The Hierarchy of Perspectives:

Satyr wrote:

Like I said, Pinker exposes the liberal bias in the sciences having to do with human beings but he cowers away from going all the way with it...so instead he offers a half-assed critique which is profound because it is rare in this day and age.

So what would “going all the way” consist of?

That said, I appreciate your considered response.

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I can understand this. It is natural to consider that human beings apply a human bias toward judging whether something is beautiful or not. For some reason, most of us tend to think that a rose is more beautiful than a steaming turd. That bias is acceptable, though, because considering how things may be perceived by non humans is completely irrelevant to the study of human values.

Art must not be limited to beauty, though. I don't think Duchamp or the Nine Inch Nails had the pretense to create beautiful art.

In addition, statistical considerations aside, judgement of beauty is ultimately irrational. One can be indoctrinated into a mechanic response when it comes to judgement of values, but the legitimate judgement can only come from the gut.

Works for me, Phon. I especially agree with the point about finding something beautiful being intrinsically irrational. I think the primary value of beauty lies in its lack of function. If it were rational, it would be functional, and by virtue of that: no longer within the domain of the beautiful.

As Camus rightly argued:

All arguments for beauty are, ultimately, arguments for freedom.

And I believe the visa-versa to be true.

All arguments for Freedom are, ultimately, arguments for beauty.

Agreed. Beauty is an autotelic value, an end in itself. And because the pursuit of beauty is spontaneous, and not carried out by need or fear or pressure, the proportion off energy that a given culture dedicates to it is an indicator of its happiness/wholesomeness.

d63tark wrote:

Works for me, Phon. I especially agree with the point about finding something beautiful being intrinsically irrational. I think the primary value of beauty lies in its lack of function. If it were rational, it would be functional, and by virtue of that: no longer within the domain of the beautiful.

False :p

Beauty can have plenty of function, and can be very rational, as well as having little or nothing to do with freedom. It's a value judgement based on whatever you want it to be, so trying to give it fundamental qualities is just asking for failure :p

Yes, there are many shared universal standards for what the ideal of beauty is, but after finding meaning in its consensus there is nothing left to attribute to one definition.

phoneutria wrote:

Agreed. Beauty is an autotelic value, an end in itself. And because the pursuit of beauty is spontaneous, and not carried out by need or fear or pressure, the proportion off energy that a given culture dedicates to it is an indicator of its happiness/wholesomeness.

Also false, and full of assumption with absolutely no backing....

How is beauty an end?

What makes the pursuit of beauty exempt from need, fear, or pressure?

How does happiness/wholesomeness have to do with the amount of said 'beauty' in a culture?

These statements come with loads of contradiction :p

d63tark wrote:

Satyr wrote:

Like I said, Pinker exposes the liberal bias in the sciences having to do with human beings but he cowers away from going all the way with it...so instead he offers a half-assed critique which is profound because it is rare in this day and age.

So what would “going all the way” consist of?

That said, I appreciate your considered response.

What it means is following the argument down to its own implied end, or as far along towards it as possible, if no end is implied.

Take Heisman.
He followed his Jewish thinking all the way down to an eternal immersion with the absolute, and he killed himself.

Take those liberals screaming about animal rights and the biases of speciesm, and how this follows the liberal ideology and its proclamations concerning the unity, equality and the sanctity of life.

Each world view has its own internal logic.
It leads the mind towards conclusions that follow from its own premises.

Few follow as few understand their own world-views, having merely adopted them because mommy told them or because they were popular or because they were immediately gratifying.
I would say immediate gratification is one of the most popular hooks.
It is used to catch all those minds addicted to immediate gratification and shallow spontaneous activity - thinking being an activity.

In the case of Pinker what is alluded to but never stated is that the prevailing modern mythology's dogma and the scientific community's reluctance to honestly deal with sex and race differences, is part of the same biases he mentions as being The Blank Slate Dogma.

The three scriptures: Tabula Rasa - The Noble Savage - The Ghost in the Machine - are directly linked to Jude-Christian and liberal scripture.

The first equates all, leveling all into a blank slate awaiting instruction; the second purifies all, making all the problems of modern living a product of industrialization and urbanization; the third implies an immutable, shared spirit, uniting all under the greatest generalization of all, the group called: Humanity.

Of course progressiveness, in all its forms, is but a secular adaptation of the old Judeo-Christian slavishness.
Necessary myths, under the circumstances, but not to be taken seriously.

Satyr, I thought you had given this girl an education.
Give her some aestethics 101 to read, I'll save me time.

