Why are things beautiful?

[roger]

How does this hypothesis account for vast differences in perception of what is perceived as beautiful across individuals, cultures and time? I still think you're confusing the capacity to sense beauty (which I think can be supported through reference to an evolutionary hypothesis) and finding specific things beautiful (which can't).

If we're "evolved" to find symmetry beautiful, how do you account for people or cultures who don't find it beautiful at all? How do you account for the shifts in aesthetic tastes far faster than a genetic cause would require? I don't doubt that the development of an aesthetic sense is bioloigcal; I do doubt, however, that specific tastes (the "what is beauty" question) are to the same degree.

You seem to be having an argument with somebody in your mind, not me. I think we have responses to stimulus which we call "beautiful". I also think different people have different responses to the same stimuli. In some cases they are broadly speaking universal, in other cases they are pretty obviously learned. We can use science to tease out what causes those reactions, and we can use science to find out where responses are pretty universal, and use science to find out where they seem more cultural and learned (fat vs thin, tattoos vs none). All without a philosophically derived definition of beauty, all without labeling these responses "right/wrong".

For example, to use your own argument:
If we evolved to be attracted to the opposite sex, how do you account for people that are attracted to the same sex?

Not much of a poser, is it? Studies show 90% of us prefer the opposite sex. We don't need a philosophically rigorous definition of attraction - observing erectile behavior does just fine in that regard, as does the question "would you hit it and quit it". Nor do we need to wring our hands about the existence of homosexuals, or think that I'm implying some kind of right/wrong in that 90% figure. It's just science, and the science is not hindered by moral or philosophical concerns. Nor is it particularly difficult to deal with the issue that I'm aroused by body type A, and you are aroused by body type B. We can study sexual preferences and draw valid conclusions without worrying about why a specific person is only attracted to crack whores with black teeth and straggly hair.

Because, you know, all these sensations and reactions appeared long before philosophy appeared. I don't understand how you can possible say it's a philosophical question before a scientific one. The reactions happen in animals with no higher level cognitive functions. I am sure field mice don't sit around and think about why they think minnie mouse is attractive, they just hit it and quit it. No philosophy required.

 

[volatile]

I should have carried my comments in my earlier post further. Hypothetically, our aesthetic sense is basically physiological. If we find common brain reactions across cultures, then we start looking for what the beautiful things of the different cultures have in common--I'm guessing there are some. The explanation of why this should be so presumably traces back to evolution. All creatures need to determine if objects are edible/poisonous, locations are safe/dangerous, people are good/bad mating possibilities. With our relentlessly burgeoning brains, humans developed conscious labels for innate instincts.

This process would result in defining the aesthetic sense pragmatically. That doesn't exclude the desirability of looking at aesthetics philosophically; I think each approach complements the other.

Well, I agree with that almost entirely. But understanding these commonalities is still a different order of question to "what is beauty", as I've tried to explain. Neuroaetheticians like Zeki are trying to answer the types of questions you're talking about; they aren't (can't) define beauty itself in empirical terms.

There is an entire school of pragmatist aesthetics, from John Dewey right up to Richard Shusterman. I don't know why so many people here wall up at the very thought that they may be, even inadvertently, doing some philosophy. Good science requires good, rigorous philosophy.

 

[Piggy]

Those aren't the same question. The first is a scientific one, the second is not. That's why you're getting dissent, and why no-one, yet, has actually given you an answer to the first. Talk of "symmetry" and "pattern" are answers to the second question, but not the first.

On the contrary, some interesting points have been raised.

Did it arise from previously evolved mental capacities, such as pattern recognition? If so, why? Is it just collateral fallout, or does it serve a survival purpose?

Is it in fact necessary for the survival of a creature with a brain like ours? Could we simply not make it in this world if our brains did not generate feelings of meaning, purpose, and beauty?

Is it an accidental confluence of necessary functions, such as pattern recognition, sexual attraction, and positive responses to healthy environments and objects like natural shelter, clean water, and good food?

 

[The Man]

Neither; that's a false dichotomy. But one does develop a personal aesthetic sense as one grows, by contemplation, by education and by common convention. But the fundamental qualities of beauty are not fixed, and what beauty itself is is not an unconententious question. If you want to ask someone what they find beautiful, you are relying on their philosophical conception of what beauty is. This is quite clearly not an empirically scientific question. It can't be.



So, despite "not wanting to define it", you actually go ahead and do so -"do you get a strong pleasurable or unpleasurable reaction".

That's a definition, and, I'd hasten to add, a pretty unsatisfactory one. Not everything pleasurable is beautiful.

And so again, we're stuck. We might learn what makes Blarg "feel pleasure", but we have not aphilosophically demonstrated what is, and what is not, beautiful.




Because you're asking a subjective question and expecting an objective answer.

You cannot define "beauty" in the terms you're trying to. You can define "what most people find beautiful", but that is, quite clearly, not the same question, or even order of question.

