Why are things beautiful?

[I Ratant]

What does identifying and examining the common attributes got to do with the scientific method?
This is just using your thinking an attribute of cognition.

Do you think that only scientists should define beauty?

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The result of a scientist defining beauty?
Puhlease!
They'd design all the "beauty" of it, and you'd end with a wordy definition of something "functional", such as the poster with the practical friend who had to taught what visual beauty is. That practical guy would be the scientist.

 

[I Ratant]

...
72 degrees is always 72 degrees “by definition”, but my girlfriend finds that temperature hot, I find it comfortable (particularly when I’m just in my underwear). What one finds hot or not is subjective even though we have an objective measure of temperature.
...

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I can stand 100 degrees inside. Sweet Thang hates it!
It's "subjective" in that I'm too cheap (her words) to pay to run the a/c. Objectively, financially challenged is my response.

 

[I Ratant]

Interesting. Hadn't thought about curiosity, which is most definitely innate to our species.



It's part luck (in that I had the opportunity) and part design. Given what I do, I could make a much higher salary in, say, NYC. But I want to live where I do, and I chose to be in the countryside because I enjoy it so much. On top of that, I've planted native trees and shrubs and wildflowers in what used to be pasture, and put in a bird feeder and bath. I want the beauty.

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I presume the previous owner saw the "beauty" in the livestock in the pasture.
It all depends on the viewer.

 

[volatile]

No, I say my reaction to canyons is I find beauty in them. Of course, that is unnecessarily wordy, so I just say "wow, what a beautiful canyon".

And from there, we have tons of science we can do. Maybe we find that 80% of all humans find beauty (have a response to canyons that they would label as "a reaction to beauty) in canyons. Maybe we find that 80% of Finns, 90% of Native Americans have that reaction, but only 30% of Parisians. Maybe we do studies on fractally generated landscapes, and find features that 95% of people agree on provoking that reaction, and other features that only 40% agree on. And then maybe we find that 40% figure is somehow culturally predominant in Parisians. Maybe we do brain scans and find that the pattern recognition circuit for canyon features is the same pattern recognition circuit used to detect sweetness. Maybe we do fMRIs and find there is a strong link between beauty responses and sexual responses, or maybe between beauty responses and endorphin release, or whatever. Maybe we do studies and find that there is a wide range of overlapping, but different responses in the brain that people collectively call "beauty". Tons of science to be done, all without a philosophically coherent definition of beauty (which I don't believe is possible, given I see no evidence that beauty exists as any kind of objective, external qualia).

All those experiments are fine and dandy (and interesting). But they don't answer the question. They all come after beauty has been defined - the process in your early sentence you call "labelling" is a philosophical process.

I don't find canyons beautiful! How can you say they are? The answer to that question is necessarily philosophical, and is prior to any of the fascinating things you may learn from talking to Finns.

"beauty" is not a thing, it is not an inherent property, it is merely a reaction we have to things. We all have different reactions to the same thing, and we use the term in imprecise, and sometimes different ways.

This is true. And these ways are philosophical. Even of you want to swear till you're blue in your face that they aren't, what criteria you use to define beauty by will always be philosophical, not scientific.

You might call an orgasm beautiful, whereas I'd find it an abuse of the word. Because it's an English language term, having no exact, single collary to the physical world.

You just did some linguistic philosophy. See how much fun this is?

 

[Piggy]

Well, quite.

But that's not the same thing as "what is beauty", is it? Or even "Why are things beautiful?". They're different types of questions, though you seem to want to conflate them.

Roger says "I'm defining beauty as "what somebody finds beautiful"" but that doesn't solve the question. Such a definition would, indeed, be useful for the types of experiments you describe. But we still need philosophy should we want to break the recursion in that sentence and actually try and define "beautiful".

A philosophical conception of beauty comes prior - even linguistically prior, let alone epistemologically prior - to any experiments that seek to understand how people process beauty.

There's no need for philosophy in any of this.

To define "beauty" you need rhetoric and linguistics, not philosophy.

And you've drawn a false dichotomy between the questions "Why did our sense of beauty evolve?" and "Why do we each find different things to be beautiful?"

Both can be approached scientifically, without philosophy -- as was nicely demonstrated by the "Your Brain on Art" PDF that another poster linked to above.

For some reason, when scientific questions are applied to humans, you want to leap into philosophy. But it's an unjustified and unnecessary leap.

