so questions like is this theory aestetic or is this equation beautiful are a concern to the theory?
Originally posted by loop quantum gravity
what is it?
Originally posted by quantumcarl
This is a complex question.
As with beauty, value is in the eye of the beholder.
Intrinsic values... anyone!?
I read a bit of that article and skipped down a bit to the hedonism section and read that too before deciding that I dislike the authors POV/philosophy.Originally posted by Guybrush Threepwood
I don't know. here's some serious definition...I was just reading that
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_theory
the question isn't the complex one but the subject in question might be.Originally posted by quantumcarl
This is a complex question.
Originally posted by Royce
Is this an invitation for me to to continue by beauty is or can be intrinsic.
My point is/was that unlike the falling tree in the woods not making any sound... Beauty remains after the beholder leaves. Nothing changes and when another beholder comes by s/he too can see and appreciate the beauty.
By the way I thing "value" should be a subtopic of quality. Value implys usefulness and cost or desire to own or partake. It I think is strictly in the eye or wallet. Mankind values something and give it value. Quality of which beauty is a type of quality is or can be intrinsic. IMHO
Originally posted by wuliheron
Value and beauty are subtopics of virtue. We are the belief makers, and virtue is its own reward.
That is why this subject is so hard for people, not because it is intrinsically more complex than others, but because it cuts to the bone.
Originally posted by Royce
If beauty is appreciated by multiple species doesn't this imply that it is not just us that bestow the virtue of beauty upon something or that beauty is strictly in the eye of the beholder?
Originally posted by Royce
In my day it was Fay Wray. I have been trying to think of a good example that was at least defendable. I thought that maybe I have overstated my case. I have seen animals, dogs and cats smell flowers and look at them for long periods and this is what I had in mind but I can't defend it as obviously admiring beauty though it seemed that that was what they were doing at the time.
I recently watched a program about a captive young female gorilla that had been taught sign language. She looked over photographs of captive male Gorillas. The point was for her to pick a potential mate. She barely glanced at most of them but came upon one that "caught her fancy". She would not even look a the rest of the photos. The story has a happy ending in that the choosen male was brought to her and put into her compound. She was the aggressor as she already knew that he was the one that she wanted. They eventually bred and she had a baby gorilla and they all lived happily ever after. Is this a good example of another species reognizing and appreciating beauty, at least what is beauty to a gorilla?
Another example that I thought of was birds and various mammels, pack rats, etc, collecting shiny objects that are of no use to them. Or the sex specific colors and markings of various birds and animals. They may be beautiful to us but is it beauty to them? If not why spend all that time and energy to have those markings and to show them off so predominately? I don't know if any of these are really valid examples but they are what I had in mind when I wrote it. Can anybody help me with this, come up with better examples?
Originally posted by Royce
We all seem to agree to a point. That point is IMO where the recognition and appreciation of beauty for what ever reason or cause is in fact separate from the characteristic itself of whatever we are sensing i.e. seeing hearing tasting feeling etc. The appreciation is subjective. The characteristics that make the object beautiful to us are intrinsic, objective and material. Can we call those characteristics beauty, quality, virtue in and of themselves? I think so. They, the characteristics do not change or go away when we no longer look at the object. When we come back or another person comes along those characteristics that make the object beautiful are still there to be appreciated all over again.
Admittedly I am a romantic. To me the thing that makes something beautiful is not our ability to see it but a property of the thing itself and thus it is intrinsic. Is a scientific formula or law elegant and beautiful of itself, of its own properties, or is it simply because we choose to call those properties beautiful and elegant? That I think is the crux of the matter.
I choose to be a romantic and choose to believe that there is real beauty in the universe not just something that I deem to be beautiful because it reminds me of something to eat or procreate with.
"The characteristics that make the object beautiful to us are intrinsic, objective and material. Can we call those characteristics beauty, quality, virtue in and of themselves?"
Originally posted by Royce
The question remains is the rose beautiful in and of itself or is it beautiful only because we say so. The latter is arrogance beyond belief IMO. The former is more natural and going with the flow. Allowing the universe to be beautiful and contain beauty and appreciating it and life that much more because of it.
Originally posted by hypnagogue
Royce, I think I would appreciate your position more if you could logically distinguish it from the perception of so called secondary qualities such as color. All the arguments you have made thus far could be applied equally well to the position that color is not a subjective phenomenon but exists inherently in the objects we attribute it to. But there are many arguments against the idea that color is not a subjective phenomenon, and likewise these arguments can be put forth against your position in order to maintain that beauty, too, is a secondary quality or subjective phenomenon. So what arguments can you make for beauty existing inherently in objects we perceive to be beautiful that cannot also be made for color existing inherently in objects we perceive to be colorful?
Originally posted by Royce
Quantumcarl, you statement seems to contradict itself in my mind. You say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder yet later say that ethics, of which beauty is a part of, is intrinsic.
Are you agreeing with my position or did I misunderstand your post?
Possibly ou are saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder but that eye being able to see and appreciate beauty is due to billions of years of evolution and thus intrinsic? Please explain.
Originally posted by Royce
I have been thinking about this for the last couple of days since you brought it up. This is what I have come up with so far. There are two different aspects of color physically. one is the color of light itself determined by the frequence or wave length of the light which is determined by the energy level of the photon wave particles. We percieve the various frequencies that we can see as different colors
We may say, think, feel that one color is particularly beautiful to us because of its purity and hue. That of course is sujective; however it is that purity and frequency that is the physical properies of that light that make it, for us, beautiful. Those properities do not change and are inherent and intrinsic to that light that we call beautiful. It is the physical properties that determine the beauty of the light. We see the light and recognize and appreciate its beauty.
The other aspect of color is reflected or refracted color by an object such as humming birds or wings of a butterfly. It is the property of the structure of the wings or feathers that determine the color that is reflected or refracted that we see and call beautiful; thus, it is again the physical intrinsic propery of the reflecting surface that determine what we see, perceive, It is what we call beautiful.
Color is determined by physical properties of objects emitting, filtering as in colored glass, reflecting as in a rose or refracting as in the featers of a bird or scales of a butterfly's wing. We see and perceive these colors and may call them beautiful. That which makes one color beautiful and the other not is usually due to the purity and frequency of the color which is determined by the physical properties of the medium from which that color originates. It is the light or color that is beautiful. It is the properties of the origin tha determine the color of the light. Thos properties are intrinsic and thus the beauty is intrinsic.
How did I do so far?
Originally posted by Royce
The frequency of the light does not change from person to person but the color perceived not only may change but most likely does change from person to person.
Yet we by convention call light of a certain frequence/wavelength blue. It is a characteristic property of light at that given wavelength that we define as blue. There are those who are color blind and cannot see blue at all or cannot distinguish it from green. This does not change the color of the light nor does it change it's charateristic propery of blue.