I dont mind if you dont agree with me, I just have the thesaurus to support me.Quote:
Originally Posted by limajean
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I dont mind if you dont agree with me, I just have the thesaurus to support me.Quote:
Originally Posted by limajean
Yup...
You are just linking beauty with the physical human. Beauty is much more broader than "sex appeal" far far more than you can comprehend.Quote:
Originally Posted by aBIGsheep
I don't know what thesaurus you have but every one i've looked through, online and hard copy disagrees with you.Quote:
Originally Posted by skasian
Because they're really different words..
Beauty exists in three levels,
Physical - perceived by the eyes where beauty is something appealing, in a desirable sense. Ie eye candy
Emotional/Mental - perceived by the heart and mind where beauty is something so hauntingly appealing that is able to move the heart. Ie Passages from a great romantic novel
Spiritual - Purity, Clean, Righteous, Holy. Ie God and a human soul in prayer.
Really? Mine lists about 15~20 words or so, and it definitely includes.Quote:
Originally Posted by limajean
Its not so important anyway
Agreed.
AHAOHHAOHAHOQuote:
Originally Posted by skasian
What do you think an opinion is? Please, enlighten me with your thesaurus.
I quite agree. Though some girls I know are annoying about presenting their opinions.Quote:
Originally Posted by aBIGsheep
Annoying how?
Like the, you're-wrong-I'm-right-now-shut-up-and-let-me-listen-to-the-sound-of-my-own-voice-as-I-preach type annoying?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dori
Amen to that.
Beauty's in the eye of the beholder....
Ah yeah.
In some cases. But most beauty is undeniable.
I never disagreed with your opinion, I was informing that we must not only look at human beauty when there are much more in the world that represents beauty.Quote:
Originally Posted by aBIGsheep
I think hands are beautiful
Whisking us away to the original question . . .
. . . I have no intention of insulting others' opinions, despite how much I may disagree, for arguing what seems more beautiful than ugly seems as absurd as the physical appearance of Baroque composers, in opposition to musicians of today, where looks mean more than talent ('Video Killed the Radio Star,' anyone?).Quote:
Originally Posted by bruno russel
Regardless that it seems one of my favorite subjects, one of the few works I have read on aesthetics, Critique of Judgment by Immanuel Kant, sums up my opinion. Judgment judges a lot (pun intended), but what do we love to judge most? Not crime, but what appears alluring to the eye (or the 'judgment of taste,' as Kant words it).
Though Kant seems to take objectivity for granted in Critique of Judgment, let us assume that no Absolute Beauty exists, but rather human perception; therefore, what we see, we judge. This we judge as wrong, this right, this smart, this dumb, this beautiful, this hideous, etc. Beauty, thereby, appears entirely subjective, and, at worst, determined by the masses, possibly influenced by the periphery.
I say 'influenced by the periphery' because we search for what Kant, translated, calls 'universal validity' - we search for agreement, in terms of multiple yuppies admiring a piece of art, a group of fraternity boys ogling a Playboy magazine, or a troop of tree-huggers going bird-watching. What do these things have in common? In terms of pleasure toward the senses, they exist as an end; they seem useful at that present moment, but their beauty freezes us in our steps, makes us hold our breath, and recall that moment in times of trouble to remember the treasurable, immeasurable times of life. In essence, beauty has no reason, but only its existence for its onlookers to admire, and, to answer your original question, bruno russel, Kant sees beauty in the eye of the beholder. The yuppies regard the painting, as do the frat boys to the model, as do the environmentalists to the eagle, as do I to Audrey Hepburn.
In this theory, beauty appears without bias of intelligence, once again, entirely subjective. The judge of intelligence seems a different subject, but I mean to point out that an individual with trisomy 21 (Down's syndrome) may have the same merit in terms of judgment of beauty as a member of Mensa. Beauty exists regardless of intellect, acuity of perception (whether blind, def, paraplegic, quadriplegic), or background.
I believe, however, that the judgment of beauty may gain some bias by culture. Certain tribes of Burma consider gradual neck-streching by brass rings attractive, the sects of polygamist Mormonism by Warren Jeffs in Utah and Arizona (U.S.A.) would marry girls as young as 9 years old, and I dare not mention the details of female circumcision in some African countries. Do I consider such practices beautiful? Goodness, no, and my reverence for certain practices may not change, but I would never deny that members of certain cultures join that culture because they find specific practices as ritual, sacred, and recognized as an ends toward beauty. Their ideation of beauty, rather, seems identified by their culture and background, unknown whether others consider it right or wrong, also judged upon subjectivity by the masses.
