Do You See What I See?
Posted on 27. Oct, 2009 by Ruda in Unrelated Musings
Photo by Richard0
Beauty is one of those concepts that has been questioned for thousands of years and yet its true meaning eludes us. What makes something beautiful? Why do we feel pleasure from it? Why does perception of beauty differ?
I like to separate the things that we perceive as beautiful for only their form without any meaning that they might carry. A lot of the debate about what makes art beautiful could be defined by this. In this category, it is easy to see why the perception of beauty differs from person to person. When our reaction is based on the meaning we see, it will always be different because everyone has a different mindset and so their reaction will be different. The pleasure we may get from such things could be traced to the relationship of the meaning we perceive to our experiences.
The other category, of things that are seen as beautiful simple for what they are, is a little harder to understand. A tree, the moon, the ocean, all these things could be pleasurable because of certain meanings, but I think they are also capable of being beautiful by themselves. A person might have memories of the sea and so might like the ocean, but I’m inclined to think that someone that has never seen the ocean might still find it beautiful. This sort of perception of beauty, where it isn’t based on any experience or bias, is difficult to grasp. What is it about the ocean that is beautiful? First, I can’t make the claim that everyone would like the ocean. It is a matter of whether there are things that are just objectively beautiful independent of perspective.
Which things are beautiful in and of themselves and which things are beautiful because of bias is something that would change from person to person. For me, sunsets are independent of experience, but the lawns at the University of Miami are not. This might be different for someone else. Maybe the fact that we have formed opinions based on experiences takes away our chance to like something for what it is. When I look at the lawns, it brings memories of past experiences with friends. If I was able to look at the lawns without recalling these memories, maybe I could appreciate them for what they are instead of what hey mean to me.
I feel that at some level, if we can manage to look at things completely objectively, we could see beauty in everything, just because they exist. It is intriguing to look at leaf patterns and cloud formations. Just like that we could let millions of other things intrigue us. It’s hard to call this objective beauty because everything would be of interest to us. If we can alter the way we perceive our world, maybe the question of beauty or no beauty wouldn’t arise. This is the way I can somehow blend the idea that everything is subjective with the idea of an objective beauty. How do you see it? Subjective or Objective?
Hello! I suppose you couldn't resist trying to catch a glimpse of the person writing all this nonsense. If you want to learn more about me, check out the "About Me" page. Self-explanatory I guess.
Sanjay M
Oct 29th, 2009
One of the characteristics of beauty is that it fascinates, it holds our attention atleast for a while…
There is a lot to learn from kids, I see my 2+ year old boy so fascinated by the most ordinary things!
We definitely live in a fascinating world, but its just that we’re usually too busy to notice. I guess it also takes patience and a non-hurried attitude to even notice beauty, let alone appreciate it.
On the other hand, I think its impossible for us to be completely objective. So any pleasure we get from beauty of the moon or ocean, is not because because of the moon or ocean, but what is within us, our own perception of them.
Once I was in a car with a friend on an autobahn (highway) in Germany. You may know, there are no speedlimits on the German autobahns, and we were driving at high speed through a green countryside – most of it looking like a huge golf course as it was mostly plain and not too many trees. On the way, we passed a bridge across a valley and suddenly I gasped in amazement – there was a vast expanse of blue breaking the green monotony! It was like a huge endless lake more bigger and beautiful than anything I could ever imagine! My heart was filled with joy and my spirits rose…!
A second later, it realisation dawned on me that this was actually a blue barricade on either side of the bridge that was erected so people living below in the valley wouldn’t get disturbed by too much noise of the traffic on it! I felt really humbled (’dont know whether to laugh or cry’
) at how self-deceptive my mind could be!!
Sanjay M
Oct 29th, 2009
This is the key point I liked in this post – if we could look at things from a fresh unbiased perspective we’d be a lot more happier (just like a child!)
“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” – Einstein
Ruda
Oct 29th, 2009
hahaha, I keep trying to imagine how big of a barricade it must have been. I think you got the point of what I was trying to say about past experience hindering our perception in the present. I guess it’s harder to overcome than we realize, at least being aware of it might cause us to change little by little.
Ruda