03-31-2006, 02:51 PM | #381 | |
Quasi Evil
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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03-31-2006, 04:29 PM | #382 | |
Elf Lord
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I hope very strongly BB can see this . . . BB, your PM box is full again!
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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03-31-2006, 05:29 PM | #383 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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03-31-2006, 06:04 PM | #384 |
Quasi Evil
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Plus my point was that we are a PRODUCT of the universe. We came FROM the universe. So its mathematical laws apply to us as much as it applies to quasars and the grand canyon and super novas and water falls and Angelina Jolie in a bikini... And we recognize these patterns as "beauty" and yes there is an evolutionary reason to recognize beauty no matter what the beauty is. Its not just about getting mates.
But as BJ says (and as the saying goes) beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And it comes from within not from without. Its a superimposition of our fundamental make up on the structure of the universe steered by culture and intelligence.
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
03-31-2006, 06:13 PM | #385 | |||
Elf Lord
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So I really have trouble believing that beauty is about familiarity. Quote:
For example, I used to be really unnerved by crowds. Now I'm not so unnerved by crowds, because I'm more familiar with them. However, I still don't find them beautiful. Other people feel differently- some people do find crowds beautiful. And about some things, no matter how many people see them and no matter how familiar with them they are, almost everyone finds them ugly. A pond full of sewage, for example. Only a very, very small minority, even among those familiar with the sight, would find that beautiful. The contents of a full toilet would be another example of something the vast majority consistantly finds ugly, in spite of very, very great familiarity. One would think that if familiarity brought appreciation of beauty, the vast majority would be drawing pictures of their excrament. But about most aspects of nature, only very, very few people find them ugly. Stars, the sun, and the moon are found to be incredibly beautiful by almost everyone. Waterfalls, trees, rocks, the fields, the flowers, the elements of nature and the colors are found incredibly beautiful, with almost no voice of dissent. People who go to the mountains for the first time or out camping are often hooked because of the astounding beauty they encounter that is wholly new to their eyes. Some get scared, like you say, but the vast majority find it all lovely. Is all this appreciation of nature just because we're all familiar with nature? Not likely. Photos of the galaxies have the same appeal to us, and things seen through the microscope often too, even though they're all new to our eyes. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 03-31-2006 at 06:14 PM. |
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03-31-2006, 06:43 PM | #386 | |||
Elf Lord
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People decide to live in the country often because of the greater beauty and scenery there. People like to live on coastline often partly because of the close proximity to beauty. People like to live downtown in the city because friends are there or it's close to work- not because of beauty. Beauty is plainly seen in nature, but outside of nature, there's much more debate over what is beautiful and what isn't. The art of nature indicates an artist. Just as a complex painting considered beautiful by many implies a skilled human artist, so the complex nature considered beautiful by almost everyone implies a skilled divine artist. We differ about human art, but not about the mastery of the divine art. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 03-31-2006 at 06:46 PM. |
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03-31-2006, 07:15 PM | #387 |
Quasi Evil
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Thats really poor "if then" thinking lief. Just because some people perceive the sky as pretty doesnt mean its gods equivalent of a work of art. We can explain WHY the sky looks the way it does. Down to the very last subatomic molecule. It makes SENSE it looks that way to us. And furthermore its not simply because of the nature of the sky itself but ALSO because of the nature of how we perceive things. Whats the point of creating the sky in such a way that humans will like it? Or creating something in humans that makes them like the sky? Whats the point of that exactly.
We have the ability to both be attracted to and not be attracted to many things in our environment. I reject the notion that most things are universally loved or hated by the way. There are cultures that think mud is wonderful stuff. Here we think its icky. Black sludge made from dead organisms would seem awful to most people. To many oil companies its beautiful stuff because it makes them rich. And do you want me to even get into what many many MANY people consider edible food in other cultures? You probably dont... Beauty IS in the eye of the beholder. And this makes evolutionary sense because it allows us to both be attracted to and to avoid things based on their benefit to us. You could certainly come up with all sorts of possibilities as to why we find the sky and the stars "beautiful" (and nevermind that thats certainly not universal). It could be a reflection of innate mechanism within us all to be curious and be attracted to things beyond us because we may benefit from what we find there (thats the signature of our species after all). It could be a reflection of our instinct to communicate by use of the natural patterns of the universe which we do through the various arts. Communication is helpful in our species so therefore it would make sense for it to be reinforced with the desire to express ourselves through art. It could be a variety of common sense things. But to say we are preprogrammed to appreciate a laundry list of things in the universe by a programming entity seems farcical to me and makes me want to ask the obvious question: why? Whats the point? Doesnt it make much more sense that these kinds of instincts would occur naturally? Monkeys appreciate certain pictures over others. Even dogs do. Does that mean that they were programmed by god to appreciate a picture of a rock over a picture of a bus? No that makes no sense.