Poison IV wrote:

d63tark wrote:

Works for me, Phon. I especially agree with the point about finding something beautiful being intrinsically irrational. I think the primary value of beauty lies in its lack of function. If it were rational, it would be functional, and by virtue of that: no longer within the domain of the beautiful.

False :p

Beauty can have plenty of function, and can be very rational, as well as having little or nothing to do with freedom. It's a value judgement based on whatever you want it to be, so trying to give it fundamental qualities is just asking for failure :p

Yes, there are many shared universal standards for what the ideal of beauty is, but after finding meaning in its consensus there is nothing left to attribute to one definition.

Alright, I'll give you this one, IV.


I let my idealism over-run the reality of it.

Nevertheless, I would argue that one of the functions of beauty lies in the nonfunctional in the face of a society that demands everything be functional.

And given the multi-functional role of beauty you describe, it still stays in line with Camus' assertion.

phoneutria wrote:

One can be indoctrinated into a mechanic response when it comes to judgement of values, but the legitimate judgement can only come from the gut.

Despite IV's legitimate argument against my point, I have to agree with you on this point.

But at the same time, we have to keep in mind that the gut can be the collective end of all kinds of impulses.

She does not have a legitimate argument. If you would stop thinking with your other head and looked at the words alone, you would see the flaw.
I will help you, as I only have one head to use.

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Beauty can have plenty of function, and can be very rational, as well as having little or nothing to do with freedom. It's a value judgement based on whatever you want it to be, so trying to give it fundamental qualities is just asking for failure :p

Yes, there are many shared universal standards for what the ideal of beauty is, but after finding meaning in its consensus there is nothing left to attribute to one definition.

How is beauty an end?

What makes the pursuit of beauty exempt from need, fear, or pressure?

How does happiness/wholesomeness have to do with the amount of said 'beauty' in a culture?

These statements come with loads of contradiction :p

If you read the first few chapters of any book on aesthetics, you will see the author make a distinction between aesthetics and moral, as they are very close and not knowing the difference between them causes the confusion that you are experiencing.

Aesthetic judgements are positive (perceptions of good), while moral judgements are negative (perceptions of evil).
In the perception of beauty, the judgement is based on the character of the immediate experience. When you look at an object and find it beautiful, your thought is not in how you can use it. In contrast, judgement of moral worth is always associated with possible benefits.

Remember the (moral) tale of the ants and the cricket? The ants worked hard all summer while all the cricket did was sing. When winter came, the ants had food and shelter, and the cricket died of cold and hunger. The concern of moral is not to have pleasure, it is to avoid suffering. Meanwhile, we do not have a necessity or an obligation to feel pleasure.
The implications of being alive are such that when facing the real possibility of cold, hunger, disease, death, you can't help but think that the quest for beauty/pleasure is vain. Pleasure is thus saved for when we have done enough to rest our minds about these possibilities.

Based on that, you should probably be able to see how beauty can be an indication of the happiness of a society.

I'll preemptively add that you may perceive a function in beauty because we desire it, and thus we are willing to go through a certain amount of effort to achieve it. But in t his sense, it is not beauty you are concerned with, it is with a form of currency.
An artist does not make a painting or a sculpture that is somewhat beautiful to sell at a certain cost, and another that is more beautiful to sell for a higher cost. Every time he is engaged in the creation of beauty, he is attempting to excel. The value of the piece is only a consequence of this dedication placed in excelling in the art.

[quote="phoneutria"]

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Aesthetic judgements are positive (perceptions of good),

or ugly, unpleasant to look at, etc.

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while moral judgements are negative (perceptions of evil).

Or good. The good person as opposed to someone more neutral. Good is not simply the absence of evil, in most descriptions, there is a positive, generally active element. Though some believe in a good nature prior to action also.

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In the perception of beauty, the judgement is based on the character of the immediate experience. When you look at an object and find it beautiful, your thought is not in how you can use it. In contrast, judgement of moral worth is always associated with possible benefits

. Wouldn't it be disadvantages rather than benefits if morals are about negative qualities? And this is not to catch you out, but rather to point out how natural it is to see morals in positives.

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Remember the (moral) tale of the ants and the cricket? The ants worked hard all summer while all the cricket did was sing. When winter came, the ants had food and shelter, and the cricket died of cold and hunger. The concern of moral is not to have pleasure, it is to avoid suffering.

That may be the moral and the quality the ants exhibit may be considered a positive moral trait by some, to me it seems simply a practical trait and a necessary one. IOW an evil person is not less evil for planning their winter food sources poorly. Especially if they end up shooting people to ransack their pantries.

