A PRODIO Thread [an atheist's definition of 'beauty']

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Prodioposted 9 years ago

This issue spiked my interest after I (recently) had a discussion with an atheist here. It seems as if no atheist is capable of successfully formulating a scientific definition of the phenomenon, that is labeled as 'beauty'.

Beauty (from dictionary) =

"The qualities (what are they?) that give pleasure (what is it?) to the senses (where exactly in the 'senses'?)".

Let's think about it this way: Can a ROBOT, ever, create anything 'beautiful'?

And more importantly: Is the universe filled with beauty?

[image © Eric Susoeff]
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  "Let's think about it this way: Can a ROBOT, ever, create anything 'beautiful'?"
  
  The future is, of course, unknowable, but I would guess that yes, a robot could create something beautiful. We do, after all,consider landscape paintings to be beautiful and a robot could be constructed to "paint" (perhaps using a printer?) what it "sees" (photographs?).
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  What software would it (the robot) be using?
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Custom written. "Take this photo. Send the resulting digital image to this printer, with a *print* command". Not difficult to write - I could probably do it myself given a few hours of study (It's been decades since I did any programming).
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Where would the ROBOT be - without you?
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  You asked if a robot might one day create beauty. Not the philosophical ramifications of a silicon "person" showing creativity or even if it could be termed creativity.
  
  And the answer was "probably". If you are now heading for "proof" that all beauty comes from a god that made man that made a robot that made beauty, you're on a losing track.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you for this contribution of yours.
  
  By the way: what is creativity? And what is it (creativity) made of?
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  cre·a·tiv·i·ty
  ˌkrē-āˈtivitē/Submit
  noun
  the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you.
  
  what are these made of?
  
  1. imagination
  
  2. original ideas
  
  3. artistic work
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Electron flow along neurons? Patterns of flow and/or neural interconnections? ("Artistic work" you can infer from the definition of creativity, already given.)
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Where exactly in an electron - do imagination, original ideas and artistic impulses - reside?
  
  [Pardon me; but it seems as if you are not (fully) aware of the difference between 'art' and 'creativity'. Creativity is a principle which is common amongst many varied disciplines: a person can be creative in art, as well as in science. Art and creativity are not synonymous. Just as science and creativity are not synonymous.]
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  EncephaloiDeadposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Where in the data stream that brings the internet into our homes does Hubpages reside?
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  “The joy of writing.
  The power of preserving.
  Revenge of a mortal hand.”
  
  ~ Wisława Szymborska
  
  The question is: Exactly what is it [what is 'it' made of?] that is performing the 'preservation'?
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  EncephaloiDeadposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  And yet, another irrelevant, childish question with another copy/paste.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you for that contribution to the discussion.
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  EncephaloiDeadposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Do you actually have any contributions?
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I'm glad to find you over here, on this forum thread, asking that question.
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  EncephaloiDeadposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Seriously, you start a thread with the title, "A PRODIO Thread" with your userid in caps followed with some subtitle in brackets with small letters as if the focus shouldn't actually be on any content, but instead on YOU.
  
  Humble much?
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Your smiley faces are contributing much on this thread.
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  EncephaloiDeadposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Your posts are not contributing anything.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you for this valuable contribution of yours.
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  EncephaloiDeadposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  It will only be valuable if you contribute the valuable.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  http://hubpages.com/forum/post/2605521
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  They don't, nor did I insinuate they did. Did you read the answer, or just grab portions that when taken out of context or spun become meaningless?
  
  I gave you a definition of "creative" and it does not equate the two, no. Why would you say I think it does?
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  ""Artistic work" you can infer from the definition of creativity, already given."
  
  ~ I replied to you based on this statement of yours, which is not fully correct. Yes, we can get a general idea of what art is - from a common definition of the phenomenon, that is'creativity' - given the fact that performing (most) artistic works requires creativity as a foundational principle.
  
  But that's a general idea of what art is. You haven't provided a 'scientific' definition of the phenomenon - which we label as 'art'.
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  EncephaloiDeadposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Not at all, there are plenty of performing artists who haven't a shred of creativity in them.
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  EncephaloiDeadposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Just so you know, science doesn't define words, science explains how things work. fyi
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Probably because "art" is outside the scope of science. Should you wish to give a solid definition, usable under all circumstances, science might answer your question.
  
  Until then, though, there will be no scientific answer.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you for your reply.
  
  But art is a 'real' (i.e. it exists in our reality) phenomenon. Just as imagination, original ideas and beauty - are 'real' phenomena.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Perhaps (and perhaps not, too). But the definition of "art" varies person to person; without a firm definition, science cannot investigate or study the phenomenon as there is nothing to study.
  
  Example; to some, an elephant wielding a paint brush is "art". So is throwing buckets of paint at a canvas. So is the "cubist" grouping of art. Ditto for rap sounds and a sculpture of nothing but trash in a pile. None are "art" by any definition I would give. So what will science look at? You want it to study "art" but cannot tell it what that is - the result is that you cannot tell science what to study to fill your request.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  How would - then - 'science' study the phenomenon that we call beauty?
  
