What is Beauty?

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[color=#9933ff][font=lucida calligraphy]I have to ask because beauty is different things to different people and I want to know what different people define beauty as.

As for myself I have to say that I consider my daughter beautiful because despite the fact that her parents aren't getting along at the moment she's growing into a very beautiful and intelligent little girl. Okay so part of this is the bias of a mother's love. But if you saw her you'd agree.

So any other comments?[/color][/font]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Well, I'd actually kind of like to wait for M to get here because chances are he'll be saying what I want to say but am too lazy to go about saying, and besides, I'm going about this is a realistic sense.

To me, beauty is happiness, through and through. If I can be happy, the entire world can be beautiful. [/COLOR]

[spy46]

it all depends on what kind you are looking for.

are you just looking for that thin slender girl that knows she is hot, could get any guy she wants and just not give a rats *** about you.

same could be said for a guy.

or are you looking for the inner beauty, the person that will find a way to help you even when they cant do it under normal conditions.

the person that wants to help you just to help you or the person that actually cares about the things that really matter.

eg: a overly loving husband that wants to spend every waking moment with his wife and kids.

a police officer that actually talks to victems as a person and not just take the reports.

it all depends on what you are looking for and what you are interested in

[DeathKnight]

[color=crimson]Beauty is subjective to personal taste. There are popular trends as to what is beautiful but not every person on Earth will ever find one person, scene, piece of art or otherwise as beautiful.

For me, well. Beauty is everywhere in small and large ways. The grand scheme of a city's hum and rush can be beautiful as can be a small flower in a field. A girl can be beautiful, she can say beautiful things.

Some things have more beauty than others and some have none to me. In general most scenes, people and things can have beauty upon and within them.[/color]

[Guest Copycatalyst]

Truth is Beauty; Beauty is Truth.

[Malkav]

truth is beaty, as beauty is truth.

[Guest Copycatalyst]

So you want to know what Beauty is. . .Beauty is merely looking at things undistortedly and capturing the is-essence of these things in their moments of existing. Beauty is not wholly subjective, as many seem to assume. Objective and subjective are merely dichotomic slices of the West's Ego-obsession and its love of its subject-object metaphysics. To our culture beauty is in the I of the beholder. Sadly. Truly. Actually, beauty is not subjective at all. Beauty is a word we misuse and use constantly when we have no idea what we are using it for. It's as over-used and as fickle as this "love" word we throw around so often. Beauty is a human conception of reality, often dealing with some sensual heightenment of moments. We say things are beautiful often, but when they [i]are[/i] beautiful to us, independent of this saying, is a different matter altogether, and often when things [i]are[/i] beautiful we mistake and don't see this beauty, unless it is of high visual value to our eyes.

It's interesting that the I really fashions itself and is itself in its eyes. What I mean is how obsessed we are with visual appearances and visual forms, and how much we discount all other senses. Our sensual appartus is more than merely visual; for example consider how little we say "that smells beautiful." The Western mind deals in parts, not wholes; it doesn't realize that actually, [i]all[/i] senses and the [i]entire system of a human being[/i] combines to make a greater [i]sensuality[/i] than merely the focus upon only one sense and the primary use of it. The human being is a gestalt machine, and while it is good to put it into pieces, the pieces end up combining to be more than their own parts. Perhaps this accounts for the qualia we have such a hard time quantifying or explaining as far as the age-old mind-body problem of philosophy goes, and is yet the problem with our functionalist theory of mind? Beauty to the Western mind is intimately tied with visual seduction in some manner and means. This is seen in the highpoint and the incredible decadence of this truth seen in Hollywood. Beauty to the Western mind is often a very plasticine, empty, devoid concept, plagued with egocentrics and completely missing of the actual true beauty of things in many senses and ways.

What is Beauty? I suppose in the Western philosophic tradition we would say this is an aesthetical question. It deals with appearances and forms. But I don't necessarily follow such a tradition, per say, in my own thoughts upon what this "beauty" is.

