What is spiritual beauty?
I'm not sure at all how to phrase this, but: what is the origin of the spiritual sense of beauty?
I understand the evolutionary benefits of finding symmetrical faces and strong colors aesthetically pleasing, but what is the origin of the kind of beauty that has a non material trigger?
How come you may experience a "spiritual" kind of beauty, for example, when listening to beautiful music, reading something beautiful, or just being with friends & family?
It would be simple enough if it were just an ordinary survival mechanism, but people do find tragic movies and depressing music beautiful as well, so I can't see how that makes sense.
I understand the evolutionary benefits of finding symmetrical faces and strong colors aesthetically pleasing, but what is the origin of the kind of beauty that has a non material trigger?
How come you may experience a "spiritual" kind of beauty, for example, when listening to beautiful music, reading something beautiful, or just being with friends & family?
It would be simple enough if it were just an ordinary survival mechanism, but people do find tragic movies and depressing music beautiful as well, so I can't see how that makes sense.
Comments (51)
Tragedy can be beautiful because it highlights the human condition; it highlights the gap between beliefs and desires versus reality. But that's beautiful because it gives us a sense of perspective, which gives us a sense of the value of our beliefs and desires.
So, beauty seems to do that; it gives us perspective, and a sense of the value of our beliefs and desires. Beauty seems to say to us "what you desire, underneath all of your superficial desires, is good and right." Beauty has a welcoming character.
Quoting Daniel Sjöstedt
Welcome to the forum and brace for impact...
Maybe it has something to do with compassion?
I wish you hadn't written this. Do you suppose Stephen Hawkins will survive longer than the scientists who promote such silliness?
Quoting Daniel Sjöstedt
Life is far far more interesting than just survival, a silly, noxious theory that unfortunately refuses to die thanks to our education system. Life is about discovery and beauty is indeed in the eyes of the beholder. Beauty is something we feel and touches us and is current for everyone. But this isn't going to stop some scientist from trying to prove otherwise. Got to make a living somehow.
This is tied into significance and meaning, and synergizes with other meaningful things (or our own instances of transcendence). Like the sky was never bluer than the day you were born. I never appreciated that song before until I listened to it with you, etc.
Isn't it also a fundamental aspect of that transcendence? I agree with everything else you said.
You partake of the transcendence yourself to an extent in every case, sure. It requires a grasping, an appreciation, which is why it is intellectual, and not a sensation. The transcendence of the one elevates the whole world, even if some have eyes, but cannot see, as they say.
If the "something bigger" doesn't actually refer to anything and only serves to prolong life (why exactly?), then isn't that idea essentially a form of wish fulfillment?
For clarity, are you still talking about beauty when you say "it requires a grasping"?
I never said awe "only" prolongs life.
There was a big article in New Scientist this week about awe. Apparently, chimps get goosebumps during thunderstorms and those pesky evolutionary psychologists think that a sense of awe increases group safety and bonding by temporarily reducing the importance of self (without reducing self esteem). There are experiments on people that neatly demonstrate this effect.
So that's the scientific explanation of a sense of awe. It makes for a nice qualia too :).
Yeah.
A beautiful work of art does not correspond to our judgement's sense of a normative concept in the referent as presented. The tree is no longer a tree in a work of art. The law, the limit of the concept in judgement is freely transcended by the beauty in the work, and this transcendence is pleasurable. It drives our imagination, and in doing so it opens up cognitive space, illuminating what was not previously seen, enabling new concepts. The spirituality of a beautiful work of art, its aura. is that excess, or transcendence over our normative concepts, made possible by the work of art.
Funny:
(Y)
What I was trying to point out is that a sense of being a part of something bigger is something science can only describe the mechanics of; it doesn't answer any philosophical questions.
I'm still having trouble seeing how beauty is intellectual.
The science is a good starting point to embark on a philosophical journey, I suggest. A lot of old philosophical chestnuts can be cracked, if not yet smashed, by evolutionary science now I suggest.
The problem is that evolutionary science doesn't even address metaphysical or ontological questions, for instance, let alone aesthetic questions, as per the op.
I struggle with that one too I must admit, though I think it might be possible.
Some say the equation "e to the i pi + 1 = 0" is beautiful but I just think it is literally "neat".
I don't have a problem with a given piece of intellectual content being beautiful, I just don't think beauty is inherently apprehended through the intellect, which I think Worset was saying.
However, intellectuals are more likely to appreciate visual beauty IMO. Maybe they have more time on their hands?
(Y)
Sublimation -- An indirect or learned means to fulfill desire. Putting desire to work for you, or the effects of limits placed on desire.
Sehnsucht -- Unfulfilled desire which no attempt quite satisfies, whether we undertake philosophical or poetic means or not to try to fulfill that desire. A desire for something dead or passed, nostalgia for the most beautiful time, the 1st of times, for God, for the ideal, et cetera.
Dopaminergic Reward System-- Greed is good. Every time around you have to transcend the base rate to maintain addiction. Without dopamine beauty isn't what it is. Beauty helps you to bootstrap (lure you) out or into situations with the promise of reward.