As an example, suppose we observe that about 60% of dogs love green beans. They salivate when they smell them, gobble them up when given a chance, and prefer them over most other foods when given a choice.

About 30% of dogs hate green beans. They turn away from them and won't eat them even when hungry.

About 10% of dogs don't seem to much care. They'll eat green beans, but don't especially prefer them.

We can use the scientific method to answer the question "Why do some dogs like green beans while others dislike them?" No one would suggest that this is somehow a philosophical issue. Nor do we need philosophy in order to define "dog", "like", "dislike", or "green bean".

Nothing changes when we shift our focus to humans, or when we change our topic to why different people find different things beautiful or ugly.

 

[Piggy]

I don't doubt it. Lots of things can be beautiful, despite whatever threat they may pose. Beautiful does not necessarily mean non-threatening. Were you offering this example up in your OP as an example of anomalous beauty?

Not necessarily. I just find it interesting, especially because it throws a wrench into the hypothesis that we evolved a sense of beauty as a means of identifying or attending to things that are helpful to us.

 

[Piggy]

I ended my post too soon.

Upon further thought, I really doubt that if you were in the middle of a hurricane, with broken glass and debris actually threatening to lacerate your face or crush your skull, that you would be thinking "this storm is quite beautiful".

I also doubt that if you watched a tornado pick someone up off the ground and toss them the length of a football field, that you'd marvel at how gracefully they flew.

I'll go so far as to say that your experience of the beauty of a natural disaster is in inverse proportion to the level of threat it poses to you. Part of the beauty probably lies in the fact that you are sheltered from the storm.

Now granted, de gustibus, non est disputandum and all that, but if you actually find lava melting its way through a neighborhood beautiful, then I think I could safely say that your sense of beauty is not in line with most of the human race.

Electrical storms in Florida are quite dangerous. They are also quite beautiful. I've also seen tornadoes in Georgia and violent mountaintop storms in North Carolina -- ditto. (For me, at least.)

So yes, I've actually been in dangerous situations and simultaneously aware of their physical beauty.

But you're right, when you see a person thrown bodily through the air, that vanishes and your only emotion is horror.

 

[blue sock monkey]

Not necessarily. I just find it interesting, especially because it throws a wrench into the hypothesis that we evolved a sense of beauty as a means of identifying or attending to things that are helpful to us.

Another example of this is an essay written by mountaineer George Mallory about the aesthetics of climbing in the Alps. He compared the experience with symphonic music.

 

[I Ratant]

Another example of this is an essay written by mountaineer George Mallory about the aesthetics of climbing in the Alps. He compared the experience with symphonic music.

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That's to a mountain climber.
To me, that activity is ego-boo, and foolish.
They make be climbing in a "beautiful" environment, which can and does kill them, but other than satisfying a personal craving for adventure, I see little purpose in it.
Or any of the "death defying" activities. Watching the bloopers on TruTv can be hilarious/disturbing, when they fail miserably, at what they -want- to do!
I enjoy watching athletic performances, and displays like Cirque du Soleil for the beauty in what those performers can do with their bodies.

 

[blue sock monkey]

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That's to a mountain climber.
To me, that activity is ego-boo, and foolish.
They make be climbing in a "beautiful" environment, which can and does kill them, but other than satisfying a personal craving for adventure, I see little purpose in it.
Or any of the "death defying" activities. Watching the bloopers on TruTv can be hilarious/disturbing, when they fail miserably, at what they -want- to do!
I enjoy watching athletic performances, and displays like Cirque du Soleil for the beauty in what those performers can do with their bodies.

That's partly what Mallory was talking about in his essay--the beauty of the human body seeking to trace elegant lines on unforgiving rock and ice. Kind of performance art with no audience.

 

[Tumbleweed]

Think of all the entities on earth from snails to bats as part of a Macro organism that sees itself through the eyes of all those entities within it. A humans contribution to that "vision" is a sense of beauty. Perhaps the Macro Organism would not have that sense of itself as beautiful without Humans conceptualizing it. Another way of putting it is that your purpose in hiking through beautiful wild places is nothing BUT to give it a sense of beauty. On the other side of the coin, if you are just talking about a human face, it plain old aids in perpetuating the species because more guys are attracted to " beautiful" women than plain janes. Hardwired or learned as to what conceptualizes beauty? Do some experiments!

