The psychology of valuing perfection

What is the psychology behind valuing or appreciating perfection? I mean with perfection something that is "beyond human".

Let's take modern electronic music for instance.

There is studies that show that listeners often prefer performances with subtle timing and dynamic variations, characteristics that are typically associated with human performers. So human brain is highly attuned to detecting subtle variations and deviations from perfect timing or pitch. It is said that these deviations can evoke emotional responses and engage listeners more deeply in the music.

Satyr talked about this in one topic.

So we tend to appreciate sort of "human touch" or "humanization" in music... and perhaps elsewhere too.

But! Obviously this is not true for each and every individual.

Today there is a lot of people who like exclusively electronic dance music, where there is absolutely no timing or dynamic variations. This is especially true for electronic music genres that have 4/4 time signature where a bass drum hits in every beat. So for example House and Trance are such electronic music genres.

Sure, there is some artificial "humanization" process done in a lot of electronic music genres, but there is those certain genres that have the property that there is absolutely no timing or dynamic variations... For instance the pounding bassdrum and driving bassline hit every single time with the same level of volume. Also, they hit every time exactly in the beat. That's how they make the pounding and hypnotic trance-like effect. Where as the real live music can have like 5% change in tempo in just one song. This does not happen in electronically produced music. The timing of the rhythm is "perfect" in a sense.

This psychology of valuing something that is "too pefect" can be seen in other areas too.

Watch how those chicks, who have undergone plastic surgery, get way more attention in social media than "normal chicks" if the attention is around the superficial looks (so not for someone's singing voice for instance). Is there any "Instagram model" who is super popular, and who looks like an average woman?

So while it is true that there is this phenomena of "humanization" for sure... for example I don't find those South-Korean girls who have almost perfectly symmetrical faces due to plastic surgery, attractive at all... there is nevertheless a lot of males (and females) for sure who don't operate according to this "humanization" phenomena.

There is a lot of people who apprectiate and value, and are attracted to things that are "too perfect" and "not human".

What is the psychology behind those people? How does it differ from the people who do operate in the frames of "humanization" and appreciate things that have that "human touch"?

Illiterate wrote:

What is the psychology behind valuing or appreciating perfection? I mean with perfection something that is "beyond human".

Perfection in any context refers to the absent absolute....the Platonic ideal....the divine, existing only in the mind as an ambiguous representation of what can never exist.

Illiterate wrote:

Let's take modern electronic music for instance.

There is studies that show that listeners often prefer performances with subtle timing and dynamic variations, characteristics that are typically associated with human performers. So human brain is highly attuned to detecting subtle variations and deviations from perfect timing or pitch. It is said that these deviations can evoke emotional responses and engage listeners more deeply in the music.

Anything produced by machines is disconcerting.

Here "perfect timing" refers to what is beyond the mind's ability to detect variations.

Illiterate wrote:

Satyr talked about this in one topic.

So we tend to appreciate sort of "human touch" or "humanization" in music... and perhaps elsewhere too.

Music is the most abstract form of representation.
It alludes to the nature of existence: energy = vibrations differing in rhythm, tone, sequence...

Satyr wrote:

MUSIC
1st Proposition – Patterns
The brain forages for patterns. It is an ordering biological tool.
The mind is its projection in time/space. As such it is attracted to patterns and order. The brain can only comprehend what it can store and analyze.
Storage requires ordering, i.e., cataloguing, categorizing; ordering chaos and/or complexity necessitates simplifications/generalizations.
Life constructs approximations to efficiently and effectively interact; it understands by finding patterns in the data patterns and, through them, extrapolating the unknown.

2nd Proposition – Resistance
The path-of-least-resistance implies that repetition reduces resistances, via habituation and experience stored as memory. We are drawn to the familiar because neural pathways, once established, are conveniently reused, rather than replaced. Continuous, repetitive reuse converts the unfamiliar into the something familiar, and difficulty into ease. This attraction to the familiar creates behavioral patterns resulting in thinking, species, or culture.