Maya (Veil of Illusion) -- Beauty Incarnate beyond which Nothing Exists. Endless sublimations, sehnsuchts and dopamine hits that go on and on until death. Symbolizing the whole in a nutshell (or in a part) by sheer force of illusion.
That's where evolutionary biology has become something like a modern creation mythology. it is said to explain everything about human nature, in the way that the Biblical account (and its related mythologies and cultural histories) were supposed to have done. But, does it? The Origin of Species is just that - an account of the biological origin of species. But in current culture it has become so much more than a biological theory - it now occupies the place of a creation mythology, even though it might be a physically accurate account.
I am not arguing for any kind of intelligent design or creation mythology. I have never for one minute believed the biblical account to be literally true, but for that very reason the fact that it's not literally true doesn't have any particular significance as far as I am concerned. But mythological accounts address existential questions in a way that the science cannot.
As far as beauty is concerned, we might find a butterfly or a gouldian finch beautiful, but as evolutionary biology tells us, they're not really 'designed' to be beautiful at all; what we call 'beauty' is just nature's way of propagating their selfish genes. Humans can recognise beauty but again, as far as the Dawkins of this world are concerned, that is just an accident of biology. Nothing is really beautiful - well, nothing apart from the ability of science to explain everything.
I don't think there are any "mechanics" involved: we have a sense of being part of something greater simply by virtue of being in a world. That 'being in a world' is a primordial mystery. Beauty consists in the evocation of that mystery; we have no other way of dealing with it, since we cannot explain it, and even if we could, to explain it would inevitably be to explain it away.
Notice that you follow "evolutionary benefits" with "pleasing".
Not all beauty is "pleasing".
Some beauty is humbling. Some is sobering. Some is soothing. Some is awe-inspiring.
Serenity. Awe. Wonder. Harmony. Joy. Humility. Delight.
Beauty goes way beyond sensual pleasure and the absence of certain sensual irritants such as noise, asymmetry, etc.
By mechanics I just mean the physical workings of the brain, and this sort of thing:
Quoting Jake Tarragon
That's all, metaphorically, the mechanics of human experience. It's the "this lever does that". It doesn't answer "why", just "how". The sorts of "why's" it does address are just social concerns like "safety and bonding", and not actual philosophical questions. That's the point I was making to Jake.
Quoting Janus
I agree with everything else you said, it's just that I think there is a drive to try to understand beauty; not philosophically or analytically, but in a fundamental way. I don't think it would ruin the mystery to uncover even one layer of a deeper truth to beauty, something that few people might or might not have uncovered. I get the sense that beauty is potentially infinite; I think we can pursue it relentlessly and not ever ruin the sense of mystery. The deeper you inquire into beauty, the closer you get to "being" itself, it seems...
I actually think I would describe those experiences as pleasing.
The same way that an evolutionary psychologist describes a symmetrical face as pleasing?
And that's why I asked about tragedy - I wonder what the reason might be for getting a "good" feeling from something tragic.
The feeling is certainly "awe inspiring", but awe before what? And why?
I sense teleology here.
I believe, therefore, that your OP was on the wrong track before you wrote it.
Evolution by natural selection, as I understand almost all biologists and philosophers of science will tell you, is not teleological, and its operation and the outcomes we observe do not include any "purpose".
Evolution by natural selection is simply a model that humans have constructed through observation and experimentation of the mechanism through which genetic diversity is generated and distributed.
Evolution favors nothing. If finding a symmetrical face to be "pleasing" is advantageous today, it could be a disadvantage tomorrow. Being obese may be a disadvantage in the dating and marriage market in the U.S. today, but tomorrow ecological collapse could start to unfold and all that energy stored in all of that excess body fat could then be an advantage--an obese person might then be everybody's preference for a romantic partner.
Therefore, if you want to place the recognition and appreciation of beauty--any kind of beauty--in evolutionary perspective then such recognition and appreciation has no "purpose". It is simply what has been selected until today and may no longer be selected starting tomorrow.
I think that characterizing beauty as a result of evolution by natural selection and then looking for a "purpose" or telos in something that "purpose" and telos have nothing to do with is the source of your confusion.
Every human that I know of is able to experience this kind of beauty, so I am wondering why it has been selected for.
As it is a positive sensation, arising at particular moments, that the body seems to have a reason for delivering, why would it not make sense to look for the evolutionary reasons?
The part in bold is the problem.
Science, which evolutionary theory is a part of, does not ask or answer why. Science, including evolutionary theory, only asks and answers who, what, when, where and how.
Maybe this is your question: what in human evolution was advantageous about being able to appreciate things like music?
Well, I would say that appreciating music is learned from culture, not contained in genes.
If you do not mean appreciation--if you simply mean having one sensation or another--then that departs from "beauty". Having sensations is simply having sensations, not recognizing or appreciating some concept such as "beauty".
Why do we have sensations? If you are looking for an evolutionary explanation then variables like mutations, environment, reproductive isolation, etc. are going to have to be accounted for and controlled. I don't see how that can be done in an informal discussion of philosophy.