 

[volatile]

We can use the scientific method to answer the question "Why do some dogs like green beans while others dislike them?" No one would suggest that this is somehow a philosophical issue. Nor do we need philosophy in order to define "dog", "like", "dislike", or "green bean".

This is true.

Nothing changes when we shift our focus to humans

This is also true.

or when we change our topic to why different people find different things beautiful or ugly.

This is not true. As I said to Roger - you might think circles are beautiful. I think they're ugly! Explain to me why you consider them beautiful.

This answer will be a philosophical one. There is a reflective process going on. I know this upsets you, because for spurious ideological reasons you hate the word, but it shouldn't. Science and philosophy are not mutually exclusive.

 

[I Ratant]

Hike across the "wild beautiful wild places" while starving and dehydrated.
Think Donner Party when enjoying a snow fall.
Depending on the circumstances of the viewer, it's beauty or hell on earth.
Subjective to the extreme.

 

[roger]

All those experiments are fine and dandy (and interesting). But they don't answer the question. They all come after beauty has been defined - the process in your early sentence you call "labelling" is a philosophical process.

You can insist that I define something that I don't think exists all you want, but that doesn't mean a definition will be forthcoming.

 

[volatile]

You can insist that I define something that I don't think exists all you want, but that doesn't mean a definition will be forthcoming.

You use the term in your own definition of the experiments you wish to do! And now you want to claim it "doesn't exist", because doing so might mean having to admit that *gasp* you're doing some philosophy? Of course it doesn't exist as a phenomenal object, but it does, of course, exist as a concept. And you have a conception of what you think beauty is. Were you to be brave enough to actually spell out that conception, you'd be doing philosophy.

Roger - tell me why you think canyons are beautiful.

 

[Thabiguy]

Another example of this is an essay written by mountaineer George Mallory about the aesthetics of climbing in the Alps. He compared the experience with symphonic music.

This reminds me of something I recently read - an article about the perception of beauty in mountains and wild nature being basically a cultural thing. Here's a quote from the article:

Travellers today take photo after photo of the landscape - what we regard as beautiful, majestic (i.e. mountains, deep forests) medieval man regarded as a deep nuisance at best, and as an evil horror at worst. Sometimes medieval and early modern people did write descriptions of the Alps - they were horrid, nasty, unproductive. They were never, never admired for their innate beauty.
...
Beauty only resided in the ordered, the tamed landscape. You find description after admiring description of cities, fortifications, earthworks, canals, roads, fields - but never admiring descriptions of the untamed landscape. Medieval people had no admiration, no appreciation, of the untamed landscape.

 

[roger]

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Roger - tell me why you think canyons are beautiful.

I haven't a clue.

 

[volatile]

I haven't a clue.

Smooth! The lengths you'll go to to avoid sullying yourself with that dirty philosophy nonsense!

You have no criteria at all for declaring something beautiful? C'mon, Roger. What is it about canyons that you think are beautiful?

 

[roger]

Smooth! The lengths you'll go to to avoid sullying yourself with that dirty philosophy nonsense!

You are over the line. goodbye.

 

[Philosaur]

Electrical storms in Florida are quite dangerous. They are also quite beautiful. I've also seen tornadoes in Georgia and violent mountaintop storms in North Carolina -- ditto. (For me, at least.)

So yes, I've actually been in dangerous situations and simultaneously aware of their physical beauty.

I can't tell if you're reiterating the idea that things can be beautiful and hypothetically dangerous at the same time, or if you are contending that in the midst of imminent danger, your awareness of the beauty of the storm would be anywhere near your sense of distress. If the latter, then I have a very hard time believing you. I live in Mobile, AL, and I've been in hurricanes and lightning storms.

From a distance (even if the distance is only the next town over), I could see how the hurricane *might* be considered beautiful. But when you are in imminent danger (i.e. the roof is gone and aluminum road signs are cutting tree limbs off next to your head), I can't seriously believe you'd still be thinking "ah, this is truly beautiful"; or if you were, you're using some sense of the word that very few others would understand or agree with.

The reason I'm pursuing this, is because you seem to be saying that the operational definition "beauty is a human reaction to things that are or were of benefit to our survival" is false or lacking because a storm (a dangerous thing) could be beautiful. In short, I don't think this counter to the definition works--chiefly because in order to really experience a feeling of "that's beautiful", the danger needs to be somewhat removed from the experience. Am I understanding your counter-argument?