In other words, bruno russel, I cannot define beauty, nor will I attempt to try. I have witnessed it in my own subjective view, and shall not describe it, but regard it as an end in itself; I will not necessarily attempt to connect it with anything good or holy, as did Plato in his Symposium, but revere and preserve it.
Mono, I would argue that the marrying of girls as young as 9, and the circumcision of women in African countries - has no relation to beauty. And it doesn't. Women in Africa are not circumcised for beauty. Neither is the practice regarded as beautiful.
Beauty is subjective, but.. beauty is also something we can all generally, at times, agree on
Done a bit of reading of Plato's Symposium, and came across some reference to beauty.
Plato argues that in order to preliminarily learn about beauty, is by observing and wanting beautiful people and objects. However he also argues that our desire for beauty can be altered until the time we can really appreciate and love beauty itself, whereas he concludes that this beauty is the highest love there ever will be.
The beauty means the beauty of soul,,
Beauty governs over a very broad range of aspects, and a soul being beautiful is only one of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by novlist*star*
What do you mean by soul?
Soul by human's spiritual beings, these beings that are immortal and will carry on living afterlife. Soul which is regarded beautiful based on its purity and goodness.Quote:
Originally Posted by atiguhya padma
Quote:
Originally Posted by skasian
I'm still none the wiser. Can I see, hear, feel, smell or taste the soul? Is there something concrete about it? Is there any indisputable common ground that we can all agree on about the soul?
I believe that beauty is based on cultural and individual schemas that are shaped by assimilation, accommodation and prejudice.
We are always aware of the original beauty schema, prototype, form which is acknowledged in common statements like: "their attractive, but I wouldn't call them beautiful".
Someone we find beautiful today may no longer appeal to us tomorrow and vice versa.
Zhuangzi: "Men claim that Mao-ch’iang and Lady Li were beautiful, but if fish saw them they would dive to the bottom of the stream, if birds saw them they would fly away, and if deer saw them they would break into a run."
The eyes are only one medium from which the brain collects information. How does the heart perceive? Both "hauntingly" and "Ie" imply the importance of memory on the idea of beauty which I agree with.Quote:
Originally Posted by skasian
Whether beauty itself is a single ruler by which all can be measured is beyond me, but it seem to me that the standard of beauty is different for each subject: visual art, music, literature, humans, nature, animals etc.
Beauty seems to be dominated by the feminine, at least physical beauty. I have only heard of the beauty of a man in response to his actions (a man stays by the side of his wife who is in a coma: "O, what a beautiful man".
Quote:
Originally Posted by skasian
I'm not even convinced about its existence.Quote:
Originally Posted by atiguhya padma
Like I said earlier, I think beauty has been understood for a very long time. Despite its many different forms.
Yes, you just provided something we can agree about the soul, and Plato's Phaedo can justify - that the soul is immaterial, invisible and immortal, something that cannot be perceived by our physical senses, therefore something that cannot be defined completely in our physical world.Quote:
Originally Posted by atiguhya padma
Quote:
Originally Posted by NickAdams
"How does the heart perceive? Both "hauntingly" and "Ie" imply the importance of memory on the idea of beauty which I agree with. "
The memory and thought of a specific thing that represents beauty becomes a stimuli for our hearts. It depends what our heart feels about that specific memory.
"Beauty seems to be dominated by the feminine, at lest physical beauty. I have only heard of the beauty of a man is response to his actions (a man stays by the side of his wife who is in a coma: "O, what a beautiful man"."
Beauty dominated by feminism? I have to disagree. A beautiful fountain pen may be highly praised yet it does not possess any feminine features. We sense beauty out of non human objects out of its quality such as uniqueness, high quality, not because it takes the form of feminism.
I can not agree with ol' Play-Dough on this. If it can not be sensed, how did he, or Socrates, discover it?Quote:
Originally Posted by skasian
Any reaction our heart has to emotional stimuli is really a reaction of the brain. The heart has been used as a metaphor, but I think this restrains us from truly defining emotional qualities.Quote:
Originally Posted by skasian
The feminine, nor feminism, but you're are right in that I should be more specific. Beauty is rarely used to define the human male unless it pertains to qualities of character.Quote:
Originally Posted by skasian
that's bc for the most part we're fantastically unattractive. i don't know what women see in us, but i'm glad they see whatever it isQuote:
Originally Posted by NickAdams
Skasian,
How would you differentiate between a real soul and a fake soul? a virtual soul designed so that it cannot be detected by any of our five senses? I'm intrigued. I have always used the senses to determine a thing's existence. If you think something can exist outside the realm of the senses, and that we can intelligibly discuss its existence, I'd like to know how you determine its existence as genuine rather than fake.