We can however define the aspects of beauty by altering such aspects and seeing that the perception of beauty changes. Just as we can alter the temperature and see if the perception of being comfortable changes. We do not need to define specific values of symmetry or temperature that all will find beautiful or comfortable to define them as aspects that can specifically alter the perception of beauty or comfort and thus asspects of those perceptions.

 

[Piggy]

Experiencing pleasure, wonder, and a bit of fear in our environment at large would probably also be useful when it comes to curiosity which can then lead to exploration and invention. I highly doubt that a three-toed sloth has a rich aesthetic life, but that's not part of their survival strategy.

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

You're lucky to live somewhere with a nice view from your porch. You may notice that in a lot of large cities, people seem to lose that sense of wonder with their surroundings.

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.

 

[blue sock monkey]

Is it an accidental confluence of necessary functions, such as pattern recognition, sexual attraction, and positive responses to healthy environments and objects like natural shelter, clean water, and good food?

A Gouldian spandrel, do you mean?

Whatever it is, it's a wonderfully flexible faculty, that works in multiple modes: knee-jerk reaction as well as contemplative, "Oh, yes, now I am beginning to enoy that." Something that allows the same brain to revel in both Beethoven and atonal music, for instance.

 

[Piggy]

You don't think you'd have to define the concept of "ugly" to get meaningful answers to those questions? Do you think this apple is murblethruble? Yes or no?

Further: if greater than 50% of people think apples are beautiful, but I happen to think they're ugly - am I wrong? Empirically wrong?

You don't have to define it because we already know what it means, whereas we don't know what murblethruble means.

In an experiment like the one described, you would have to develop a mechanism to account for deception, but given a reasonable expectation of honest answers, you could proceed.

Better yet, you could identify involuntary responses which correlate with people reacting to things they find beautiful and ugly, and use those instead, or in addition to the self-reports.

And no, you wouldn't be "wrong". If the point of the experiment is to find what percent of a given population finds X beautiful or ugly, you'd simply be part of the stats.

 

[roger]

Neither; that's a false dichotomy. But one does develop a personal aesthetic sense as one grows, by contemplation, by education and by common convention. But the fundamental qualities of beauty are not fixed, and what beauty itself is is not an unconententious question. If you want to ask someone what they find beautiful, you are relying on their philosophical conception of what beauty is. This is quite clearly not an empirically scientific question. It can't be.

I never said they were fixed??? I don't need philosophy, however, to note that I feel a pleasurable hormone surge when I look at a canyon, nor do I need philosophy to note that I like to keep pictures of canyons around me. Nor do I need philosophy to note that you think it just looks like a big ugly hole in the ground (say).

So, despite "not wanting to define it", you actually go ahead and do so -"do you get a strong pleasurable or unpleasurable reaction".

Could you please keep the goal posts in one place, please? You stated that a "philosophically coherent" definition was required.

That's a definition, and, I'd hasten to add, a pretty unsatisfactory one. Not everything pleasurable is beautiful.

Well, no kidding, I was being concise. Do I really have to type 30 pages worth of an anthropological study to show how we would arrive at a common language with an alien? Pleasure would be the first step, and we'd refine it from there.

And so again, we're stuck. We might learn what makes Blarg "feel pleasure", but we have not aphilosophically demonstrated what is, and what is not, beautiful.

I make no claims that anything is "philosophically" beautiful, whatever that means (I suspect it's an empty concept). In any case, I don't see how we are "stuck". I love canyons, you love tattoos, we both love Renoir. My dog loves canyons, but seems not to even comprehend the other two. Nowhere in any of those statements is an assumption that everyone has those reactions, that they "should" have those reactions, that some of them are learned, that others are innate, etc.

You cannot define "beauty" in the terms you're trying to. You can define "what most people find beautiful", but that is, quite clearly, not the same question, or even order of question.

I agree, 100% with the second question!!!! I'm not trying to define beauty in an objective way, in that we could say objectively or a tree is "beautiful". I'm not saying that someone is right or wrong for thinking X is beautiful. Again, you are arguing with somebody in your mind, not me. I'm defining beauty as "what somebody finds beautiful" (note the elimination of "most") in my phrase vs yours. I'm nottrying to go beyond that, you are, or at least you are trying to force me beyond that, to argue with me for some reason.

Please read what I wrote, not what you think my position is. To be clear: beauty to me is a physiological and neural response to stimuli. That's it. That is not laden with concepts of universality, objectivity, correctness, and all the other things you keep saying I am imbuing it with.

 

[Piggy]

Finally, Piggy references the awesome beauty of storms and other natural disasters. I think here we might be doing violence to our notion of "beautiful" as it's used elsewhere in the question. I think "awesome" or "sublime" is a more precise word to describe such phenomena.

Well I, for one, find storms beautiful, as well as awesome, even when they are threatening me.

 

[Piggy]

Maybe there are aliens who act as if they have a sense of beauty, but don't actually have a sense of beauty. Let's call these aliens b-zombies . . .

