Freedomain Radio

If you're hankerin' for a more abstract topic, apart from the relationships and the politics, how about this:

What is your view on the relationship of truth to beauty? Do you see them as one-in-the-same, or two halves of a whole, or in some other relationship to each other?

Also, is a proper recognition of both truth AND beauty, a necessity for the proper recognition of virtue (i.e., a necessity for the achievement of love, according to the FDR definition)?

I have been thinking that truth without beauty, and vice-versa, is kind of... not possible. I don't have an explanation for that thought yet, but I was wondering what an 'FDR' view of this would look like, and I can't really remember you dealing with this at all in the fundamentals videos.

 

innnnteresting, great idea, thanks!

I read your blog post about that GG, great idea!

Greg,

Can you define beauty for me ?

pcrs:

Greg,

Can you define beauty for me ?

The label we put on something that the affords us with the experience of virtue.

Or...boobs.

pcrs:

Greg,

Can you define beauty for me ?

damn good question. I'm not sure I can answer, really, but I'll give it a shot:

I would suggest that the recognition of beauty is only possible in the recognition of truth. I might even go so far as to say that rejection of the truth, implies rejection of beauty as well.

I'd also suggest that aesthetic preference is not the same thing as the recognition of beauty, just as having an opinion about something is not the same as knowing the truth of it  (in other words, preferring the color blue is not the same thing as seeing the beauty in the night sky).

I'd say the apprehension of beauty is similar to the apprehension of truth, in an experiential or emotional sense, but I don't know that I would go as far as to say they are the same thing - just that they touch overlapping parts of the mind, if that makes any sense at all. 

I'd also say that an apprehension of the human form as beautiful, is not quite the same thing as drooling over boobs. What I'm suggesting there, is not that beauty cannot produce a sexual response, but rather that sexual responses to the human form are not *necessarily* an appreciation of it's beauty. I guess the easiest way to put that to metaphor, is to say that satiation of an appetite for alcohol is not quite the same thing as savoring a fine wine, or a good beer. You certainly could be satiating while savoring, but you can't savor if all you're interested in is satiation. 

This is all just a rough sketch. I'm still piecing the idea together in my own mind. Feel free to pick it apart.

 

I asked because because if you wonder if there is a link between the two, you obviously do not consider them the same thing. Your answer cleared it up a bit, but I still do have a clearer idea of virtue, truth and morality then I have with beauty.

I experience beauty also with good pieces of engineering, clever solutions to problems, good formulations of thoughts even with low prices. But how to link my new sunglasses with integrated MP3 player (7.5 euros, 512 Mb) to truth, virtue or morality is still something that needs to be cleared up after some of the more urgent problems are dealt with.

Could you say, then, that since we are dealing with abstract ideas (i.e. truth, beauty, virtue) they can only be realised in essentially abstract ways? You can't link material entities like sunglasses or looks with truth, virtue or morality but when it comes to things like good pieces of engineering, you can appreciate the skill, ingenuity and imagination of the people that worked on it.

My interpretation of this discussion so far is that beauty and truth are co-existent: you cannot have beauty without truth and with truth comes inherent beauty. Or is that stating the obvious? :s

Hannah, Maybe what you're describing is the analog in beauty, to the distinction Stef makes with UPB: "moral" versus "aesthetically preferable" versus "personally preferable"...

 

Greg Gauthier:

Hannah, Maybe what you're describing is the analog in beauty, to the distinction Stef makes with UPB: "moral" versus "aesthetically preferable" versus "personally preferable"...

What Greg is looking for is digital beauty, which is the fembot he's working on right now in his appt. 

From the book "Reading Like A Writer", by Francine Prose, I stumbled upon this passage, which reminded me of this thread. Just some kindling to throw onto the thought fire:

Finally, before we leave the subject of sentences, let's return once more to Hemingway, and to the passage from his memoir of his youth in Paris... in which he describes his working method...

Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going... I would think... 'All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there...

For years, I've heard this passage about the one true sentence... and I've nodded my head, not wanting to admit that I honestly had no idea what in the world Hemingway was talking about. What is a 'true' sentence in this context - that is, the context of fiction? What makes Hemingway's advice so hard to follow is that he never quite explains what 'true' means.

Perhaps it's wisest to assume that Hemingway... was simply confusing truth with beauty. Possibly what he really meant was a beautiful sentence - a concept that, as we have seen, is almost as hard to define as the one true sentence...

 

pcrs:

I experience beauty also with good pieces of engineering, clever solutions to problems, good formulations of thoughts even with low prices. But how to link my new sunglasses with integrated MP3 player (7.5 euros, 512 Mb) to truth, virtue or morality is still something that needs to be cleared up after some of the more urgent problems are dealt with.

It's obviously the fact that you can get over a dozen full-length FDR podcasts on that player and thus hear Stef explain the significance of what you're looking at through those shades!

 

But seriously, I've always had a question about the phenomena of really corrupt people havig access to some of the more aesthetically beautiful things in the world.  Those who deny truth get beauty... wha? 

Loonie:

But seriously, I've always had a question about the phenomena of really corrupt people havig access to some of the more aesthetically beautiful things in the world.  Those who deny truth get beauty... wha? 

Perhaps if you smell like shit, you have to use a lot of aftershave ?

"Fill the walls with famous impressionists honey", "I made my fortune in the drug trade". "I need more beauty to cover up my dark soul, otherwise people will notice"

Well, I'd consider truth to be a beautiful thing.  I don't think that something has to be true to be beautiful, however.   A painting of a flower can be beautiful, but truth or falsity don't apply.

As for the meaning of beauty, I'd consider anything that soothes the senses (as opposed to stimulating them), to be beautiful.  Of course, you may say that something is beautifully evil, but you'd really just be using the word "beautifully" in the sense that you would use the word "perfectly."   Perfection is, after all, often associated with beauty.

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