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Meanwhile, we do not have a necessity or an obligation to feel pleasure.

If I did not feel pleasure I would have died a long time ago. I would withered, gotten sick and faded out, if not having been more active and conscious in deciding to die. I am exagerating. I would have died. A life without pleasure is a very hard thing to create, even for the very poor and abused. We find some pleasure in very basic inadequate things if that is all we have.

phoneutria wrote:

If you read the first few chapters of any book on aesthetics, you will see the author make a distinction between aesthetics and moral, as they are very close and not knowing the difference between them causes the confusion that you are experiencing.

So you're relying on sources which you aren't even referencing...? And these sources are supposed to prove to me what beauty is and is not?

[laughs]

Will do.

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Aesthetic judgements are positive (perceptions of good), while moral judgements are negative (perceptions of evil).

I can therefore find something aesthetically pleasing but not judge it morally....

Ding-ding....bullshit argument #1.

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In the perception of beauty, the judgement is based on the character of the immediate experience. When you look at an object and find it beautiful, your thought is not in how you can use it. In contrast, judgement of moral worth is always associated with possible benefits.

Again, you're saying beauty and morality absolutely do not mix...

Yet, it is completely possible for something beautiful to be practical & useful, and for anyone to think that it is both beautiful and useful....in the 'immediate experience'.

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Remember the (moral) tale of the ants and the cricket? The ants worked hard all summer while all the cricket did was sing. When winter came, the ants had food and shelter, and the cricket died of cold and hunger. The concern of moral is not to have pleasure, it is to avoid suffering. Meanwhile, we do not have a necessity or an obligation to feel pleasure.

So where is morality missing pleasure, or pleasure missing morality? Something that is moral can be pleasurable and something that is pleasurable can be moral...

It is possible to seek both pleasure & morality for the same ends.

Bullshit argument #2.

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The implications of being alive are such that when facing the real possibility of cold, hunger, disease, death, you can't help but think that the quest for beauty/pleasure is vain. Pleasure is thus saved for when we have done enough to rest our minds about these possibilities.

The ants didn't whistle while they worked? ;]

Why must there be a disconnect? How is this indisputable fact?

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Based on that, you should probably be able to see how beauty can be an indication of the happiness of a society.

No...not even close.

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I'll preemptively add that you may perceive a function in beauty because we desire it, and thus we are willing to go through a certain amount of effort to achieve it. But in t his sense, it is not beauty you are concerned with, it is with a form of currency.
An artist does not make a painting or a sculpture that is somewhat beautiful to sell at a certain cost, and another that is more beautiful to sell for a higher cost. Every time he is engaged in the creation of beauty, he is attempting to excel. The value of the piece is only a consequence of this dedication placed in excelling in the art.

So now you're saying an artist never creates something beautiful for the purpose of selling it at a high cost? .....

Delusion: it's not a toilet fairy....

Aesthetic values and moral values are different, but not mutually exclusive.
With that in mind, it is obvious that something beautiful can also be useful. That does not mean that the usefulness is in its beauty or that beauty serves any other purpose than to be beautiful.

Thus, you do not have a point.

BTW I am referencing my own knowledge from reading over the years. If you would like a book recomendation, I can give you one.

[quote="Kovacs"]

phoneutria wrote:

Quote :

Aesthetic judgements are positive (perceptions of good),

or ugly, unpleasant to look at, etc.

Quote :

while moral judgements are negative (perceptions of evil).

Or good. The good person as opposed to someone more neutral. Good is not simply the absence of evil, in most descriptions, there is a positive, generally active element. Though some believe in a good nature prior to action also.

I suppose I could have been more clear.
Aestethics and morals both measure values as good or bad. The difference between them being that aestethics focus on obtaining pleasure (positive), while morals foculs on avoiding suffering (negative).

[Quote]Wouldn't it be disadvantages rather than benefits if morals are about negative qualities? And this is not to catch you out, but rather to point out how natural it is to see morals in positives.
[quote]

See the above clarification.

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That may be the moral and the quality the ants exhibit may be considered a positive moral trait by some, to me it seems simply a practical trait and a necessary one. IOW an evil person is not less evil for planning their winter food sources poorly. Especially if they end up shooting people to ransack their pantries.

The cricket in this story is amoral because he is portraid as lazy. He prefered to indulge himself during the summer instead of helping in the necessary work.

I'm sure that there is evil people out there who care deeply for their mothers. I don't understand why you think that a person cannot demostrate at times amoral, and at times moral traits.

.