3rd Proposition – Energy
Energy is resonating interactivity; momentum/movement manifesting universal Flux. Matter is resonating energy, of a particular rhythm/tone, making it more or less substantial in relation to organic metabolism and the subsequent sensual acuity it manifests.

4th Proposition – Melody
Music is a sonar, i.e., atmospheric, stimulations of organic sense organs; acoustic patterns of consistent repetition – otherwise it is called noise; energy made audible.

Conclusion
The familiarity and repeating consistency of patterns make them pleasing; awakening memories by stimulating neural pathways which might have atrophied (forgotten) harmonizing with organic energies, imitating their resonating aggregate rhythms – triggering emotional and psychosomatic effects.

Illiterate wrote:

But! Obviously this is not true for each and every individual.

Today there is a lot of people who like exclusively electronic dance music, where there is absolutely no timing or dynamic variations. This is especially true for electronic music genres that have 4/4 time signature where a bass drum hits in every beat. So for example House and Trance are such electronic music genres.

Modernity leads to postmodernity...and postmodernity abhors anything real, anything of nature.
It wishes to escape in artificial alternatives - in manmade idealized environments.
Its own body's imperfections remind them of the existential injustices they want to "correct"......
Technologies are their means....they dream of future cyborgs that finally achieve parity.

Illiterate wrote:

Sure, there is some artificial "humanization" process done in a lot of electronic music genres, but there is those certain genres that have the property that there is absolutely no timing or dynamic variations... For instance the pounding bassdrum and driving bassline hit every single time with the same level of volume. Also, they hit every time exactly in the beat. That's how they make the pounding and hypnotic trance-like effect. Where as the real live music can have like 5% change in tempo in just one song. This does not happen in electronically produced music. The timing of the rhythm is "perfect" in a sense.

Even in what appears to be "perfect" there remain imperfections.....they are simply imperceptible by human senses.
For instance, we perceive a perfectly blue wall as lacking variations.....because we cannot perceive them. the variations are so subtle that our minds perceives it as being perfectly uniform.

Illiterate wrote:

This psychology of valuing something that is "too pefect" can be seen in other areas too.

Watch how those chicks, who have undergone plastic surgery, get way more attention in social media than "normal chicks" if the attention is around the superficial looks (so not for someone's singing voice for instance). Is there any "Instagram model" who is super popular, and who looks like an average woman?

Attainable perfection using a shared standard.
The reason they prefer it is because it is attainable....and because it is it promises uniformity....a future where there remains no ugliness.
Beauty is power.

Illiterate wrote:

So while it is true that there is this phenomena of "humanization" for sure... for example I don't find those South-Korean girls who have almost perfectly symmetrical faces due to plastic surgery, attractive at all... there is nevertheless a lot of males (and females) for sure who don't operate according to this "humanization" phenomena.

There is a lot of people who appreciate and value and are attracted to things that are "too perfect" and "not human".

Self-hatred is projected.

I've described what I consider the two different categories of attraction.
Weininger only took it so far as male/female dynamics.... but did not delve into psychology.
Self-love is crucial....
Those who like themselves seek in others what reminds them of themselves.
Those who do not, seek in others what compensates for what they lack.
The old "you complete me" Hollywood trope.

They are attracted to what appears "perfect" or "ideal" because they want to compensate for what they lack in themselves.

The ideal is always malleable....vulnerable to fashions....so they like it because it implies that there is no objective standard.
Ideals change and they are the psychologies that wish to remain up-to-date....modern....
If females are idealized then they will have a sex change...or "gender affirming" surgery.

Attracted by artificiality implies that it is technologically accessible....if you remain true to the collective you earn the credits to follow fashion trends - constantly adjusting to whatever the collective idealizes.
Parity is achieved technologically.
All that matters is how things appear....and appearances can be modified.

So, perfect timing technologically "corrects" the musician's human flaws by reducing them to a level where they remain imperceptible.

Uniformity is how the mind interprets what it cannot differentiate.
Darkness, blackness, being the primary lack of variation.
All is energy but we interpret the undetectable as void, as dark, as black - as what lacks variations.
So, complexity is confused for the absence of order (chaos), implying that even where nothing is detected order is concealed.  

