Is originality a pre-requisite for beauty?

[Embar Angylwrath]

Gonna toss this one back to Taxious, who peeled the onion. Tax.. what is your philosophy on this? Does beauty require a certain uniqueness?

(And thanks to Dd for adding this section)

[Klast Brell]

From what I have seen beauty actually requires a total absence of uniqueness. Perhaps we are biologically programed to seek out the person with the least deviations from the norm because they have the least genetic flaws. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averageness (yeah it's wikipedia. you can use all the references at the bottom if you want to confirm) Another big factor is symmetry of features. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_symmetry Having your eyes and ears be the same size and shape and be located in the exact same place on each side. basically having your left side be a perfect mirror image of your right. Again this is an indication of genetic fitness. Have you ever seen demonstrations of the techniques used in photoshopping pictures to maximize the attractiveness of the model ? One thing they do is to copy one eye, mirror it, then paste it over the other eye, so that both eyes are perfectly identical.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder is not only an accurate saying it's also subjective to your own definitions of beauty. My fiance loves me and thinks I'm beautiful however obviously other people would look at me and think "eh she's ok". More so I dated a guy (and i'll actually post a picture if you want lol) whom I didn't necessarily find attractive, but I'd seen worse looking guys. He turned out to be psycho, which had nothing really to do with our breaking up, but when the person you're with starts to seem worse and worse then you know there's something wrong. he was short, 5 foot say 4 and a half, 5'5" max, i'm only like 5'6" or 5'7" and his height didn't bother me at all until everything else started to bother me, his nose was too big, his teeth were too rabbit like and as I looked at him I kept thinking "why are we together?". anyway thats the point of it though, everyone is unique and frankly I find most models to be attractive, certainly, but they're nothing special. Put enough makeup on me and I'd look gorgeous too instead of just "ok". I like the unique features of people. Not to say i want one ear or eye to be totally misaligned, but I think it's simply subjective.

This is speaking from a female standpoint though. I'm sure theres something biologically aligned in men to make then desire women of a certain... symmetry for the genetic reasons women are supposed to choose one man over another... in the end maybe it really is all biological.

[Klast Brell]

My fiance loves me and thinks I'm beautiful

Your fiance has to tell you you are beautiful. Almost all men know that no mater what you always tell your girlfriend / fiance / wife she is beautiful even if she looks like the wrong end of a dog. I'm sure most men on this board (who have actually kissed a girl) will agree.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

but he doesn't have to stay, at any point in time he's free to leave, and i assume if i looked like the ass end of the dog then he wouldn't have been interested to begin with lol. Sure on occasion all women, even the gorgeous ones, look like hell, but in general if you think someone's quite WOOF then you won't be with her. Screwing someone for the night and being with them for an extended period of time are 2 different things.

I'm not saying what you said isn't true, it's quite true, but again there a difference in one night and forever (or long term anyway)

He doesn't have to tell me i'm beautiful, any more then he has to tell me he loves me for me to know how he feels... but yeah ok it's nice to hear.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Its interesting that both of you defined "beauty" as "physical attractiveness". Is that the limit of beauty? Just the human aesthetic?

[Arathena]

Gonna toss this one back to Taxious, who peeled the onion. Tax.. what is your philosophy on this? Does beauty require a certain uniqueness?

(And thanks to Dd for adding this section)

Aesthetic appeal, be it of a human or a non-human object does not, in particular, require originality. If we can agree, for example, that the Mona Lisa is beautiful, we can quickly agree that a print or a tracing of her is also quite likely to be agreed upon as beautiful, though when held in comparison, it will quite likely, and rightly, be considered a pale reflection of the original, missing the subtleties of the original, especially the tracing, no matter how finely done.

Linking back the the original discussion, that print or tracing may, or may not, be beautiful, but what it is certainly not is a work of art on its own. The Mona Lisa is the work of art, this is a mere reproduction. To create art, you must create. Even a still life or portrate or artistic photograph requires the creative action of the artist.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Is beauty soley aesthetic appeal? Or can it be deeper than that? More than just the appreciation of the physical. Can someone have a beautiful idea? Can they live a beautiful life? If so, what defines the beauty in the idea, or the life?

[Taxious]

Its interesting that both of you defined "beauty" as "physical attractiveness". Is that the limit of beauty? Just the human aesthetic?

I was going to say something about that too. I find that a lot of individuals can't distinguish lust from beauty. Is it beautiful (or ugly) to lust?

