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Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

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  • #16
    Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

    Originally posted by Herbert View Post
    Of course, many artists primarily seek to 'reveal' lies.
    A lie revealed affords a measure of truth.

    Originally posted by Herbert View Post
    Propaganda.
    Truthiness.

    Comment


    • #17
      Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

      I more meant in the sense that said artists primarily seek to show things that aren't true, and portray them as being true. Including in areas such as, you guessed it, propaganda.

      Comment


      • #18
        Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

        Since beauty is subjective, this cannot possibly be answered. But lets pretend for a minute that beauty is a quantifiable asset. I think beauty is only reduced by science of your appreciation of it is based more on wonder than what it actually has to offer. When it comes to the natural world, beauty appears to be largely made up of wonder for a lot of people. It is the same wonder that causes attraction to a person when you are intrigued by them. I think if you are prone to see beauty in the natural world with questions that require inquisition rather than ignorance, beauty is more likely to grow.
        I'm not one to ever pray for mercy
        Or to wish on pennies in the fountain or the shrine
        But that day you know I left my money
        And I thought of you only
        All that copper glowing fine

        Comment


        • #19
          Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

          Originally posted by Briton View Post
          Since beauty is subjective, this cannot possibly be answered.
          Suppose Truth and Beauty are but two qualities of a multifaceted, ultimately unified thing, an unimaginably comprehensive ultimately unified thing. Call it Life, Nature, Spirit, or some such thing. The two qualities might be understood this way: the experience of beauty is a momentary perception of truth. That's how we might equate a great painter with a great scientist, by their shared capacity to bring others to a momentary perception of truth.

          Originally posted by Briton View Post
          I think beauty is only reduced by science of your appreciation of it is based more on wonder than what it actually has to offer. When it comes to the natural world, beauty appears to be largely made up of wonder for a lot of people. It is the same wonder that causes attraction to a person when you are intrigued by them. I think if you are prone to see beauty in the natural world with questions that require inquisition rather than ignorance, beauty is more likely to grow.
          You have something of the Fluency Hypothesis in philosophical Aesthetics captured there. The hypothesis posits that the degree to which a person experiences beauty when confronted with a truth is a function of how fluent the person is in the terms of the presentation. Most everyone with normal vision is well-versed in the terms in which an unusually colorful sunset presents. We learn those terms implicitly, by living life with normal vision, by the influence of cultural and personal experience, etc. Seeing the beauty in a mathematical equation requires more effortful learning, but at the underlying processes are assumed to be equivalent.

          Truth, beauty, eye of the beholder.

          Comment


          • #20
            Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

            Truth is not always beautiful.
            “You have never answered but you did not need to. If I stand at the ocean I can hear you with your thousand voices. Sometimes you shout, hilarious laughter that taunts all questions. Other nights you are silent as death, a mirror in which the stars show themselves. Then I think you want to tell me something, but you never do. Of course I know I have written letters to no-one. But what if I find a trident tomorrow?" ~~Letters to Poseidon, Cees Nooteboom

            “We still carry this primal relationship to the Earth within our consciousness, even if we have long forgotten it. It is a primal recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine nature of the Earth. It is a felt reverence for all that exists. Once we bring this foundational quality into our consciousness, we will be able to respond to our present man-made crisis from a place of balance, in which our actions will be grounded in an attitude of respect for all of life. This is the nature of real sustainability.”
            ~~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

            "We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes--one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way."
            ~~Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

            "Humans are not rational creatures. Now, logic and rationality are very helpful tools, but there’s also a place for embracing our subjectivity and thinking symbolically. Sometimes what our so-called higher thinking can’t or won’t see, our older, more primitive intuition will." John Beckett

            Pagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
            sigpic

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            • #21
              Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

              Originally posted by thalassa View Post
              Truth is not always beautiful.
              I'm interested to hear some examples.

              Comment


              • #22
                Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                Ever watched a baby with whooping cough?
                “You have never answered but you did not need to. If I stand at the ocean I can hear you with your thousand voices. Sometimes you shout, hilarious laughter that taunts all questions. Other nights you are silent as death, a mirror in which the stars show themselves. Then I think you want to tell me something, but you never do. Of course I know I have written letters to no-one. But what if I find a trident tomorrow?" ~~Letters to Poseidon, Cees Nooteboom

                “We still carry this primal relationship to the Earth within our consciousness, even if we have long forgotten it. It is a primal recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine nature of the Earth. It is a felt reverence for all that exists. Once we bring this foundational quality into our consciousness, we will be able to respond to our present man-made crisis from a place of balance, in which our actions will be grounded in an attitude of respect for all of life. This is the nature of real sustainability.”
                ~~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

                "We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes--one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way."
                ~~Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

                "Humans are not rational creatures. Now, logic and rationality are very helpful tools, but there’s also a place for embracing our subjectivity and thinking symbolically. Sometimes what our so-called higher thinking can’t or won’t see, our older, more primitive intuition will." John Beckett

                Pagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
                sigpic

                Comment


                • #23
                  Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                  A quarter of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. Truth is not always beautiful indeed.
                  I'm not one to ever pray for mercy
                  Or to wish on pennies in the fountain or the shrine
                  But that day you know I left my money
                  And I thought of you only
                  All that copper glowing fine

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                    Originally posted by thalassa View Post
                    Ever watched a baby with whooping cough?
                    Originally posted by Briton View Post
                    A quarter of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. Truth is not always beautiful indeed.
                    Let me offer a prayer that all your children be free of illness, and all your pregnancies be free of complications.