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If I did not feel pleasure I would have died a long time ago. I would withered, gotten sick and faded out, if not having been more active and conscious in deciding to die. I am exagerating. I would have died. A life without pleasure is a very hard thing to create, even for the very poor and abused. We find some pleasure in very basic inadequate things if that is all we have.

It is true that a life without pleasure is hardly worth living. This must be why nature made it so easy for us to obtain all those yummy endorphines and oxytoxins that we want so bad. In fact neutral state (not feeling hungry, not feeling dirty, not having something obstructing your airways) in which you are just sitting in the dark and breathing, can already be seen as pleasant. That neutral state is the moral good.

phoneutria wrote:

Aesthetic values and moral values are different, but not mutually exclusive.

Then stop trying to make it look that way...

Aesthetics can have moral value.

End of.

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With that in mind, it is obvious that something beautiful can also be useful. That does not mean that the usefulness is in its beauty or that beauty serves any other purpose than to be beautiful.

And what if it does?

Then it blows your argument out of the water, and beauty is not necessarily beautiful on its own...
It is very possible for utility to give beauty its credence...

Poison IV wrote:

phoneutria wrote:

Aesthetic values and moral values are different, but not mutually exclusive.

Then stop trying to make it look that way...

Then stop trying to make it look like they are the same.

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With that in mind, it is obvious that something beautiful can also be useful. That does not mean that the usefulness is in its beauty or that beauty serves any other purpose than to be beautiful.

And what if it does?

Then it blows your argument out of the water[/quote]

Explain how. It seems you just granted my point with your insolent "what if it does?".

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... and beauty is not necessarily beautiful on its own...
It is very possible for utility to give beauty its credence...

Is it?
I am waiting for an affirmation that comes with a proof.

phoneutria wrote:

Then stop trying to make it look like they are the same.

You can't turn it around; the burden of proof lies with you. In order for your argument to work, you must prove that there is an absolute separation, my job is to show you that this is not always the case...

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Explain how. It seems you just granted my point with your insolent "what if it does?".

Repetitious inquiry, reply below...

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Is it?
I am waiting for an affirmation that comes with a proof.

Sexual selection is a very easy one. Much of what we consider attractive is because it is healthy, and offers us potential mating advantages...

What is 'unhealthy' we consider ugly.

Phi or Golden Ratio is an example...

When a face is aligned and proportionately even, this means that a person has better immunity than someone who has an uneven face. What is pleasing to the eye is often not just 'spontaneous' or pretty on the outside. It has very significant properties which are of great value to us....

Golden Ratio all throughout 'beautiful' architecture...

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Beauty often has its roots in evolutionary usefulness. Poison has the better of you on this one, dearest pho.

But evolutionary usefulness has no weight in aesthetic considerations.
The moment you consider function, you leave the realm of aesthetics.

Well, broadly speaking: we can perhaps wring from the history of aesthetics two primary concerns. First, the content of the art-object as art-object; and second, the art-object in relation to its audience -- that is, it's effect. Insofar as we think art in the second sense, the impetus behind its effect may very well be of concern to us. Insofar as that impetus grows out of an evolutionary utility -- which I want to suggest is often the case --, we may indeed consider function without leaving the realm of aesthetics. To this extent, I cannot help but disagree with you, phon.

Poison IV wrote:

False :p

Beauty can have plenty of function, and can be very rational, as well as having little or nothing to do with freedom. It's a value judgement based on whatever you want it to be, so trying to give it fundamental qualities is just asking for failure :p

Yes, there are many shared universal standards for what the ideal of beauty is, but after finding meaning in its consensus there is nothing left to attribute to one definition.

Something that might be relevant to this:

On that other board, I posted a long standing belief with me that the true beauty of beauty lied in its ability to assert the non-functional in the face of the functional. I soon got assailed by IV who argued I was wrong because there are functional forms of beauty and that she was opposed to universal descriptions of Beauty. I conceded, because 1, it seemed right in some vague sense and, 2, I was equally opposed to any universal descriptions of beauty. Plus that, the girl is hot.

That night at work, I began to ask the question that seemed inevitable: what form of beauty is actually functional? The first thing I came to was my father who, frustrated by not being able to sell his art, decided to make his art functional by making grandfather clocks with all these ornate carvings. And everyone he made, he sold. The thing was, the thing that was functional, in a practical sense, was the clock itself. It was what told time. The same thing could be done with a clock you might buy at walmart. The carvings themselves were only functional to the extent that they made the clock more appealing to the senses.