Oh noes! Don't givez them any idears!!!!

 

[volatile]

You seem to be having an argument with somebody in your mind, not me. I think we have responses to stimulus which we call "beautiful".

It's the inverse. We call things beautiful to which we have certain responses (physical and cognitive). This is important.

I also think different people have different responses to the same stimuli. In some cases they are broadly speaking universal, in other cases they are pretty obviously learned. We can use science to tease out what causes those reactions, and we can use science to find out where responses are pretty universal, and use science to find out where they seem more cultural and learned (fat vs thin, tattoos vs none).

I agree.

All without a philosophically derived definition of beauty, all without labeling these responses "right/wrong".

I disagree. Because what you're doing is ending up in a circle here - things that make us feel A, B and C are beautiful, things that are beautiful make us feel A, B and C. You can't have both.

I would suggest that "things that make us feel A, B and C are beautiful" is the true statement, but here's the kicker - these things differ from person to person, and even the sensations A, B and C differ from person to person. Finding commonalities - what the things are, or what the sensations are - just helps us understand what most people think are beautiful. A philosophical conception of beauty may even be informed by such observations - but we cannot ever use these observations to define precisely what beauty is, or what is, and what is not beautiful.

Not much of a poser, is it? Studies show 90% of us prefer the opposite sex. We don't need a philosophically rigorous definition of attraction - observing erectile behavior does just fine in that regard, as does the question "would you hit it and quit it". Nor do we need to wring our hands about the existence of homosexuals, or think that I'm implying some kind of right/wrong in that 90% figure.

Sure, but that's because sexual attraction is defined - in your own example - by erectile behaviour. You've defined the criteria for attraction - erections - and measured response. Fine. Science.

This can't work for beauty, because different people experience beauty differently. Turning this round - for some, sexual arousal may be the ne plus ultra of beauty; others may find being sexually aroused by something not indicative of beauty at all. If someone was telling you he was aroused even though his erectile response wasn't on your scale, you'd empirically mark him "unaroused". If you said -- hypothetically -- that sweating was the common quality of aesthetic experience, but I told you I found a painting beautiful and it didn't make me sweat, I suppose you could empirically mark me as not having had an aesthetic experience. But would you be justified in doing so? I'd say, quite categorically not.

Which is where we're back to philosophy again; back to definitions again. Can you ring-fence a set of physiologies, or reactions, and call those indicative of what people call beautiful? And what do you say to the person who claims something is beautiful, but does not exhibit these criteria?

 

[volatile]

If the point of the experiment is to find what percent of a given population finds X beautiful or ugly, you'd simply be part of the stats.

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.

 

[volatile]

To be clear: beauty to me is a physiological and neural response to stimuli.

I am a materialist, of course, so I agree. How we process beauty is neural and physiological.

That's it.

No it isn't. Because you say canyons are beautiful. I say they aren't. On what basis can we discuss that issue, save (on some level) philosophically?

That is not laden with concepts of universality, objectivity, correctness, and all the other things you keep saying I am imbuing it with.

You may not mean to, but by taking philosophy out of the equation, such is the result.

 

[Philosaur]

Well I, for one, find storms beautiful, as well as awesome, even when they are threatening me.

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?

 

[volatile]

By the way: "I'm defining beauty as "what somebody finds beautiful"" is a philosophical statement.

 

[Philosaur]

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.

 

[roger]

It's the inverse. We call things beautiful to which we have certain responses (physical and cognitive). This is important.

I just give up. That is exactly what I said. We have responses to stimuli. We call that response (and thus the things) beautiful. You are intent on putting a position on me that I do not hold. I do not claimthat things are intrinsically beautiful. Do I need to go to a 36 point font?

I disagree. Because what you're doing is ending up in a circle here - things that make us feel A, B and C are beautiful, things that are beautiful make us feel A, B and C. You can't have both.

I do not claim that things are in and of themselves beautiful! Sorry for the bold shouting, but you are stating I am asserting something I have specifically ruled out.

I would suggest that "things that make us feel A, B and C are beautiful" is the true statement, but here's the kicker - these things differ from person to person, and even the sensations A, B and C differ from person to person.

Which is what I said. Over and over.

but we cannot ever use these observations to define precisely what beauty is, or what is, and what is not beautiful.

And you'll notice that I am defining beauty by reactions, not stating that something is in and of itself beautiful.

Please stop arguing with me. We agree, and you keep trying to twist my words into a position I do not hold. Beauty is a reaction, it is not an inherent quality of an object.

 

[I Ratant]

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.

.
If that waterfall was undermining the foundations to your house, its beauty would be muted.

 

[I Ratant]

Indeed.

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

.
Ona cause we be masochists!

 

[roger]

No it isn't. Because you say canyons are beautiful. I say they aren't. On what basis can we discuss that issue, save (on some level) philosophically?

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).

"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. 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.