(This topic is one that I've spent a lot of time thinking about. I will take the dare presented here, and mention a few of my thoughts. Although I will suffer from not knowing where to start unraveling the Gordian knot which I contain ...)
I cannot help but notice, Avatar, the candidate you chose for beauty in the opening of this topic. The African Landscape. I'm assuming here, but not much, to imagine you're thinking of the vistas, the greenery, the skies, perhaps the homes of people who live simply. As opposed to citiscapes, airports, and shopping districts. Right?
Now, I read a lot of Samuel R Delany. And if you read much of him, you'll discover that the world is filled with signs. Not billboard signs. People signs. When you walk or drive down a street where people live, and if you look around, you naturally do things like wonder who lives in that house, or why they painted it that color, or how the fence got broken, and do they like living in this neighborhood, and where can I get a mailbox like that, and do they ever open the shades in front, did anyone else ever notice that the eave is crooked, and ... etc ... etc ... The world where we dwell, even our own homes, is filled with all of these signs, about us, about our family, about our neighbors, about strangers. Our minds are built to find these signs, to process these signs, to react to these signs.
Urban areas are the extreme. A city is not a town only bigger, it's something completely different. Because you're world is filled with more people you don't know, and more
kinds of people you don't know, and they all leave signs that you cannot frequently understand, but which you're mind still wonders about.
Gosh. If you think about it, our mind absorbs a lot of stuff about the the other people around us.
Here's a fun thing I found once. It's a list of words. The object is to look at the list and
say aloud the
colors that the words are written in. As fast as you can. Ready? Go!
- green
red
brown
yellow
purple
black
orange
blue
white
Okay, now look at the list again and
read aloud the words, as fast as you can. Ready? Go!
If your a normal person, you'll discover that it's easier to read the words than it is to identify their colors. It's almost as if you have to fight yourself
not to read the words in order to think about something else.
Think about that. After a certain point growing up, reading - a gimic of our culture, with no evolutionary referrent - becomes second nature. It's more instinctual than instinct!
As if our brains are wired to be re-wired by our culture and society.
(Okay, Wayfriend, you are all over the map now. Let's pull it all together.)
If you think about being wired to be re-wired by culture and society, think about applying the concept to those signs I meantioned. The processes of noticing and interpreting these signs becomes wired into you, too. You have to fight yourself not to do it. In fact, you do it all the time, subconcsiously; like breathing, we can be conscious of it for a time if we choose. (Culture shock? Too few signs we understand, too many we don't.)
So is it so hard to figure out why we consider nature to be beautiful?
There are no signs! The unconscious part of your mind which is continually looking for signs, continually interpretting signs ... suddenly comes up empty. The information channel is shut down ... the pressure eases ... brain cells are freed up for other tasks ...
... and we like it.
.
).
doesn't really suffice here, Wayfriend. once again, i have to say