  You said yourself, somewhere, that you perceive beauty when you see it.
  
  ["Because I see them (beauty). How do YOU know when something, anything, is beautiful?"]
  
  http://hubpages.com/forum/post/2604429
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  [I can study what I call beauty. The science field cannot as I cannot define what to study for them. This should not be difficult to understand; a group of people cannot satisfy a request to study something when the requester will not tell them what to study.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Scientists are human beings, like us. And they, too, perceive beauty.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Is it your claim then that everyone will agree with my judgement on what is beautiful and what is not? That everyone will use the same definition?
  
  'Cause I hate modern art and most of what is being passed off as music today.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Are you saying that beauty does not exist as a material reality?
  
  Are you saying that the phenomenon that we label as 'beauty' - is only in our perception [what is 'perception'?] - and that 'it' ('beauty') doesn't exist in the material universe?
  
  If (what we call) 'beauty' is a physical property of any given 'beautiful' physical object - then everyone would equally perceive it.
  
  [You hate 'modern art' - but you are still saying that it is art.
  
  Someone might not like 'modern art'; but they can tell that a human being painted it.
  
  Someone might not like 'most of what is being passed off as music today'; but they can still detect that it is a 'human composition' (i.e. one or more human beings were behind 'its' production).]
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  EncephaloiDeadposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Why should science study that? How is that going to help us understand how anything works?
  
  As we all do.
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Scientists have studied beauty. They take measurements of things, and compare them to what people say they perceive as beautiful.
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  EncephaloiDeadposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  So what? Let's hear the religious successfully formulate a definition for 'beauty'?
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Emile Rposted 9 years ago
I'm not an atheist, but I don't consider beauty to be a phenomenon.

Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder. What you consider to be beautiful is not what I might consider to be beautiful. We may agree that something is beautiful, yet we won't necessarily agree as to why it is beautiful. Which makes it next to impossible to formulate a scientific equation which will ensure that all agree on the label of beautiful.

Our need to see beauty will directly influence how much beauty we see. So, to me, that makes the more interesting question....why do we need to label? What is, is. Why do we then need to qualify? For every positive label we attribute to something, we have to create an opposing negative label. To help better describe the positive label.

But, to answer you question. Yes. A robot could create something that someone might consider beautiful.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Beauty is a real phenomenon.
  
  Here is an analogy: A person may win 1 million euro in a lottery. If he/she is already a billionaire - then this sum (1 million euro) that they have just won - would not affect them as much as it would affect a trash collector.
  
  In both the cases: the sum is 1 million. But the reactions that it generates in those two 'different' recipients, vary dramatically.
  
  '€ 1 million' is a real phenomenon, nonetheless. It's a material reality.
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  Emile Rposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I suppose if you consider a material reality a phenomenon, then to you it is. But, how is a million euro beautiful? What does that have to do with your question? Because, I don't consider money to be beautiful.
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Prodioposted 9 years ago
Money itself is not 'beautiful' - but money generates an immediate reaction in our consciousness - just as beauty does.
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  Emile Rposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Lots of things create an immediate reaction in our consciousness. The reaction is not the same to each thing, or the same for each person. Which, again, makes it impossible to create the scientific definition you seek.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Those things, nonetheless, exist in the material universe.
  
  A snake might frighten (and create feelings of 'hatred') in a teenager. But that same snake might generate feelings of extreme curiosity - say - in a cellular microbiologist.
  
  But the 'snake' itself exist, nonetheless. And we can, so to speak, 'scientifically' define it on the material level of the universe.
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  Emile Rposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  You can define the snake. No one disputes that. But, you were looking for a scientific definition of the phenomenon you label beauty. What does that have to do with it? You appear to be going off on a tangent, or I'm not following you.
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Prodioposted 9 years ago
This is the contention: 'Beauty' is a material reality.
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  Emile Rposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Oh. I'd certainly have to disagree with that.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I'm glad to know that.
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  Emile Rposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  How can you claim that it is a material reality when no one defines beauty quite the same as another?
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Because they don't define many other things 'quite the same as another'. And because those things still have their 'scientific' definitions.
  
  We know what they are made of - we can 'manipulate' them - and we can even reproduce (some of) those things.
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  Emile Rposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  But, beauty is not universally agreed upon. We choose to label things beautiful. Choosing to label them otherwise doesn't change the nature of the thing. The thing exists, no matter what label we assign to it. Beautiful is an adjective. It modifies a noun. It is not a noun.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Have you ever painted a picture/drawing?
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  Emile Rposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Yes. Which makes the painting real. It does not make it beautiful. One might perceive it as such, or not. However it might be perceived does not make it real. The act of perceiving it verifies that it is real, the act of judging it is a choice.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  How do you know that the painting is 'real'?
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  Emile Rposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Seriously? You claim beauty is real but are going to ask how one knows something concrete exists? The canvas is real. The paint brush is real. The paints are real.
  