As far as visually, what makes something beautiful to us? Usually it has to have some consistency or symmetry to it. Our appartus is built to recognize faces. If we present ourselves with a face which has six eyes and many mouths, it is often taxing for our eyes to focus on it because our apparti is built and is so [i]concreted[/i] into seeing faces with two eyes, a mouth, a nose, and so on. This perhaps may have to do with how we are raised here in the West, often seeing many, many faces that are just like that, since that's how a human's face is. I wonder what would happen if we showed our babies 6-eyed 3-mouthed 2-nosed faces, and if their minds would become conditioned to view those and only those faces. Psychology seems to assume the mind is built in some sense hard-wired, but my idea would be that the mind is in fact not built hard-wired necessarily, but actually adapts to the [i]samenesses[/i] in its environments.

In the end if we want to present the dichotomy of beautiful and ugly, it's interesting to note that there is a type of aesthetics to ugliness. A type of beauty, in fact, in things which are ugly; a type of beauty in that kind of fear, and such. It is my opinion that every single thing is beautiful if we remove our egobarriers--our preconceived distortions of the truth of objects--and merely see aspects of its trueness, in an objective type of manner. Beauty to me is merely seeing the truth of any object, no matter how much it has distorted itself or one's mind may distort it, too.

[affection]

To me:
Beauty is personality.
Anyone can be "hott"
But not everyone can have true beauty.
I never tell a person with no personality that they are beautiful. It just seems like I'm lying to them.

[Zen]

[color=darkred][size=1]

This is true [URL="http://a16.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/44/l_4eecd8a79d4993001be56f8cf0866e1f.jpg"]Beauty...[/URL][/color][/size]

[Nerdsy]

[quote name='The Boss'][color=darkred][size=1]

This is true [URL="http://a16.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/44/l_4eecd8a79d4993001be56f8cf0866e1f.jpg"]Beauty...[/URL][/color][/size][/QUOTE]

[color=deeppink]Maybe in opposite world.[/color]

[Zen]

[quote name='Nerdsy'][color=deeppink]Maybe in opposite world.[/color][/QUOTE]

[color=darkred][size=1]

Oh crap.... I need a snappy comeback... hm.

[b]"So is your face!"[/b]

Yeah... that showed 'em, Mike.[/color][/size]

[Retribution]

[size=1]Physical beauty within humans has everything to do with facial proportions and symmetry. There is also a fair deal of subconscious shaping that occurs throughout your life that ends up having an immense impact on your standards.

Most psychologists agree that men are attracted to women with hips (increases ease of childbirth), breasts (feeding offspring), and smooth/youthful skin (suggests lack of disease and proper nourishment). Serious deviations from the norm are seen as unattractive, probably because we think the women is incapable of producing a healthy, strong child.

As for women, well, they're far more difficult and complex. Height and power (socioeconomic or physical) are general trends to attraction, again linking to ability to provide for offspring.

But beauty in a larger sense... it's something humans have been struggling to define forever. It's in the eye of the beholder, really.[/size]

[John]

[quote name='The Boss'][COLOR=darkred][SIZE=1]

This is true [URL="http://a16.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/44/l_4eecd8a79d4993001be56f8cf0866e1f.jpg"]Beauty...[/URL][/SIZE][/COLOR][/quote] Bit drafty in the room, was it?

[Guest The Blue Jihad]

[center][img]http://photos-818.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sctm/v61/232/61/816818/n816818_33773710_1562.jpg[/img][/center] My friend, Agnes. Just spent the weekend with her in NYC. She's something else, people...definitely something else...I really wish I'd been able to get a picture of the two of us when we got all snazzied up for dinner at a fancy restaurant on Saturday. She was stunning...absolutely beautiful.

[Semjaza]

The Boss's nipples almost poked my eyes out. :animeknow

Edit: Ha, good response.

