Why are things beautiful?

[Piggy]

My opinion is that finding things beautiful is an evolved mechanism. After all, those humans who find nothing in life beautiful or wonderful often are the ones that end up with no will to live.

Interesting idea. I like it.

 

[Piggy]

I don't think I can agree with the universality of beauty idea.

For example, a superstitious fellow living in the forest not far from your pristine waterfall may envisage it in his dreams as a great, roaring, ugly beast.

Even if he were to see the falls, his lifelong fear would prevent him from seeing the beauty that you and I would see.

Yes, but that's not inconsistent with what I'm saying.

I'm not claiming that there is any universality to what individuals find to be beautiful, but rather that all cultures, our species as a whole, has the experience of finding some things beautiful.

And we could imagine the evolution of aliens, for example, who don't have that function in their brains and would have to learn intellectually what this whole "beauty" thing is about.

 

[Piggy]

Yes there is doubt because you have not defined "beautiful" and so we could be discussing any definition of it.
For example how do we measure beauty so that we can compare the "beautifulness" of things? (remember this is the science forum - any studies need that definition in order to test it).

Well, language is my field, so when you start veering off into this, what jumps out at me is the impossibility of definition.

So I'm going to defer again. If there is any real doubt what we're talking about, then we can go there.

But as it stands, it seems we all know what we're talking about, so this exercise would merely cloud the issue rather than clarifying it.

 

[Piggy]

I agree with Logical Muse.

Why do most people find babies beautiful ?
Why do most men find young women with large hips beautiful ?

Even your waterfall example makes sense rationnaly, a place with a source of fresh water nearby is a good place to establish a camp / farm / hamlet...

Right, but think about it a moment... the same benefits could be gotten without finding these things beautiful. Other experiences/emotions could step in: protectiveness, paternalism, lust, a sense of satisfaction, trust.

Perhaps beauty is a kind of short-cut, an easy global response that covers a variety of circumstances?

Or maybe it's an accidental corollary, a side-effect of our innate positive reaction to certain prized and beneficial things?

Or maybe, as SkeptiChick proposes, its evolutionary advantage arises as a result of our highly complex brains, which seem to crave meaning and purpose and which find it difficult, often impossible, to continue to function if these are absent. Maybe beauty is like meaning and purpose, one of the things which makes life seem worth living to us.

 

[Piggy]

Yes, you are.

From your POV perhaps I am. From mine, I'm not. Nuff said. If you'd like to discuss whether or not this is a necessarily philosophical question, that would need to take place in another forum.

 

[Piggy]

I would have to agree with an earlier post that a definition of beauty is needed for this discussion. Not so much for your responses, Piggy, but others are starting to stray from my idea of "finding something beautiful." Waterfalls to me are amazing, but I don't find them beautiful. Expanses of desert with different hues of color at sunset is equally amazing and colorful, but is it beautiful? I don't know, what exactly is being beautiful? Appealing to the eye? Every animal has this if the latter is the right definition.

I see a boondoggle ahead there, so I don't care to propose a definition.

For instance, I think your point here is perfectly understandable. If you ask these folks, "But do you really find it beautiful, or just amazing?" they can probably give you a proper response.

If other posters feel the need to establish a stipulative definition of the purposes of this thread, then by all means, go ahead. I have my doubts, tho, that it will be constructive.

 

[blue sock monkey]

Perhaps beauty is a kind of short-cut, an easy global response that covers a variety of circumstances?

I think the sense of beauty could have begun as a kind of short-hand for "healthy people/useful location/yummy critters". The sense would be universal, but--us being human--the actual things that trigger the sense would change over time.

 

[!Kaggen]

From a scientific point of view, why is it that we should find our world so often beautiful, even overwhelmingly so, even at times when it is attempting to destroy us?

Have you perhaps thought about how you might go about using the scientific method to test this observation for universality and repeatability?

 

[The Man]

I agree with other posters that the perception of beauty is something that migth provide some evolutionary advantage. From a scientific standpoint, what is considered beautiful appears to have a lot to do with symmetry. Perhaps not just visual symmetry but maybe also including some conceptual symmetry. Like both sides of any equation balancing out or that an area with water and food means survival, thus a perfect or beautiful place to settle. Symmetry tends to relay the perception of perfection or at least a degree of perfection in proportioning (enough available food and water for everyone in the clan). So from an evolutionary standpoint that perception of perfection, symmetry or beauty might be a factor in selecting where to live and even a mate to pass on those perceptually ‘perfect’ characteristics.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry

http://www.yestheyrefake.net/ideal_beauty.htm

http://yestheyrefake.net/ideal_beauty2.htm

 

[Doubt]

All though there are aspects of beauty that can be investigated by science, the question in the opening post is still philosophical in nature.

Aspects that science can consider are things like why the golden ratio is appealing to humans. But that is not beauty. It is a common attribute of beauty.

Defining what is beauty will remain the province of philosophy until we have a better tool set to define and explain what we observe in a emotional context. Until then, the question remains for the philosophers regardless of negative emotional feelings about philosophy.

 

[!Kaggen]

All though there are aspects of beauty that can be investigated by science, the question in the opening post is still philosophical in nature.

Aspects that science can consider are things like why the golden ratio is appealing to humans. But that is not beauty. It is a common attribute of beauty.