  The only question would be does putting them all together constitute a painting. We could simply call it a mess, but it still exists. We can both see it and touch it.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  We can both see and touch beauty.
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  Emile Rposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  No. We can both see and touch something we may agree to label beautiful. We can also both see and touch something we agree is ugly. We can also touch something we disagree as to the correct manner in which to modify the noun. Any given item could be seen by each of us in varying ways.
  
  Anyway, if you and I agree that an object is beautiful; it does not make it beautiful. It simply means we agree to perceive it as such.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  How do you know when you see a painting - that it is indeed a painting?
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  Emile Rposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  As previously stated. We would have to agree to describe it as a painting. We could agree to describe it a mess; or we could disagree as to what it really was.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Even an 'attempted painting' shows that someone wanted to create a painting with it. That's something very different from a 'mess'.
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  Emile Rposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  That would depend on perspective. Yours would be a kind way of viewing a lack of talent. Others might not be so kind.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I agree. And that is easily understandable.
  
  But the human touch - in the 'attempted painting' - would be still visible to everyone.
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  EncephaloiDeadposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Because of the paint?
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  Rad Manposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  beauty
  
  A combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, esp. the sight.
  
  Beauty is subjective, an abstract.
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Prodioposted 9 years ago
The following are the specific posts that spiked my interest about the subject of 'an atheist's capacity for perceiving beauty - and his/her capacity for defining it:

1. "Of course. That's the wonder - how and why did those giant stalactites form? How could the Hawaiian islands, or the Galapagos, evolve from molten lava to the paradise it is today? What are the details of the formation of black holes, or even stars? What is it like deep within the sun?

Why do Hydrogen and Oxygen combine so often to make that substance we need so badly? What really makes the giant fuzzy ball sometimes seen on a jet at low altitude and how/why is it there? The mechanics of making the grand canyon certainly make us shake our heads in wonder. That the deepest canyon in NA (Hells Canyon) was mostly cut in just a few days is fascinating.

We wonder about everything around us and the more we know and understand the more we wonder. A fascinating place, our universe."

2. "Chemical and physical made the formations "necessary", or perhaps "inevitable". No god necessary, just the normal chemical/physical reactions seen everyday. What makes it so wondrous and fascinating is the time necessary and the beauty produced - not that a god somewhere made "art" for their pets."

3. "Because I see them (beauty). How do YOU know when something, anything, is beautiful?"

http://hubpages.com/forum/post/2604026

http://hubpages.com/forum/post/2604429
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Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago
Nature is beautiful. It just is.
Take the painting. The closer the painter gets to revealing nature the more beautiful the painting. If you want to make an appealing painting replicate the beautiful aspects of nature through your rendering and brushwork.

Furthermore, for a painting to be beautiful, whether abstract or realistic, it must consist of elements of what is perfect based on the matrix itself. In one word: Math (i.e. the golden mean, fibonacci series, etc.)

Why is beauty an objective reality rather than a subjective opinion?
Math.
Nature reveals perfection through the logic of mathematics, based on fractals, the fibonacci series, etc..

The perfection of what we observe or contemplate contributes to what we define as beautiful. Perfection is awe-striking!

To behold its manifestation is COMMONLY recognized as beautiful! Lets say a man is sitting on his porch as the earth turns away from the sun. He observes the effects of the sunset with its orange, yellow, and golden hues. Aqua blue and magenta, royal blue and violet…. the colors moving, never still as the earth rotates according to invisible forces he rarely acknowledges on a conscious level…He sees the perfect silhouettes of trees against the colors of the dimming sky. He notices black crows resting upon telephone lines. Are they beholding the vast colorful sky, as well? Sounds of the crickets conducting their nightly symphony commence. He reflects the rhythms of life based on the ever-turning earth.

We can't help but marvel at the manifestation of all natural phenomenon and the perfection behind it all. The manifestations of nature are beautiful to the human mind.
Are they ugly? Maybe to a creepy mutant, but certainly not to any of us, (theists and and atheists alike! )
A Mon Avis.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  An excellent reply.
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  Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you!
  I thought so, too.
  -was beginning to wonder…
  
  What valley is shown in the photo?
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  It's a picture of Telluride Valley. Here is a high def one of the same valley - at 'wikemedia commons':
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tellu … ondola.jpg
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  Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Cool. Do you ski/snowboard?
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  No. I rather sit at the edge of the valley and write poetry!
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  Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I have skied once.
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  Prodioposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Murau [Austria] is another (fascinatingly) beautiful place. It's a lot like Telluride.
  
  This world is filled with these (beautiful) places. Even in such 'underdeveloped' places, such as - Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia etc - we shall find breathtaking beauty. If we can successfully penetrate through the man-made nastiness (the cities in those countries) - beauty, real beauty - would flood out our eyes.
  
  Ours is a beautiful planet (in a beautiful universe).
  
  http://murau.steiermark.at/
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