[Zen]

[color=darkred][size=1]

I can cut diamonds with those bad boys.[/color][/size]

[Horendithas]

[COLOR="Indigo"][quote name='The Boss'][color=darkred][size=1]

This is true [URL="http://a16.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/44/l_4eecd8a79d4993001be56f8cf0866e1f.jpg"]Beauty...[/URL][/color][/size][/QUOTE]No this is:[quote name='Aaryanna'][COLOR=goldenrod][CENTER][IMG]http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/1579/cutestmm2.jpg[/IMG] [/CENTER][/COLOR][/QUOTE]Anyway... As for the topic... others have hit on it but it really varies a lot since there are so many factors that depend upon how you were raised, culture, etc. So in the end it really is in the eye of the beholder.

Personally I prefer inner beauty in the sense that a person's personality and soul is beautiful. There's just something refreshing about an honest and kind person since sometimes it seems that they can be so hard to find. [/COLOR]

[Guest Copycatalyst]

[quote name='indifference'][COLOR="Indigo"] So in the end it really is in the eye of the beholder. [/COLOR][/QUOTE]

You're wrong. It's in the I of the beholder if you're going to say that. See my post prior. All is explained there. (Isn't it great how no one listens to what I say!)

[Retribution]

[quote name='Copycatalyst']You're wrong. It's in the I of the beholder if you're going to say that. See my post prior. All is explained there. (Isn't it great how no one listens to what I say!)[/QUOTE]
[size=1]You have good points, you just need to make them concise, digestible, and coherent. And hell, you also have a bunch of nonsense tossed in there too. It's like your intention is to talk above everyone -- like you derive some perverse pseudointellectual gratification when no one understands you.[/size]

[Rachmaninoff]

[quote name='Copycatalyst'] (Isn't it great how no one listens to what I say!)[/QUOTE]Perhaps if you steered away from so many personifications, similes and metaphors and were as Retribution just stated, more [I]concise[/I] I just might listen. And for those posts where you are more to the point I do.

Anyway, putting that aside, beauty is in everything, you just have to look for it or not allow outside influences to blind you to it. As DeathKnight put it: Beauty is everywhere in small and large ways.

[Guest Copycatalyst]

I don't derive some psuedointellectual love from being what I am; I am what I am, and you can either accept it or seem to say I'm playing some game. I'm sorry that I actually put some thought and depth into my posts unlike 99.9% of the people who replied to this thread, and other threads; sorry you are all ADHDions and cannot consider that you know, really nothing can be understood in shortness. But if you want me to attempt to lay down what I said in two phrases, fine, you'll get your little wish and your little disregard for what I even had to say!

Beauty is a human word and it means nothing. If one comes to a Dionysian appreciation of life, to see things [i]as they are[/i], then the "beauty" is immense, but it cannot be explained. Except for if you're a poet and people will listen to what you say then. . .but oh wait that's right, I already wrote what a poet writ in my first reply and no one even considered what the **** I said.

"Truth is Beauty; Beauty is Truth/ That is all ye on this Earth need know."

Go read some Keats and stfu! :D

[Rachmaninoff]

[quote name='Copycatalyst']I don't derive some psuedointellectual love from being what I am; I am what I am, and you can either accept it or seem to say I'm playing some game. I'm sorry that I actually put some thought and depth into my posts unlike 99.9% of the people who replied to this thread, and other threads; sorry you are all ADHDions and cannot consider that you know, really nothing can be understood in shortness. But if you want me to attempt to lay down what I said in two phrases, fine, you'll get your little wish and your little disregard for what I even had to say![/QUOTE]Perhaps if you'd also drop the arrogant attitude that being a wind bag makes one smart I just might want to listen. You want respect for your posts and yet you turn around and insult everyone by saying they have no depth or real thought in their answers since it doesn't meet up to [I]your [/I]standards which are purely subjective by the way. And if you can't put things shortly, that's your problem not mine. Assuming someone has [I]Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder[/I] since they like to hear things in a more direct manner is silly.

