skeptic
Posts: 1163
Joined: May 2006
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| Quote (Reciprocating Bill @ Aug. 25 2007,20:33) | | Quote (skeptic @ Aug. 25 2007,17:00) | If Beauty exists in my Mind which one of you can say that it doesn't? ?And if it exists in my Mind whose to say that it doesn't exist independent of my Mind? ?No matter how hard you try and how many ridiculous insults you throw around none of you can answer these questions for anyone but yourselves. ?There is no evidence that can be presented, there is no physical observations that can be made, there are no general parameters that can be set. ?How can this be so hard for people to get their heads around? ?My only conclusion is that it must be denial and fear. ?"What happens if there is something that can not be answered by science, what does that mean for me and my worldview?"
regardless, of all that we've reached an impasse and in my mind we've only proven one thing: ?science and religion are in conflict with one another only if we require them to be and some of us require them to be. |
Skeptic - try this:
Beauty is subjective in the same sense that the taste of foods is subjective. If you find beets tasty, and I don't, who can say that I am right, and you are wrong? No one.
Simultaneously, I think it easy to see that there is no sense in which foods objectively have particular "tastes," including the values of "tastes good" vs. "tastes bad," apart from the organisms that consume them. The taste of a particular food reflects both the likely nutritional content/safety of the food relative to the states and needs of particular organisms - a relationship established over the long evolutionary history of both organism and foodstuff. When there is a match, that food tastes "good." This is not to say that the chemical composition of foods has no bearing upon taste; we are adapted to detect sugars, salts and gluatmates (Umami), as well as to experience disgust in response to certain combinations of taste and odor. Yet surely the fact that some foods taste "too salty" is a relative, not objective, fact. In short, there is no taste "independent of" organisms who do the tasting.
IMHO beauty - certainly the beauty of other persons but also other forms of beauty, reflects similar admixtures of the characteristics of the object itself relative to the characteristics (needs, states) of the organism experiencing that object. This is obvious vis sexual attractiveness but is also likely the case with respect to other forms of beauty, as well as forms of revulsion - in a manner analogous to taste, as described above. With respect to human beings, the person and object have a relationship that is likely grounded simultaneously in evolutionary, cultural and personal history. The resulting experience of beauty is no less relational than the example of taste.
Indeed, it is the embeddedness of these subjective judgments in the relationship between person and object (food, persons, art, natural beauty) that endow you with the final authority with respect to what you find beautiful. If beauty does exist independently, then it would be possible for you to find something beautiful, yet be wrong. "We looked, and although you find your child beautiful, we've determined that at a level independent of and external to all observers she is not. You are wrong." And, as the example of one's child, the things we find beautiful are often also the things we love - surely a relational state if ever there was one. Simultaneuosly, that these qualities inhere in a relationship between subject and object, and the characterstics of both, also renders discussion of beauty in the the absence of observers empty of meaning.
What exists in the world is not beauty that exists independently of our minds, but rather objects, and creatures like ourselves who find objects beautiful.
[persnickety edits for clarity and beauty]
[edit for obvious yet interesting twist]:
Of course, in nature most things consumed, however tasty to the consumer, only become "food" at all by virtue of their being consumed by another organism, and are not at all thrilled by the conversion.
Skeptic: are you willing to say that exquisitely good steaks have "beauty" in their subtle and savory taste that can be said to exist independently of the observer/consumer of that particular animal muscle? |
Bill, this is a perfectly rational explanation of "taste" and "beauty" and represents a valid viewpoint. The alternative is, and this is where Lenny and I part ways, is if there is in fact an independent concept of Taste and Beauty. This is where religion, inspiration, revelation, meditation, imagination, etc jump in. These are irrational sources of knowledge that propose to answer the unanswerable question. This does not mean that the answer is correct or as Lenny points out that there is even an answer but it is an attempt.
Consider this. Take the question, "What is Beauty?" I would say that mankind has been trying to answer that question since its earliest existence through art. It has had an impact throughout history and has contributed to the human experience. Is it "knowledge?" I would say yes and others may disagree so the real conflict may actually be "What is knowledge and who gets to decide?"
Might I suggest, Science, Religion, and the Human Experience edited by James D. Proctor. This is a collection of lectures given at UC Santa Barbara and it represents views all over the spectrum that we've been discussing. Some I agree with some I don't and some I'm still thinking about but most important the collection shows that this is not a monolithic topic. There are many different viewpoints discussed and it might be useful for us to remember that.
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