Beauty

[Nick_A]

What is beauty and how does it relate to "awe" It is useful for appreciating this deep question by comaring the observations of an atheistic and a Christian mystic. First contemplate and excerpt from Richard Feynman with atheistic leanings.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent? ~ Richard P. Feynman

Notice how the perception of beauty stops at the stars and meaning begins by scientifically examining the nature of the stars. Compare this with Simone Weil's appreciation of what beauty is an indication of. It doesn't deny the physical makeup of the stars but rather the feeling of beauty includes the indication of a higher reality beyond our conceptioon of the stars that Man is drawn towards.

"Beauty is the only finality here below. As Kant said very aptly, it is a finality which involves no objective. A beautiful thing involves no good except itself, in its totality, as it appears to us. We are drawn toward it without knowing what to ask of it. It offers its own existence. We do not desire something else, we possess it, and yet we still desire something. We do not know in the least what it is. We want to get behind beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that sends us back our own desire for goodness. It is a sphinx, an enigma, a mystery which is painfully tantalizing. We should like to feed upon it, but it is only something to look at; it appears only from a certain distance. The great trouble in human life is that looking and eating are two different operations. Only beyond the sky, in the country inhabited by God, are they one and the same operation. ... It may be that vice, depravity and crime are nearly always ... in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at." Simone Weil

What is beauty? Does it exist as an objective reality or even indicate the existance of objective reality? Is it an emotion that serves no purpose or does it serve a purpose we find hard to comprehend? I side with Simone and believe human experience of beauty indicates an inner recognition of a facet of intelligent design that indicates the source of this design.. How as either atheist or believer would you define and explain beauty?

[Zzyzx]

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What is beauty? Does it exist as an objective reality or even indicate the existance of objective reality? Is it an emotion that serves no purpose or does it serve a purpose we find hard to comprehend? I side with Simone and believe human experience of beauty indicates an inner recognition of a facet of intelligent design that indicates the source of this design.. How as either atheist or believer would you define and explain beauty?

In my opinion beauty is a perception based upon experience, personal preference and perhaps to some extent by genetics. The word may be defined, but the definition must leave latitude for interpretation by every person based upon sensory input and individual taste. Beauty need not be physical or symmetrical. It is not identified by committee action or group-think (though both are used to promote certain aspects of beauty).

One dictionary definition that seems adequately broad is “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit”. Merriam Webster.

The perception of beauty changes over time and experience within societies and within individuals. Nothing about beauty can be “set in concrete” or universally agreed.

Theism (or “intelligent design”) has no more claim on beauty than has Non-Theism; imagination no more claim than reality; and popularity no more than the esoteric.

[Nick_A]

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What is beauty? Does it exist as an objective reality or even indicate the existance of objective reality? Is it an emotion that serves no purpose or does it serve a purpose we find hard to comprehend? I side with Simone and believe human experience of beauty indicates an inner recognition of a facet of intelligent design that indicates the source of this design.. How as either atheist or believer would you define and explain beauty?

In my opinion beauty is a perception based upon experience, personal preference and perhaps to some extent by genetics. The word may be defined, but the definition must leave latitude for interpretation by every person based upon sensory input and individual taste. Beauty need not be physical or symmetrical. It is not identified by committee action or group-think (though both are used to promote certain aspects of beauty).

One dictionary definition that seems adequately broad is “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit”. Merriam Webster.

The perception of beauty changes over time and experience within societies and within individuals. Nothing about beauty can be “set in concrete” or universally agreed.

Theism (or “intelligent design”) has no more claim on beauty than has Non-Theism; imagination no more claim than reality; and popularity no more than the esoteric.

To complete your description, what is YOUR experience of beauty? What happens to you when you are experiencing beauty?

Also, have you experienced a qualitiative difference in the experience of beauty? If you are struck by a beautiful sunset, is this the same experience as when you tell a woman that she's wearing a beautiful dress?

[bernee51]

To complete your description, what is YOUR experience of beauty? What happens to you when you are experiencing beauty?

Also, have you experienced a qualitiative difference in the experience of beauty? If you are struck by a beautiful sunset, is this the same experience as when you tell a woman that she's wearing a beautiful dress?

Beauty - the first in Plato's trinity of beauty, goodness and truth coincides with the 'I' in the trinity of "I, we, it".

The experience of transcendental experience of beauty in a sunset is the result of a momentary cessation of vritti, the fluctuations of the mind. It allows the true nature of 'I' - bliss - to come through if only for an instant.

[Nick_A]

If you seriously consider this question you will see that there is no inherent conflict between science and the essence of religion. Feynman sees the stars and experiences the awe and beauty of this vast panorama. He asks if it does harm to the mystery to know more about it. He wants to learn of its parts.

On the other hand Simone Weil experiences beauty as an invitation to be drawn to the greater wholeness behind beauty. Where Feynman is drawn to dissecting wholeness of the stars and planets into parts, Simone is drawn to experiencing the greater wholeness within which the stars and planets manifest.

IMO beauty can lead a person to search in either direction. The religious motivation is the experience of the greater wholeness within which we live our lives. The scientific calling is to learn of the results of natural laws by examining the relationships of parts. It is only our stupidity that sees them in conflict rather than equally valuable for humanity as a whole...

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein

The only harm I see occurring is when one attracted to awe and beauty denies the value of the other as when the scientist denies the value of experiencing and relating to higher wholeness in favor of experimenting with parts or the spiritual person drawn to higher wholeness denies scientific reality from some form of idolatry.

[Nick_A]

To complete your description, what is YOUR experience of beauty? What happens to you when you are experiencing beauty?

Also, have you experienced a qualitative difference in the experience of beauty? If you are struck by a beautiful sunset, is this the same experience as when you tell a woman that she's wearing a beautiful dress?