                    I have no status to defend Nature against the suffering and seeming injustices that accompany life in our biosphere. I'm living life. I have family and friends. I know what pain and loss are. All I can say here is that my spiritual path calls me to seek the meaning of my life, including the awful things. Many spiritual paths call for seeking the beauty in our suffering. I might add that as a Pagan, I'm not given to call Nature ugly.

                    The equation of Truth and Beauty is a traditional philosophical framework that I felt was apropos to the thread, offered here as meditation on how scientists are like artists. The poem I posted earlier in the thread expressed the same theme.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                      As a pagan? Describing the behaviour of nature will vary. As a pagan, I would say the complete opposite, that I am prone to point out its ugly side. No offence meant, I just don't think you can make assumptions about anyone using the broad term 'pagan', that one would not call nature ugly if one was to describe themselves so.
                      I'm not one to ever pray for mercy
                      Or to wish on pennies in the fountain or the shrine
                      But that day you know I left my money
                      And I thought of you only
                      All that copper glowing fine

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                        Although "aesthetics" is, technically, the philosophy exploring "what is beauty?", it does, of necessity also include the contemplation of "what is ugly?", since no thing can be understood without also understanding it's not thing.

                        Beauty is subjective; it changes from one person to another. I appreciate the elegance of an animal skull, others find them morbid.

                        Beauty is often created out of ugly; a sunset reflects the quantity of particles in the air (i.e.: pollution).

                        Beauty is about relationships between dissimilar things; parasites and their hosts are dissimilar things in an amazingly intricate relationship.

                        I could go on and on and on, but I gottses stuff to do.

                        However, recogognizing these things does not reduce the immediate affect of one's gut-level response to the perception of beauty; instead, they create additional avenues of appreciating beauty on an intellectual level - as well as through yer bowels.
                        Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                          Originally posted by Briton View Post
                          Truth is not always beautiful indeed.
                          The truth can be very uncomfortable some times. Initially, anyway.

                          - - - Updated - - -

                          A couple of years ago I went to a talk on rainbows at the local astronomy club, which was fascinating. I hadn't realised for example that rainbows make a full circle under the right conditions.
                          It's possible to see the whole circle of a rainbow - but sky conditions have to be just right. Plus you have to be up high!
                          Once a man, like the sea I raged;
                          Once a woman, like the earth I gave;
                          And there is in fact more earth than sea.
                          Genesis lyric

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                            Originally posted by Briton View Post
                            As a pagan? Describing the behaviour of nature will vary. As a pagan, I would say the complete opposite, that I am prone to point out its ugly side. No offence meant, I just don't think you can make assumptions about anyone using the broad term 'pagan', that one would not call nature ugly if one was to describe themselves so.
                            I was expressing personal sentiments that developed as part of my personal Pagan orientation. I wasn't defining Paganism for everyone. I do respect that other adopters of the Pagan label arrive at different sentiments. That's the Nature of Paganism in contemporary, information-rich society, and it's a beautiful thing!

                            Originally posted by B. de Corbin View Post
                            Although "aesthetics" is, technically, the philosophy exploring "what is beauty?", it does, of necessity also include the contemplation of "what is ugly?", since no thing can be understood without also understanding it's not thing.
                            I'm not convinced of that. If one likes the concept of Beauty as the experience of perceiving Truth, a juxtaposition to conceptual ugliness may not be clarifying. The opposite of a perception isn't a different thing, it's rather a a non-event, something that might happen but hasn't. Further, what might we call the opposite of recognizing Truth when we see it? A missed opportunity? Misunderstanding? Error, perhaps?

                            It's not that I don't understand the common parlance or that I don't appreciate the linguistic value of the juxtaposition. I get it, but because I do like the equation of Truth and Beauty, I'm probably more inclined to use different terms to express the more common comparison: maybe ugly vs. pretty, for example.

                            Originally posted by B. de Corbin View Post

                            [examples snipped for brevity]

                            ...However, recogognizing these things does not reduce the immediate affect of one's gut-level response to the perception of beauty; instead, they create additional avenues of appreciating beauty on an intellectual level - as well as through yer bowels.
                            Do you think there's a meaningful difference between the guttural response and appreciation?

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                              Originally posted by R. Eugene Laughlin View Post
                              I'm not convinced of that...

                              ...Do you think there's a meaningful difference between the guttural response and appreciation?
                              OK. I'm disinterested in convincing any body of any thing. For the record, though, there are two basic ways of knowing a thing that often work in conjunction (often, but not always. "Dark Matter" for example) - knowing what a thing is, and knowing what it is not (in art terms, foreground and background).

                              No. A gut response is one of many ways of appreciating.
                              Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                                Originally posted by B. de Corbin View Post
                                OK. I'm disinterested in convincing any body of any thing.
                                Apologies. I wasn't literally asking you to try to convince me of anything. That phrase was intended as a rhetorical lead-in, an alert that an alternative perspective would follow. While a response to the alternative ideas was/is welcome, it was neither requested nor expected. I use question marks to signal that.

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