Let me discuss with you about radio waves and such electromagnetic waves that seems invisible, immaterial and even maybe immortal. Assuming there was no technology and science, we wouldnt be able to know that they exists with us everyday. The cause: we cant sense them with our five senses. Its a dangerous thing to trust in the naked five, it is just not adequate to sense what exists and what doesnt.Quote:
Originally Posted by atiguhya padma
A person who knows well about nitrogen stores in a glass funnel and show people that inside is the most abundant element in earth. This person can be laughed at and thrown eggs for telling such idiotic lies. The idea is that solemly trusting in our five senses esp in our eyes, we get mislead far too easily.
Magicians, masters of illusions to trick the naked eye of people, implements this very idea. What we see, is not always the truth.
What about a person confessing their love to you. We cant feel love itself by our five senses, yet we get compelled to believe that it does exist in the bottom of our hearts.
I have to ask you how can there be a fake soul if there is a real soul. To follow this logic, its like saying there can be a fake human and a real one, something that is very incorrect.
If something exists, it exists alright, theres no fakeness about it.
You cant "discover" the soul, as it cannot be proved by scientific equations as it cannot be understood completely.Quote:
Originally Posted by NickAdams
Now philosophy deals some aspects about the soul, and from what I know about it, it is not the study of unveiling the truth unlike science, but rather provides with insights into contrasting views and perspectives about an idea of various philosophers. A respected philosopher is born out of their originial argument that successfully convinces others to agree and perceive the same.
Reading Pluto's Phaedo, using Socrates, he argued that soul definitely exists out of some points including Argument of affinity, Argument from opposites, where everthing comes to be from out of its opposite, and the Theory of Recollection. He said that "True Philosophers should look forward to death", purpose being to free the spirit from the needs of the body. If you would like to understand more about this, I recommend reading Phaedo.
"Any reaction our heart has to emotional stimuli is really a reaction of the brain. The heart has been used as a metaphor, but I think this restrains us from truly defining emotional qualities."
A decision from a gut feeling is identified as a decision from the heart, and there seems to be a firm line that distinguishes a feeling and response from the heart and the brain. Where the brain processes mainly with complex ideas and mechanist approach of dealing with matter, the heart processes with mainly with morality.
Beauty is rarely used to depict men? Handsome serves as a substitute for the word beauty in men, where it is just cultural language that affects how we depict something that is pleasing to the eye, heart etc.
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by billyjack
I'll read it.Quote:
Originally Posted by skasian
The heart circulates blood and the "gut" digest food. When you go with your "gut" you go with your instincts. Instincts are inherited responses and because they are unlearned they may be thought to come from some where other than the brain. "Morality" is another product being produced in the brain factory.Quote:
Originally Posted by skasian
Handsome has been used to describe women, quite common in the past, but this is to further the idea that beauty is relative, which I agree with. Beauty has been so overused that it no longer has the same meaning as it did for our ancestors.Quote:
Originally Posted by skasian
Gut feeling is, in my opinion, not an instinct, but an intuition. Intuitions can be learned. http://a09d0129txfi266.imageshacknow...zrg/smiley.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by NickAdams
Which is a mental process, because it's a cognitive response.:thumbs_upQuote:
Originally Posted by guyofcomicbooks
Yes, it is a mental process, but I still believe that a gut feeling is something like base knowledge, which stems from past experience.
How can you be so sure what belongs to the brain, mind, spirit, theres no psychologist out there that can successfully differentiate what kind of thought, emotion derives from the brain mind or spirit.Quote:
Originally Posted by NickAdams
Yes, some words' definition alters over time how the word gay was once defined as happy is now eradicated, and substituted as homosexual in modern generations' vocabularies.
I'm currently reading On Ugliness by Umberto Eco and never really thought how underrated 'ugliness' is until now. After reading Tao Te Ching some years ago, I understand (though not necessarily agree) that some things wouldn't exist without their opposites.
OK let me put it another way: there is nothingness and there is soul, tell me how you distinguish the one from the other?Quote:
Originally Posted by skasian
Science and technology in collaboration with our senses have helped us determine the existence of radiowaves. What has helped you determine the existence of soul?
I was thinking this exact train of thought earlier. I thought, "am I ugly? What if there were only one ugly person in the world? What if, everyone treated them terribly awfully and they later died, then would everyone else disappear too, since there were nothing but beautiful people?"Quote:
Originally Posted by subterranean
Or maybe there wouldn't be ugliness in the world after that last ugly person died. So maybe we should kill him if there is only one.
atiguhya padma, it feels like the senses are the closest to the surface, if we use them to identify things... but actually the senses come from somewhere, just as the mind and the intellect also come from somewhere. Nothing comes from nothing, right? So where do the senses come from? Only the mind? Or the self? Or the soul? In sanskrit there is the word atma which has three interpretations, depending on the context. Body, mind, or self, the self being the soul.