If we can agree, for example, that the Mona Lisa is beautiful, we can quickly agree that a print or a tracing of her is also quite likely to be agreed upon as beautiful, though when held in comparison, it will quite likely, and rightly, be considered a pale reflection of the original, missing the subtleties of the original, especially the tracing, no matter how finely done.

I, not finding much traditional art beautiful at all, would be hard pressed to find a difference between a copy of the Mona Lisa and the original. What if someone made the Mona Lisa better? I think this is beautiful.

I'm interested that Embar, with his big stiffy for this topic, hasn't given us his opinion yet.

[Klast Brell]

Just the use of modifiers on the word beautiful demonstrates that the standard accepted definition is a physical one. You have to use language like a beautiful life or a beautiful personality etc because if you just say beautiful without any qualifiers you will be understood to mean appearance.

[Harlowe]

There really can be no pre-requisite for "beauty" because it's subjective. I think the term "lovely" would be a more appropriate adjective when not talking about appearance. Saying someone has a "beautiful personality" or a "beautiful idea" sounds silly.

It's really no different than discussing pre-requisites for "delicious". Other than "it can't taste like shit", there isn't going to be a general concensus.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I think uniqeness (or our perception of it), underpins our determination of what is beautiful and what isn't. Whether it be a beautiful thought, a beautiful mind, a beautiful vists or a beautiful person. When we are exposed to someone or something new, we sometimes make the determination that that person (or idea, or view) is beautiful. However, we don't seem to do that with people, places or things we've already encountered and already made that determination.

So yes, I think uniqueness is critical to beauty.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

Klast was specifically relating to physical attractiveness, so I picked up on that. As far as physical attractiveness goes I stand by my statement of beauty being relative to whom you're looking at through your own eyes.

However let me branch off of that, thanks to the online age... Now you can have wonderfully deep, meaningful, beautiful (relevant subject matter, great ideas, expressive thoughts) conversations with virtual strangers, so it is possible to fall in love with someone via an online relationship and then to find them more attractive, physically, because of that then you would had you met them in public ? Yes I think so. Call it the inner beauty shining through, you've seen what the person is made of prior to seeing what they look like. however thats not to say that people who meet and don't like each other, either for physical looks, or because of different opinions on various subjects or attitude or what not can't have a long, happy, beautiful life together because they bothered to sit down, get to know each other and changed their opinions of that particular person. thats my opinion on physical attractiveness

Expressiveness can be beautiful. I find the more modern art of color splashes to be more beautiful then some of the "classically beautiful" works of art. Beauty is expressed by the individual, when you can feel what they're feeling, when something evokes an emotion.

I find ideas AND ideals to be beautiful, i find my children and their innocence to be beautiful. Seeing a picture of a baby squealing with delight over a kitten or a dandelion puff is more beautiful to me then the Mona Lisa. I think minds are beautiful for their creativeness. And Yes i think originality is a prerequisite for beauty. any reproduction of something will never be as beautiful as the original although in and of itself it can be quite "lovely" and maybe even more so in some cases then the original, but no it'll never be the original which makes it the better work. You can take the Taj-Mahal or a pyramid and make them bigger and better and shinier and more glistening, but they'll never compare to the original... but aren't we still talking about the physical beauty of something there ?

I agree with Embar.

[Harlowe]

Seeing a picture of a baby squealing with delight over a kitten or a dandelion puff

Okay that just makes me want to throw-up rainbows.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

Seeing a picture of a baby squealing with delight over a kitten or a dandelion puff

Okay that just makes me want to throw-up rainbows.

I thought we pooped rainbows... we can throw up rainbows too ?! Damn

And ok it's beautiful, it makes you feel good inside, thats the point =p

[Embar Angylwrath]

[Harlowe]

Thank you Embar, you captured the emotion "beautifully" (see what I did there)! That Ann Geddes shit makes me want to hurl.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

I was thinking my own kids lol. My son LOVES the cat, everytime he even HEARS her meow he gets all excited and babbles about the kitty cat cat (ok he's 10 months old so he can't say the whole word, but thats definatly what he's saying) and then when she walks around the corner, he squeals and claps.

But it's the point, to ME hearing him laugh is a beautiful thing, and he has a beautiful laugh. It's not even physical !( ok well it is, his whole body goes into a laugh)

Thanks Embar !

*edit* i can NOT believe there is a site called rainbowpuke....

[Partha]

Why don't we just worry about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

[Embar Angylwrath]

Why don't we just worry about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Because a person moved by something beautiful is more enriched than angels dancing on pins.

But I am interested in your philosophy of beauty, Partha. What inspires you to think of something as "beautiful"? Is everything you see as beautiful, unique as well?