*tags the ignore button*

[Guest Copycatalyst]

[quote name='Rachmaninoff']Perhaps if you'd also drop the arrogant attitude that being a wind bag makes one smart I just might want to listen. You want respect for your posts and yet you turn around and insult everyone by saying they have no depth or real thought in their answers since it doesn't meet up to [I]your [/I]standards which are purely subjective by the way. And if you can't put things shortly, that's your problem not mine. Assuming someone has [I]Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder[/I] since they like to hear things in a more direct manner is silly.

*tags the ignore button*[/QUOTE]

I never said being a wind bag makes one smart. . .however what I did say is that what I write is concise, it is just lenghtier, and of higher linguistic quality, than ADHDpeople can handle I guess. ADHD involves not having the ability to keep one's attention focused upon something for, usually, a long length of time. . .So thus in this case it is aptly applicable, since as is obvious many just kind of fly over whatever I post. But hey, now that you've got me on ignore, now you don't even have to worry about it, so that's your deal.

I don't have standards; I merely write posts and you know, when people reply in a thread they usually do this thing called read other peoples' posts and then reply to what they said or actually consider what they said? I guess that's foreign here, lol. I think it's fine what many have said in this thread; the problem is none of them take into consideration what I said. I still see someone saying "Beauty is subjective" and it's blatantly obvious that they didn't read my post. I suppose that's their choice, if they choose to not read my post; but then I am told apparently that I cannot write long posts as if it's some murder to what I am saying. If you don't want to read my posts, that's your deal, but that doesn't mean I can't reply to others' posts and point out their fallibilities.

You know, I want to have an actual [i]discussion[/i]. Whenever people are asked "What is Beauty" or asked anything, they are often going to give a certain statement or a certain way of looking at it, because we're all conditioned to say certain things; in this case and in this thread it is that "Beauty is subjective." What I was merely attempting to do was break that mold and challenge us to engage ourselves to question it deeper and at a differing level than that. . .In my post prior I implicated that the way modern Western minds work is to endlessly distort the truth of a question such as this. I went directly into my society's vapidness and love of visual beauty. . .and such.

I don't need to sum up what I said in my post. It's there and if you actually know how to read beyond reading, "See Bob run. Look at Bob run. Beauty is subjective. Bob is Beauty," or something or other maybe you can understand something I said there, maybe not; whatever. I guess I won't even post any more if it's that hard to actually you know, engage your mind and consider what I was saying. So go and play your video games or do whatever it is you do and ignore me then. Again. Your deal.

[Zen]

[color=darkred][size=1]

Homeboy. Let it go, jeez. You get far too heated over things that really don't matter and then you get all insulting about it. I'm gonna give you a chill pill perscription...[/color][/size]

[Horendithas]

[COLOR="Indigo"][quote name='Copycatalyst']I don't have standards; I merely write posts and you know, when people reply in a thread they usually do this thing called read other peoples' posts and then reply to what they said or actually consider what they said? I guess that's foreign here, lol. I think it's fine what many have said in this thread; the problem is none of them take into consideration what I said. I still see someone saying "Beauty is subjective" and it's blatantly obvious that they didn't read my post. I suppose that's their choice, if they choose to not read my post; but then I am told apparently that I cannot write long posts as if it's some murder to what I am saying. If you don't want to read my posts, that's your deal, but that doesn't mean I can't reply to others' posts and point out their fallibilities.[/QUOTE]Or people simply respond to the opening post instead of every single point that was brought up. You're assuming they didn't read your post and even if they did they may still be of the opinion that "Beauty is subjective" Reading your post doesn't automatically mean that they are going to agree with your point of view.

Or that they didn't take what you said into consideration. It means they think "Beauty is subjective" and nothing more. ;) And in the end it still is since I'll find something beautiful where you will find the same thing ugly. Both of us are correct of course. Because it is based on what we perceive as beautiful and therefore is subjective. [/COLOR]