So the only way we know we are not the body and the mind is because satisfying those, we still do not feel satisfied. Living only to satisfy the senses does not leave us wholly satisfied. We satisfy phyiscal hunger, thirst, and our needs for shelter, but then equally necessary to us is human interaction. We satisfy our emotional or social needs, but those always need satisfying; after that we have mental pursuit as well as mental and physical recreation. Beyond and mixing with the mental pursuit is the artistic pursuit, and the two lead into the pursuit of spirituality. The ultimate question is, "who am I?" And that question absorbs one, and that question is the self. The self is never separated from other 'selves,' the physical world, or a spiritual world. The separation is an illusion. Consciousness, if it never perceives that it is not separate but a single perspecive upon a tapestry of consciousness; all emanating from and being attracted to the soul, which is beauty - if it never perceives this, then it is like a minus. If we were not conscious there would be no self-consciousness, no suffering. This is the clear philosophical reason for suicide, and it is philosophcially sound. If the subject does not exist, then it does not suffer. It is almost a shame that we have so vandalized this term to call it evil. It may be evil but that doesn't it wouldn't work...
Now I don't mean to bring up the existence of suicide except to say that non-existence isn't so bad. Existence and non-existence are sort of intertwined.
Even if you say there is no soul, there is still a self, which is more fundamental than any superficial conception, and that is not satsified until it finds something greater than the mental and the physical ideas. And it is correct in searching this out, because reason submits, actually, to the soul and the higher order of the divine. The divine is one, it is the truth, the source of beauty and all the universe, and it can be seen that the same divine is depicted in philosophy, religion, and mysticism.
If you do not agree with this I would not argue with you, because I am nothing in comparison with the divine. I cannot speak for the divine, or for the soul, because this would be speaking for the ultimate truth, and for the supreme beauty. I cannot speak for it because I could not capture it, but I can only tell of my own hints of it; hints of the truth of the soul, and of the fact that I, you, every living entity is part of that soul.
It is of no use to try to argue about the soul. The main I can think to talk of the soul is not different if one doesn't believe in the soul. Either way, we exist in the same universe, with the same laws, and in fact the discussion of the soul is the quest in understanding that particular, highest, law of the universe. My idea is that the soul is part of the divine soul, and it is divine in its original nature. We only neglect this fact for various other pursuits; interestingly, sometimes the pursuit of telling people the soul does not exist. The soul is the source of beauty, it is the source of mysticism and it is depicted by the mystics; our soul is the same soul of the soul of nature, which is why our heart is always called or attracted by nature. Our soul is the source of beauty and attraction, yet it is also the source of our self - though we are not always self-realized, it is still true that thoughts come from the self, rather than the self being stored up in the thoughts. And senses and preferences for them are known to the self by the thoughts, as is the rest of the world. If we identify our self with our senses, and perceive we exist because we can sense the world, the perhaps this divides us from our self, because our self knows it exists even if the senses do not; although the senses are part of it, the self, the soul, is still like the root.
This may still seem alien to atheists; I have not yet discovered that any of my words convinced an atheist to start thinking more about the soul or God, but thus is the way I see it. The soul is the permanent attractor to the self, and the soul is also the connection with the higher law of spirit, of the universe. Reason submits to the soul, and thus should intellect and mind submit to the soul, seeing in it its true existence, coming from it rather than matter.
Nikolai,
I disagree with most of what you say. However, something we agree on: it is of no use to argue about the soul. How can you argue about something that no-one knows anything about? Because we have no evidence of its existence there is nothing on which to base a positive argument. Which is why you go on to speculate and give an impression of your ideas and thoughts which cannot be compared to anything that exists. We can talk all day about our ideas and thoughts on the soul, but those ideas and thoughts can only live and die through negative ways: either they have an internal logical flaw or their premisses do not correspond to things that we know. We know nothing of the soul.
You say nothing comes of nothing. You mention the divine. Where did the divine come from? I am not sure that nothing can come from nothing. How would you prove this to me? One can always say that all things have a beginning. I don't know how this can be proven though. It is merely a conceptual statement. One that we cannot really understand well enough, because we do not know how to test it empirically. It is a statement reduced to conceptual analysis and cannot be explored very well in empirical ways. So we cannot know whether our conceptual tools are at fault or not over this.
Whatever the case, we certainly cannot discuss soul as if it exists. Simply because we have no information relating to its existence. Your point about satisfaction: the need for socialisation is a physical and psychological need. It isn't spiritual. It doesn't infer the existence of a soul.
The senses come from the interaction between body and mind, and because the mind is no more than a construct of the physical brain, it can be said that the senses come from a physical source, as does everything.