I was not looking for an evolutionary answer per se, I was looking for the reason behind the sense of spiritual beauty, or awe. But if you say that it is culturally constructed, then that is a fine answer :)
NYT: A Small Part of the Brain and Its Profound Effects
Isn't it a kind of category error. Sure brainwaves may indicate thought, but they are not thoughts, they are brain waves.
I'm not sure what the significance is of category error.
In those articles it appears that interoceptive or exteroceptive status (ie. whether or not you are hungry or horny, suffering, cold, hot etcetera) heavily influences value appraisal and what you read or project into an aesthetic construct or object at any time.
If I saw Michelangelo's Pieta in the middle of a snow storm its beauty would still astonish me, warm me up.
The whole physical line of inquiry is fine, but it is a bullshit explanation of beauty of any kind in my opinion. That's the error...it's not an explanation for thought, it is the resultant of thought.
I believe the basic idea is that our perception is partly shaped by our affect. Some call this affective realism. Another dimension is the concepts we have about ourselves and the world, much of which is supplied by culture.
I don't know anything about Michelangelo's Pieta. It appears to be female figure holding a post-crucified Christ, an artifact infused with cultural and religious meaning.
Quoting Cavacava
Assuming that "spiritual beauty" is distinct from material beauty because it transcends materialistic concerns (such as adequate warmth), its immediate utility would apparently be to help regulate autonomic functions to optimally adapt to circumstances outside the sphere of control. Being in constant fear of freezing to death and the resulting stress, for instance, may be counterproductive to survival.
On a broader level, transcendence of materialistic concerns, facilitated by aesthetic concepts, may be expressed as compassion, or perhaps selflessness. Christ is a powerful symbol of sacrifice. On this broader level the question might be: what's the utility of selflessness or sacrifice in an evolutionary sense? If the underlying goal of evolution is the propagation of genes, self-sacrifice may be the best strategy in many circumstances, because there's a high probability that you share genes with those around you. If you sacrifice yourself for your family, there's a good chance that more of your genetic material will pass on, if there are at least more than one of them anyway.
Working cooperatively is a better survival strategy in general (and for the propagation of your genes), in other words, but this may require sacrifice, assuming the concept of sacrifice exists in your culture.
I saw the Michelangelo's Pieta a long time ago and then only briefly. It is his most finished piece of sculpture, he was 25 year old when he carved it, and it is the only work he ever signed, The woman is Mary, his mother. It was designed as a funeral monument. There is a smooth warmth that flows over the statue, like a glow from within, it is like nothing I have experienced since.
You mention material transcendence, OK, I think this work transcends the determinate concept of grief, it frees (but does not deny) our imagination from the concept of a mother's grief for her dead child, it sees Christ's death more as a necessary sacrifice. Jesus is calm, not in agony, and Mary is young and beautiful because of her love of Christ.
Didn't quite get your bit about utility.
Perhaps the Pieta was associated with warmth in Cavacava's memory because it was inside a warmer place (inside rather than outside). If the Pieta was luminous for viewing it might further strengthen the the association, especially if the background was much darker, the way an experience of a fire place does in winter.
The coldness of death (the effects of winter exposure) juxtaposed with the memory of a mother's love (warmth of a caressing body). Mary is inside, grieving (not hysterically since she is quite silent, stoic) over a corpse (which is quite fresh, sterile and pure like the marble it's made out of). Mary is the hearth (source of warmth and light). Mary is a good ma (not an uncaring selfish vindictive bitch who is suffering from Munchausen by proxy syndrome) .
The light attenuates the subtle universal anxiety of darkness, the warmth attenuates the uncomfortable cold, the marble does not stink of death, et cetera.
I was being hyperbolic, however please tell me what you mean by affective realism. I looked for a general statement of position but did not have much luck, explanations of it seemed to me to be all over the place.
The Pieta is not realistic, Jesus and Mary are idealized somewhat along the lines that suggested, but I get the impression that's not the point of affective realism, that its point is that if something affects the observer, it derives its realism from that affect.
I have read of psychological experiments which show that the insertion of a smiling face or a scowling face at speeds too quick for a human to pick up, still affected test subjects perception of reality, how they interpret what they saw. I think that these results are interesting, and it agrees with how I think perception is accomplished.
We bring concepts to perception which limit the things we apprehend (concepts form the material law of an object) this is accomplished by the activity of the imagination, which is the driving force behind the synthetic unity of appreceptiom. The aesthetic affect suggest a freedom of the imagination that enables it to move beyond the limitations of the concepts of judgement. I think in beauty is a freedom that the imagination senses when it is struck by the beauty in an object. An excess that goes beyond our normative conceptions of reality.
Here's an article.
The aesthetic affect of Michelangelo work its real. It is difficult to believe that marble can be worked the way he modeled the statue. The most startling aspect of the work, for me, was their smooth warm skin tones, how very real it looked.
I think that the aesthetic affect of a work of art lies the effect it has on our perception of it. The perceptual beauty of the work draws us to it. It enables us to experience concepts such as love in death on a new basis.
So yes in a sense "affective realism" on a grand scale. The reality of works of art change the way we think about and perceive the world.
Indeed, my understanding is that the real Jesus wasn't white with blond hair. Affective realism can be expressed in art rather concretely, or should I say marbly.