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Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

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  • #31
    Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

    If you allow science to steal your appreciation of beauty then you probably didn't have much of an appreciation in the first place.

    Science is like falling in love. You find someone amazing and you want to know ALL about them. You want to know more BECAUSE you love it, not in spite of it.

    That's like saying "does knowing that music uses a lot of complex math make you appreciate it any less or start to view it like homework?"

    It's asinine.
    No one tells the wind which way to blow.

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    • #32
      Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

      Originally posted by Bjorn View Post
      That's like saying "does knowing that music uses a lot of complex math make you appreciate it any less or start to view it like homework?"
      Absolutely. Understanding how things work is very inspiring.
      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

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      • #33
        Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

        It is a common religious attack that atheists fail to see beauty in the world. I would argue that understanding how nature works enhances the beauty of the Universe.

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        • #34
          Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

          Here's another perspective that might bear on the topic:



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          • #35
            Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

            Depends on the "beauty" in question and the person viewing. There are things that I wouldn't appreciate at all without understanding them, things where I find understanding to be irrelevant to appreciation and things/people where the phrase, "familiarity breeds contempt" applies many times over.
            "It is not simply enough to know the light…a Jedi must feel the tension between the two sides of the Force…in himself and in the universe."
            ―Thon

            "When to the Force you truly give yourself, all you do expresses the truth of who you are,"

            Yoda

            Yoda told stories, and ate, and cried, and laughed: and the Padawans saw that life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

            Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

            "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

            John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

            "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

            Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


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            • #36
              Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

              It doesn't reduce appreciation for beauty at all. If anything it enhances it!

              Have you ever seen the smallest particles or materials under a microscope? It's like its own art. Its stunning, even a strand of DNA can be beautiful. Gases in space from Hubble looking at a nebula... thats science and its simply amazingly gorgeous. Watching particles collide into its smaller parts... again beautiful. All these things are what make everything beautiful on a microscopic and quantum level, without science you would never see their beauty at all.

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              • #37
                Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                Not at all. Like others have mentioned, science has allowed us to see things that we couldn't with just our own eyes. Galaxies, planets, snowflake formations, and how beautiful things are on a microscopic level.
                “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” -- Bruce Lee

                Army of Darkness: Guardians of the Chat

                Honorary Nord.

                Habbalah Vlogs

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                • #38
                  Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                  Originally posted by Kiesha'ra View Post
                  Have you ever seen the smallest particles or materials under a microscope? It's like its own art. Its stunning, even a strand of DNA can be beautiful. Gases in space from Hubble looking at a nebula...
                  The Hubble stuff is fantastic, I have several prints on my wall, better than art. http://hubblesite.org/gallery/wallpaper/

                  - - - Updated - - -

                  The live feed from the International Space Station is cool ( you might need to wait till it's back in daylight though, you can check it's location further down the page ).
                  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


                  • #39
                    Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                    Everybody like to believe his/her self is special. If one is science blind, one gots to find a way to make that special, too...

                    - - - Updated - - -

                    Originally posted by R. Eugene Laughlin View Post
                    Here's another perspective that might bear on the topic:



                    LOL - I saw that once when I was a kidling, and still remember it... A distorted view of reality is far more appealing than is a clear view...
                    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.

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                    • #40
                      Re: Does science reduce appreciation of beauty?

                      Originally posted by B. de Corbin View Post
                      Everybody like to believe his/her self is special. If one is science blind, one gots to find a way to make that special, too...

                      LOL - I saw that once when I was a kidling, and still remember it... A distorted view of reality is far more appealing than is a clear view...
                      I tend to focus on two themes:

                      The little mole was able to see a whole new world of wonder with the new technology (i.e. a clear view of a butterfly, the detail of the flowers, etc.), but at the cost of seeing his fairy palace for the pile of junk that it really was. Seeing truth can have a cost, and science can have that kind of impact.

                      For a germane example, people who practice magick can develop an inflated sense of their effectiveness as a result of a handful of well-studied cognitive biases. Knowing the research around such biases and acting on the knowledge gained from them can improve that self-assessment, but a more accurate record of ones hits and misses may feel less satisfying to some. I think that tends to be a temporary effect though.

                      I've had a lot of conversations with people who claim to cause some pretty remarkable effects with a high degree of efficiency. When asked, if you're mistaken about your effectiveness, would you want to know? Pretty much everyone says yes, and means it.

                      And then, a darker theme, less directly relevant to this thread, is that having the new technology exposed the little mole to a host of unexpected dangers, because he was naive and unprepared. Nuclear fission comes to mind.

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