Kevin's Watch

Never mind, we'll find somebody to disagree with us.

--A

no doubt about it.

Avatar wrote: I was talking about the often brutal "things that are true" that Dennis mentioned. Depsite their ugliness, callousnes and frequent brutality, doesn't the very fact that they are true invest them with some quality of beauty?

I don't mean to sound belligerent, but come on, Av, what slippery slope are you sliding down here? Now suddenly ugliness and brutality = beauty?
Does that make something like genocide beautiful? Or Nazi concentration camps?

To borrow the speech of a fellow confused (albeit fictional) human being, Arthur Dent: "This is obviously a new definition of the word beauty I was previously unaware of..."

Bellligerent? You? Wouldn't have occurred to me if you'd never mentioned it.

Although you raise a good point, and the slope may indeed be slippery, I'm not talking about the act, per se.

While the act involved, genocide for instance, is undeniably anything but beautiful, can't you see a value, (a beauty?) in the fact that we know that it took place, can identify it and don't intend to permit it again?

That's sort of the beauty I was thinking about. That we recognise the brutality of that action and are set against it ever being repeated.

Isn't it better to know the truth, however ugly it may be, than to believe a lie? Or be ignorant thereof? Or in denial?

It probably wouldn't fit into any definition of beauty that we know and use, sure. But compare the knowledge of the holocaust to holocaust denial. What's uglier?

Perhaps I should really be referring to an inherent beauty in the knowledge of truth?

If the knowledge of truth is good, aren't good things beautiful in some way?

--A

Avatar wrote: Never mind, we'll find somebody to disagree with us.

--A

You're completely wrong: Nobody will disagree with you on this!

I do think we're back to the reaction of the observer being the source the beauty, however.

About the Truth to Beauty thing... how I've always seen it, I've always said that truth=beauty, because to me the height of beauty is goodness in the world, and when I make decisions out of untruth, ruin has always followed it. When I make decisions that are more accurately reflecting reality, the ones that have more 'truth' in them, things tend to work out better for me. When I'm lying to myself, in the long run, nothing turns out very beautifully at all.

Very nice, Gem! (Again, where you been?)

JemCheeta wrote:About the Truth to Beauty thing... how I've always seen it, I've always said that truth=beauty, because to me the height of beauty is goodness in the world ...

But the expression 'Beauty is skin deep' observes that beauty is often a mask for coarser things beneath: a deception, a lie. And, as deceptions go, it works pretty well ... what does that say about us?

I've been, you know... bummin around. Just checking in to see how everyone's doing.
Wayfriend, I think the theory would go that the beauty that is only a mask isn't true beauty in the first place. Of course, the whole thing kind of falls apart when I classify something as "true beauty" as opposed to "False beauty"... because I'm making a comparison of truth and beauty and kind of assuming the conclusion into the argument. I don't know, I think we're willing to believe a lot if it will make us feel better.

And about time too.

Some interesting questions...I think that the answer to WayFriends observation is along the lines of Jem's "false beauty."

It's just that external appearance can, metaphysically anyway, have little or nothing to do with actual beauty.

Yes, we do have a tendancy to believe things that appear beautiful, apt, poetic, whatever. But the failure is in our perceptions.

Perhaps, as Pliss suggested, it really is a question of the beauty coming from ourselves...different beauties perhaps?

Isn't there something beautiful in exposing false beauty too though?

--A

Avatar wrote:
Isn't there something beautiful in exposing false beauty too though?

--A

That's why I rarely come here. Not even a politician can convolute as happily as a philosopher. I mean, when Clinton asks what "Is" is, it's only semantics - but you guys can get twenty pages of debate on the subject!

Avatar wrote:I think that the answer to WayFriends observation is along the lines of Jem's "false beauty." It's just that external appearance can, metaphysically anyway, have little or nothing to do with actual beauty.

If we see something and think it beautiful, how can we say that there is no beauty there?

Rather: There is no requirement that beauty cannot be linked to what is not beautiful, cannot serve what is not beautiful. Beauty is a slave to whomever possesses it, and, having no purpose of its own beyond being, it serves the purpose of whomever weilds it. You have to watch out for beauty - beauty can be used to hurt you.

Do we enjoy the beauty of a sunset? Yes. Because we cannot see any way that a sunset is there other than just to be

Wayfriend wrote:

Avatar wrote:I think that the answer to WayFriends observation is along the lines of Jem's "false beauty." It's just that external appearance can, metaphysically anyway, have little or nothing to do with actual beauty.

If we see something and think it beautiful, how can we say that there is no beauty there?

Rather: There is no requirement that beauty cannot be linked to what is not beautiful, cannot serve what is not beautiful. Beauty is a slave to whomever possesses it, and, having no purpose of its own beyond being, it serves the purpose of whomever weilds it. You have to watch out for beauty - beauty can be used to hurt you.

Do we enjoy the beauty of a sunset? Yes. Because we cannot see any way that a sunset is there other than just to be

Examples of beauty being used to hurt me?

Plissken wrote:Examples of beauty being used to hurt me?

Wherever a beautiful mask is used to lure you into destruction or to take whats yours. The sub-topic of 'girlfriends from hell' alone would take pages.

Wayfriend wrote:

Plissken wrote:Examples of beauty being used to hurt me?

Wherever a beautiful mask is used to lure you into destruction or to take whats yours. The sub-topic of 'girlfriends from hell' alone would take pages.

Not quite clear on the "take what's yours" bit, but as for Ex's from Hell -- we're back to what is done with the beauty, not the beauty itself. In other words, the onus is still on those who percieve the beauty.

Funny train of thought de-railment break:

"Who got the beauty?
I got the beauty!
Big beauty,
Little beauty,
Tall beauty,
Short beauty,
Beauty, beauty, beauty, beauty!"

Holy crap! I thought "The Booty Song" was a local thing. My local rock station plays that on my way to work at least once a week.

We've got an "All Comedy Channel" out here. I've heard it twice.

Plissken wrote:

Avatar wrote:
Isn't there something beautiful in exposing false beauty too though?

--A

That's why I rarely come here. Not even a politician can convolute as happily as a philosopher. I mean, when Clinton asks what "Is" is, it's only semantics - but you guys can get twenty pages of debate on the subject!

And that's why I come here so often.

WayFriend wrote:There is no requirement that beauty cannot be linked to what is not beautiful, cannot serve what is not beautiful. Beauty is a slave to whomever possesses it, and, having no purpose of its own beyond being, it serves the purpose of whomever weilds it.

I like that, but I think Plissken may have a point about the onus being on the perceiver.

Is it beauty's fault that we're so susceptible to it?

--A

Avatar wrote:Is it beauty's fault that we're so susceptible to it?

As I mentioned very early on, I think there's a lot about beauty that we're prewired with, but, like everything else about prewire, that ain't the whole story - there's always the nurture side.

However, there are enough people out there that create beauty - artists - and people who find beauty and bring it back to us - explorers, scientists - that there must be a significant commonality: if not, how can one person ever imagine what someone else would find to be beautiful?

Beauty rests with the perceiver; but, like any communication, there has to be a sender as well as a receiver. There must be a language of beauty, whose memes can be composed and interpreted.

New thought: Perhaps one of the dangers of beauty comes not from it's possible deceit, but from the desire to own it. First of all, there is the distinct possibility that we blind ourselves to the dangers of the beautiful thing, and then we make it ugly by trying to own it. (I'm thinking of both psycho-Ex's and South African diamonds here.)