And that's just it: beauty is only functional to the extent that it does appeal to the senses. Beyond that, it has no practical function. And it is indifferent to the uses it is put to.

We could, of course, turn to the dialectical opposite of beauty, ugliness, and argue that the ugliness of spoiled food has the function of repelling us from eating it. But that same function could be fulfilled by watching others get sick by eating it. In other words, the ugliness of the food, much like the beauty of my father's clocks, is actually superfluous to the actual practical function.

Frank Lloyd Wright may have made beautiful buildings. But the beauty of them is ultimately non-functional in the face of what they actually do. The same thing could be achieved with a big box.

Sorry, sweetheart. At the same time, I sympathise with your desire to resist a universal standard of Beauty. It is the lack of one that, ultimately, allows us to express our autonomy through it. But I don't think my point makes a universal standard necessary.

The lack of one is what allows Camus to argue that all arguments for beauty are, ultimately, arguments for freedom.

Poison IV wrote:

... In order for your argument to work, you must prove that there is an absolute separation, my job is to show you that this is not always the case...

If you think that this is what this discussion is about, you have tree options: read the thread again, continue to post knowing there will be no reply, or leave.

Why do you demand a proof of separation right after I said that they are not mutually exclusive? Are you interested in no more than sticking to your misconception of what the conversation between me and tark was about?

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Sexual selection is a very easy one. Much of what we consider attractive is because it is healthy, and offers us potential mating advantages...

What is 'unhealthy' we consider ugly.

Phi or Golden Ratio is an example...

When a face is aligned and proportionately even, this means that a person has better immunity than someone who has an uneven face. What is pleasing to the eye is often not just 'spontaneous' or pretty on the outside. It has very significant properties which are of great value to us....

Golden Ratio all throughout 'beautiful' architecture...

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This isn't what I want. You said that beauty is not necessarily beautiful on its own. Then, you gave an example of beauty and function coexisting, which we already discussed.
I want you to try to demonstrate an aesthetic judgement based on a moral value.

without-music wrote:

Well, broadly speaking: we can perhaps wring from the history of aesthetics two primary concerns. First, the content of the art-object as art-object; and second, the art-object in relation to its audience -- that is, it's effect. Insofar as we think art in the second sense, the impetus behind its effect may very well be of concern to us. Insofar as that impetus grows out of an evolutionary utility -- which I want to suggest is often the case --, we may indeed consider function without leaving the realm of aesthetics. To this extent, I cannot help but disagree with you, phon.

I am a lot more inclined to discuss this with your charming self than with our petite petulant prodigy over here.

I would be very reluctant to give credit to anyone who would propose that any of our emotional responses do not have origin in evolutionary utility.
I can't proceed from that, to your proposal that we may consider function without leaving the realm of aesthetics, because when contemplating something that is beautiful, considerations on the impetus presiding that judgement are irrelevant, and may even be detrimental to the contemplation.

Consider this scenario.
I am an artist, and I have become completely fascinated with the image of a woman.
I want to look at this woman from every possible angle, I want to see her naked, I want to absorb every nuance of her image, because she is the inspiration for my art.
Now, if the observations of our heavily moral culture fall upon me, that being the considerations of worth and function, and where the physical beauty of a person is always correlated with its reproductive function, I may very well be taken for a lesbian.

For me to indulge the purely aesthetic experience of contemplating the beauty of a woman, I must bear the consequence of a morally negative judgement from other members of my society.

Aesthetics must be separated from morals to work. You must not think of function.

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[...] when contemplating something that is beautiful, considerations on the impetus presiding that judgement are irrelevant, and may even be detrimental to the contemplation.

Ah, understood. I imagined you were trying to argue that no such impetus exists at all. This is my fault, of course: I didn't actually read through the entire thread; it seemed like little more than petty argument. Whether or not we can consider the origins of our judgments without leaving the realm of aesthetics isn't of so much concern to me so long as we both agree such origins do in fact exist. To this extent, we're really just arguing semantics now. Unless there's something deeply significant that I'm missing, I'll end here.

Carry on.

phoneutria wrote:

Aesthetics must be separated from morals to work. You must not think of function.

This is why you're retarded

No offense.

How cute. Just like my little niece again.

How does that conversation go um...

No YOU are retarded!

No, YOU are!

And then I pinch her cheeks.

Kids say the darnest things...
That can be horrifyingly blunt ;]

Poison IV wrote:

Kids say the darnest things...
That can be horrifyingly blunt ;]

Sweetheart, if not for the first time, let me again apologize for my intitial reaction to you

(the wierd nature of the board disorientated me