Illiterate wrote:

What is the psychology behind those people? How does it differ from the people who do operate in the frames of "humanization" and appreciate things that have that "human touch"?

Thank you Satyr once again for your analyzis!

Satyr wrote:

Attainable perfection using a shared standard.
The reason they prefer it is because it is attainable....and because it is it promises uniformity....a future where there remains no ugliness.
Beauty is power.

It kind of occured to me... Would you say enhancing one's look via technology (so plastic surgeon) is actually smart/intelligent? I mean especially for women.

I have noted that it is not nearly always the case that a woman is having an affair with a superior male. I read a while ago an article that said, if one's current partner sort of "fulfils" 80% of his/her needs, he/she could very well have an affair with a person that only fulfils 20% of one's needs, but if those needs are those that one's partner doesn't fulfil. So that's a little bit of caricatured and over-simplified example.

I think you sort of talked about this in your "Aphorism Female" series. Nothing is ever perfect. So that's why even the superior (compared to others) might be replaced if someone just promises perfection. Sort of selling this ideal to women.

So the point I want to make is this. If women want most of all variety and lots of options, and they don't like to invest to just one male, isn't it kind of intelligent for a woman to want to be as appealing as possible to the most males, not to the few men?

Illiterate wrote:

It kind of occured to me... Would you say enhancing one's look via technology (so plastic surgeon) is actually smart/intelligent? I mean especially for women.

It is effective in the short term.
But you can't fool existence.
Your flaws will not be corrected surgically, nor will go away if you conceal them.

Illiterate wrote:

I have noted that it is not nearly always the case that a woman is having an affair with a superior male. I read a while ago an article that said, if one's current partner sort of "fulfils" 80% of his/her needs, he/she could very well have an affair with a person that only fulfils 20% of one's needs, but if those needs are those that one's partner doesn't fulfil. So that's a little bit of caricatured and over-simplified example.

Women are sperm samplers.
Their promiscuity differs from that of males.
She can be emotionally infatuated with a male that is not physically attractive, or she can be in lust with a male she finds psychologically/mentally abhorrent.

Memes/Genes.....the mind/body dichotomy is particularly evident in women, because they are easily assimilated into any social norm.
So, she can be physically attracted to males that are ideologically against her values, or she can prefer males that are ideologically compatible but who they find physically unattractive.

Females do not challenge power....they submit to it, so they can be indoctrinated into ideologies/dogmas that contradict their natural impulses, causing severe mind/body dissonance.

This is what they call the "female mystique".
It's their mind/body contradictions.

That's why with females, and emasculated males, you never listen to what they say, you watch what they do - how and what they choose, how they act.

Illiterate wrote:

I think you sort of talked about this in your "Aphorism Female" series. Nothing is ever perfect. So that's why even the superior (compared to others) might be replaced if someone just promises perfection. Sort of selling this ideal to women.

In my meme/gene theory I say that an individual - male or female - can be consciously attracted to what is socially ideal (ideologically, pragmatically useful) whilst, simultaneously, being attracted to what they've been naturally selected - over centuries - to be attracted to.
This is why for females, monogamy and marriage are both a useful and a constraining institution.

Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution cannot be changed with a few decades of social engineering.
Modern and postmodern women are instinctively attracted to males their ideologies consider "toxic."
This confusion is displayed in their self-contradictory behaviours...nothing to do with "mystique" or their superior "complexity."

Illiterate wrote:

So the point I want to make is this. If women want most of all variety and lots of options, and they don't like to invest to just one male, isn't it kind of intelligent for a woman to want to be as appealing as possible to the most males, not to the few men?

Yes...and this is why postmodern females want to reduce beauty to a social construct.
If they cannot attain an ideal they want to reduce it to something meaningless.
The ugly ones do not want to be judged physically, by their appearance so that they can access a larger pool of males.

Modern systems are geared to satisfy feminine needs/desires - Feminization of Man.

Thanks again Satyr!