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
03-31-2006, 07:36 PM | #388 | |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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03-31-2006, 09:21 PM | #389 | |||||||||||||
Elf Lord
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Nature is almost always exceedingly beautiful, but nature that has been tampered with, or unnatural conditions for the natural (like starvation or being overfed for animals or people of either sex), often make them look horrible. It doesn't take much artificial tampering for nature to lose its beauty, but most of nature is incredibly beautiful and glorious when it is natural and untampered with. Quote:
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Furthermore, things that come together by random chance in the world of humans are almost never viewed as beautiful. They sometimes are, but random chance usually ends up appearing like just a mess, and not a beautiful mess either. People don't throw things around and find beauty in the new arrangement, most of the time. And the more different elements you add into the mess, the uglier the mess gets. The same should be true of the universe. In the universe, there are near endless factors involved in this huge random mess. It should look really, really disgusting and ugly, not glorious and beautiful. The response argument you've been making is that we're part of the mess, and that makes a difference. A child playing in the mud has a very different perspective from his mother watching him. However, the child is not arguing that the mud he's splashing around is beautiful. He's just arguing that it's fun! There's a big difference. It's beauty we're talking about, and that doesn't change whether the calculations apply to you too or whether you're entirely outside of them. Trust me, I've been in my share of messes and they weren't "beautiful," though they were very fun . Quote:
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Many major carnivores are absolutely beautiful, dangerous though they would have been to humans in the past. Many nondangerous insects are far less beautiful. So beauty doesn't seem to relate to benefit/harm. However, whether the appreciation of beauty does come from that or not doesn't really matter to me anyway. What matters more is the point that this doesn't explain why humans have enormous variance in their opinions of what is beautiful- except about nature. About God's work, everyone is agreed that almost all of it is beautiful. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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03-31-2006, 09:39 PM | #390 |
Elf Lord
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I have to take issue with the notion that "almost all the universe is beautiful to all of us without disagreement, while most man-made things are very debatable." This is just a numbers game, imo. There are as many differing opinions about what in nature is beautiful as there are about paintings. And just because more people find the ocean beautiful vs a city is not sufficient, for me. I believe that it's all opinion that was formed by environment.
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Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) |
03-31-2006, 10:16 PM | #391 | ||
Elf Lord
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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03-31-2006, 10:29 PM | #392 | |
Elf Lord
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Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) |
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03-31-2006, 10:47 PM | #393 |
Elf Lord
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Yet the impression of virtually everyone in every culture has been that nature is beautiful . That would include the people who make systems for determining beauty.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
03-31-2006, 10:49 PM | #394 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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I don't think that's so. It would probably be fair to say that the impression of a large proportion of people in every culture has been that nature is beautiful, but not 'virtually everyone'.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
03-31-2006, 10:51 PM | #395 |
Elf Lord
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Some people are too self centered to think about anything but themselves, and thus go through the world blind to all art, from nature to paintings, etc. I think the vast majority of children are too immature to enjoy art, and there are some adults who never grow up either.
But I think that discounting people who have no appreciation for any beauty whatsoever, virtually everyone does appreciate the beauty of nature. Maybe I should take a poll at college and see what people's views are on what things are beautiful. It might make an interesting evidence.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 03-31-2006 at 10:52 PM. |
03-31-2006, 10:52 PM | #396 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Now, that again I disagree with. Mind now, I'm hardly a big fan of children, but I think a relatively unbiased view and an ability to appreciate at least certain forms of beauty is one of the merits more common among younglings than among us.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
03-31-2006, 10:54 PM | #397 |
Elf Lord
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Well, as a child, I didn't appreciate the beauty of nature at all. How about you?
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
03-31-2006, 10:57 PM | #398 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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I did, and I haven't grown out of it, though perhaps I've put it a little bit to the side.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
03-31-2006, 10:57 PM | #399 | |
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Leif wrote:
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Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) Last edited by Hasty Ent : 03-31-2006 at 10:59 PM. |
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03-31-2006, 10:59 PM | #400 | |
Elf Lord
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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