Beauty - the first in Plato's trinity of beauty, goodness and truth coincides with the 'I' in the trinity of "I, we, it".

The experience of transcendental experience of beauty in a sunset is the result of a momentary cessation of vritti, the fluctuations of the mind. It allows the true nature of 'I' - bliss - to come through if only for an instant.

That has been my experience Bernee. When I've had these moments of awe and beauty, somehow all my pettiness vanishes. I become aware of a world, a greater perspective that my normal pettiness deprives me of and experience my nothingness in relation to it. Simone Weil put it this way:

And yet at the present time ... the beauty of the world is almost the only way by which we can allow God to penetrate us.... a sense of beauty, although mutilated, ... is present in all the preoccpations of secular life. If it were made true and pure, it would sweep away all secular life in a body to the feet of God....

She is referring to God's grace. Naturally I would say that living in Plato's cave we could never have such a purity of experience so seculrism will continue to prosper.

But this in no way contradicts scientific reality. Where science supplies facts, the essence of religion seeks to heighten our perspective within which these facts are used. I know this is only a potential. The collective psych of man has accumulated so much garbage resulting is so many axes to grind that I don't know if common sense would ever be able to prevail.

[Furrowed Brow]

I have a friend who‘s an artist and he‘s sometimes a taken a view which I don‘t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say, “Look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree, I think. And he says - “you see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you as a scientist, oh take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing”. first of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me, too….I see much more about the flower than he sees. I can imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also have a beauty,…science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds; I don’t understand how it subtracts.

… what is YOUR experience of beauty? What happens to you when you are experiencing beauty?

Well Feyman's experience seems to involved getting excited and having a question rush. He wants to "eat beauty" by exploring ever facet at every layer of the existence of the flower. As he explores his excitement, sense of mystery and awe grow, not diminish.

I would suggest “eating beauty” is only meaningful when the process and interactions through which you eat the beauty of the flower engage the totality of its reality, and only its reality. Anything more is flabby. Anything less, not quite so hungry.

[Zzyzx]

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To complete your description, what is YOUR experience of beauty? What happens to you when you are experiencing beauty?

My description is as far as I wish to pursue the meaning of “beauty” since it is an individual experience. I have no need to attempt to convey to another my responses to beauty. As with “love”, it is not a public or group matter in my estimation.

Also, have you experienced a qualitiative difference in the experience of beauty?

Yes.

If you are struck by a beautiful sunset, is this the same experience as when you tell a woman that she's wearing a beautiful dress?

The two experiences are not the same. How would I describe the difference? I wouldn’t.


Relating the above to the OP, I see no reason to attribute “beauty” to a “higher reality” or “intelligent design” – but regard attempts to do so as efforts to bolster the imaginary by attaching desirable characteristics that cannot be shown to be related.

[Nick_A]

Furrowed Brow

Thanks for the additional Feynman quote.

"first of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me, too….I see much more about the flower than he sees. I can imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also have a beauty,…science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds; I don’t understand how it subtracts."

Beauty appears here as a border. He says that excitement and mystery only ads to the totality of the experience of beauty. This raises the question if the whole is equal to the sum of its parts.

For example, you and I can hire a beautiful young model to examine her well proportioned naked body and determine exactly what about it makes us feel that she is beautiful. We bring our magnifying glasses up close to her skin and start examining all these minute details of her skin up and down her body such as small pimples and hairs etc. making notes on them all under the assumption that this will allow us to better understand her beauty. We cannot seem to find the connection. Of course she will look at us as though we are both nuts.

Then when we've taken all our notes and find nothing we stand back from her and once again she is beautiful. So the question is if our investigations allowed us to scientifically understand her beauty or perhaps made it impossible to appreciate it on a large scale.

I would suggest “eating beauty” is only meaningful when the process and interactions through which you eat the beauty of the flower engage the totality of its reality, and only its reality. Anything more is flabby. Anything less, not quite so hungry.

But what is a thing in itself. This was Kant's question. Simone's appreciation of beauty stimulates her to recognize the world and the heavens as an extension of what is behind them:" Plato's world of forms. A thing in itself cannot be defined without consideration of it as an extension of a greater whole and beauty invites us to become open to it.

Beauty then can be a stumbling block to the artist that is content to become lost in it and the escapist who imagines a world behind it. It can be a stumbling block to the scientist who denies what is behind it in his fascination with the mystery of the parts he has become curious about. He misses the value of the forest being caught up in the trees.

When we react to beauty, we are reacting to something we don't understand. The scientist seeks to identify the parts that compose this beautiful thing and the essential religious calling is to experience the reality behind beauty that our being can become a part of. They are complimentary directions of experience yet IMO our stupidity has created an unnatural contradiction between them.

[Nick_A]

Z

Relating the above to the OP, I see no reason to attribute “beauty” to a “higher reality” or “intelligent design” – but regard attempts to do so as efforts to bolster the imaginary by attaching desirable characteristics that cannot be shown to be related.

You may not see any reason but have you ever tried to experience the question? Go out on a clear night and look up at the vastness of the heavens. Is this just an accident? You may not see the reason for it but do you allow yourself to feel if there is something greater than yourself behind it all responsible for the laws of its motion by becoming open to the question?

I know you are turned off to idolatry and cults. I agree. Why allow your disgust to deny you becoming open to feel the question of your being. When people turn this into beliefs is when the trouble starts. keeping an open question is beneficial. Simone explained it in relation to Christianity degenerating into secular Christendom:

"In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs." Simone Weil

Seeing a reason for something is one thing but feeling a need for something is another. Once we degenerate contemplation into beliefs we lose the benefit of a teaching for our being. Even though you don't see a reason, must it deprive you of feeling the question by keeping the question open and just ponder it without concern for beliefs?