Is beauty real?

Is beauty real?

We clearly perceive it. If one can see and fails to perceive it probably there is some neurological disorder in play or severe depression. We know in women that a particular ratio of hip to waist to breast is seen as most desirable. We know human faces have to have near symmetry but not perfect symmetry to be seen as attractive or beautiful. And we know that the perception of beauty is not simply a cultural phenomenon.

But why? Without looking through the lens of evolution we can not make sense of a universally innate sense of what is beautiful. No doubt sexual selection is involved in perception of beauty. Beyond the human form when we perceive beauty in nature or even an automobile it is in part a result of mathematical relationships. Our brains are hardwired to perceive patterns. None of the aforementioned mitigates against transitory cultural influences but neither do cultural influences mitigate against the universality of standards of beauty.

Beyond our perception of beauty or a dog’s or chimp’s does beauty exist? Is there a platonic ideal of beauty that would be recognized by all intelligent aliens? If so it would be based on math. But if a life form has not evolved to have emotions then beauty would not exist for that life form. We FEEL it when we perceive it. It produces an emotional reaction.

I find music or concepts beautiful.  My cat was beautiful too.

Beauty is real, but it’s subjective. I don’t think there is a certain calculation that determines if something is beautiful. I mean, perhaps, but on an individual level I’d guess.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Jody Lee.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Jody Lee.

Beauty is an emotional response so it may not be ‘real’ at all. Different individuals or species may have a different response or no response and if no life is present no beauty is present, unlike the noise a tree makes as it falls.

Fr: Psychology Today

Symmetric faces are construed as more beautiful than asymmetric faces in all cultures (irrespective of the race of the person being evaluated and the race of the evaluator). You can visit Bedouins in the Middle East, the Yanomamo in the Amazon, and Inuits in the Canadian north, and they will all agree as to who is or is not beautiful (based on facial features). Clear skin is a universal preference. Certain morphological features that connote masculinity (square jaw) or femininity (high-cheek bones) are universally preferred. Rotund Rubanesque women, heavier women preferred in Central Africa, and catwalk thin models, while varying greatly in terms of their weight, all tend to have hourglass figures that correspond roughly to a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.70 (although cultural settings can slightly alter that preference). Babies who are insufficiently cognitively developed to be influenced by socialization gaze at symmetric faces for longer periods than they do at asymmetric ones. I can provide numerous other examples that support the universal components of beauty but I suppose that you get the point. It seems that irrespective of the number of times that these points are made, social constructivists simply cannot accept the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence in support of the universality of some beauty metrics.

I was tired when i wrote the following: But if a life form has not evolved to have emotions then beauty would not exist for that life form. We FEEL it when we perceive it. I have ridiculed science for decades when they make this error, this conceit. It is the equivalent of Religious brilliance in the geocentric theory. And then of course i felt vindicated when discoveries were made such as extremeophiles.

And yes of course, Simon, other animals perceive beauty. There are dogs and chimps who make art. Sexual selection is as in play for animals as it is with us and without the influence of culture..MOSTLY.