Defining what is beauty will remain the province of philosophy until we have a better tool set to define and explain what we observe in a emotional context. Until then, the question remains for the philosophers regardless of negative emotional feelings about philosophy.

I agree.
You cannot do scientific research on something you have not defined.

 

[volatile]

I agree.
You cannot do scientific research on something you have not defined.

Indeed.

Why do people profess that they "hate philosophy" or "think philosophy is worthless" whilst at the same time pondering intrinsically philosophical questions?

 

[The Man]

All though there are aspects of beauty that can be investigated by science, the question in the opening post is still philosophical in nature.

Aspects that science can consider are things like why the golden ratio is appealing to humans. But that is not beauty. It is a common attribute of beauty.

Defining what is beauty will remain the province of philosophy until we have a better tool set to define and explain what we observe in a emotional context. Until then, the question remains for the philosophers regardless of negative emotional feelings about philosophy.

Do we not often scientifically investigate things by identifying and examining those attributes that are common to what is being investigated?

 

[blue sock monkey]

Why do people profess that they "hate philosophy" or "think philosophy is worthless" whilst at the same time pondering intrinsically philosophical questions?

Because on a forum such as this, we never seem to get past the attempt to define?

 

[The Man]

I agree.
You cannot do scientific research on something you have not defined.

How do you really define beauty without identifying and examining the common attributes of what is considered beautiful?

 

[volatile]

Because on a forum such as this, we never seem to get past the attempt to define?

Maybe you're right. But the nature of beauty isn't simply a matter of semantics; it's not really simply a linguistic question. It's an ontological one, and an epistemological one.

In fact, one whole branch of philosophy - aesthetics - is concerned with the "what" of beauty. Whilst scientific can undoubtedly shed light on certain "how's" of beauty, as Doubt said, we don't have the tool set yet do empiricise the "what". Even when we do, such investigations will need to be done with an understanding of exactly what one is trying to investigate - and so we're back to philosophy again.

Empirical aesthetics goes right back to people like Theodore Lipps at the turn of the 20th century. Recently, neuroscientists and aesthetic philosophers have joined forces under the methodological banner of neuroaesthetics (see Zeki from the science side, and Onians from the visual philosophy side), but whilst it does use neuroscientific evidence to inform its thinking, neuroaesthetics is still more philosophy than science.

 

[Dymanic]

I agree with Doubt and volatile -- it IS a philosophical question, regardless of how emphatically you may declare it to be a scientific one. You have already framed it in philosophical terms by asking:

"I wonder, are there creatures out there on some other planet who wake up, go outside, and find the universe unbearably ugly?"

Those who do have patience for philosophy will recognize this immediately as an inquiry into Platonic Essence. As it is, you have simply taken your philosophical baggage on board unexamined.

 

[volatile]

How do you really define beauty without identifying and examining the common attributes of what is considered beautiful?

Because beauty, as a subjective concept, can't be defined simply through recourse to statistics. You could say "75% of people think circles are beautiful, therefore they are", but then how do you account for the guy who thinks circles are ugly?

"The common attributes of what is considered beautiful" is an interesting (and certainly scientific) question, that may be approached in a number of scientifically-legitimate ways, from statistical anthropology via neuroscience or evolutionary psychology. But what exactly "beautiful" means remains a philosophical question.

 

[blue sock monkey]

In fact, one whole branch of philosophy - aesthetics - is concerned with the "what" of beauty. Whilst scientific can undoubtedly shed light on certain "how's" of beauty, as Doubt said, we don't have the tool set yet do empiricise the "what". Even when we do, such investigations will need to be done with an understanding of exactly what one is trying to investigate - and so we're back to philosophy again.

I suspect beauty is not primarily a "what" but a "how." That is, we have innate predispositions for certain factors--symmetry, clarity, whatever--which are developed by culture to produce what a society finds beautiful. Individuals will vary within that culture according to their unique memes. So from my (still rather vague) perspective, the foundation for the search might actually be more physiological than philosophical.

Bear with me--I never got past Plato's cave, not having a naturally philosophical mind.

 

[The Man]

Maybe you're right. But the nature of beauty isn't simply a matter of semantics; it's not really simply a linguistic question. It's an ontological one, and an epistemological one.

In fact, one whole branch of philosophy - aesthetics - is concerned with the "what" of beauty. Whilst scientific can undoubtedly shed light on certain "how's" of beauty, as Doubt said, we don't have the tool set yet do empiricise the "what". Even when we do, such investigations will need to be done with an understanding of exactly what one is trying to investigate - and so we're back to philosophy again.

Empirical aesthetics goes right back to people like Theodore Lipps at the turn of the 20th century. Recently, neuroscientists and aesthetic philosophers have joined forces under the methodological banner of neuroaesthetics (see Zeki from the science side, and Onians from the visual philosophy side), but whilst it does use neuroscientific evidence to inform its thinking, neuroaesthetics is still more philosophy than science.

Well from an ontological standpoint that one considers something beautiful makes that perception of beauty real, at least for them. From an epistemological standpoint what knowledge or information beauty tends to infer is perhaps just those common attributes of symmetry and the perception of perfection. So I think we can examine those common attributes without necessarily getting bogged down in ontology and epistemology.