real beauty

[chris logan]

someone made the comment "when you are ugly, don't play hard to get when you are already hard to want".

OPINIONS PLEASE.

i believe that beauty can not be defined and like art it has a deeper philosophical meaning, so it is impossible to lable something as 'ugly'. What do you think?

P.S if you think the actual comment was a bit shallow and immature, you're not alone..

[Moontanman]

Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder and inner beauty is the only part that doesn't fade with time...

[CaptainPanic]

I agree that beauty is an opinion... but it seems that what we think beautiful in people is something like an average of all people.

 

I think beauty (of people) can actually be defined quite exactly.

[chris logan]

How can we define beauty in people without defining beauty in other cases. Where would we draw the line. What about works of art, can we say one style of painting is more beautiful than the other? I always thought the concept of beauty was deeper than that new haircut you got.

[Dekan]

"Beauty" is hard to define, because it's a vague abstract word. Like "Justice", or "Pleasure".

 

Can we arrive at a precise definition of "Pleasure"?

 

 

 

[Civat]

well said @moontanman. also it does not alwyas have to be about looks, it can be about persoality to and other factors

[Dekan]

Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder and inner beauty is the only part that doesn't fade with time...

Yes, the beholder's eye can capture only a fleeting image of beauty. The image is transferred into the brain, and recorded in memory. There it acquires a beauty which doesn't fade, but rather becomes more beautiful as time passes.

 

Because the recorded image is, so to speak, continually re-mastered and enhanced by the pleasure-seeking parts of our brain. Isn't that why we remember things as more beautiful than they actually were?

[chris logan]

Yes, the beholder's eye can capture only a fleeting image of beauty. The image is transferred into the brain, and recorded in memory. There it acquires a beauty which doesn't fade, but rather becomes more beautiful as time passes.

 

Because the recorded image is, so to speak, continually re-mastered and enhanced by the pleasure-seeking parts of our brain. Isn't that why we remember things as more beautiful than they actually were?

is that really possible?

[Bill Angel]

The perception of beauty seems to be related to the perception of symmetry. For example, how many people would consider this tulip to be beautiful?

 

This is a Tulip!

[Wassem Alward]

True beauty is not outer appearance, it's located in the heart and soul, reflected in one's eyes.

[Dekan]

is that really possible?

It's possibly how our memories work. They enhance beauty, and pleasure. Please consider, if you will, this passage from C S Lewis's book "Out of the Silent Planet". A Martian hross, Hyoi, is explaing to Ransom:

 

"A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered...when you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it..."

 

Ransom says: "In a poem, does a hross never long to hear one splendid line over again?"

 

Hyoi replies: "The poem is a good example. For the most splendid line becomes fully splendid only by means of all the lines after it; if you went back to it, you would find it less splendid than you thought."

 

I've usually found that to be true. Fond memory brings the light of other days around us, but the remembered light is brighter and more beautiful, than it actually was at the time.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Dekan

[sogam01]

i agree with you ,I think every thing is cute and beauty full it depends on the eye and the character of the person

[chris logan]

It's possibly how our memories work. They enhance beauty, and pleasure. Please consider, if you will, this passage from C S Lewis's book "Out of the Silent Planet". A Martian hross, Hyoi, is explaing to Ransom:

 

"A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered...when you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it..."

 

Ransom says: "In a poem, does a hross never long to hear one splendid line over again?"

 

Hyoi replies: "The poem is a good example. For the most splendid line becomes fully splendid only by means of all the lines after it; if you went back to it, you would find it less splendid than you thought."

 

I've usually found that to be true. Fond memory brings the light of other days around us, but the remembered light is brighter and more beautiful, than it actually was at the time.

wow...That was truely amazing..

Edited April 23, 2013 by chris logan

[zapatos]

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but most of us have the same eye.

 

Do we really need a poll to determine which of these women are beautiful and which are not?

 

[Daedalus]

Although I agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, there is evidence that beauty is based on mathematics. I remember watching a show on the science channel that compared people's faces with a beauty mask that is based on the golden ratio. People who are attractive fit the mask better than people who are not.

 

Here are a few links that discuss the relationship between beauty and math:

 

http://www.realscience.us/2012/04/30/beauty-by-the-number/

http://www.goldennumber.net/facial-beauty-new-golden-ratio/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091216144141.htm

[Bill Angel]

Here is an observation by Carl Jung on this subject:

"Every man carries within him the eternal image of woman This image is fundamentally unconscious, an hereditary factor of primordial origin an imprint or archetype of all the ancestral experiences of the female, a deposit, as it were, of all the impressions ever made by woman Carl Jung, Collected Works 17:338

Self Portrait with Woman on a Pedestal

Edited April 24, 2013 by Bill Angel

[michel123456]

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but most of us have the same eye.

 

Do we really need a poll to determine which of these women are beautiful and which are not?

 

beautiful.jpgbeautiful2.jpg

ugly woman.jpgugly woman2.jpg

The photoshopped ones.

[ewmon]

inner beauty is the only part that doesn't fade with time

Indeed.

 

Unfortunately, marketing bombards our conscious with these picture-perfect images of physical beauty. Begin with people whose only job is to look beautiful (ie, starve themselves thin, work out hours every day, etc), add outrageously huge amounts of expensive cosmetics, beauty treatments, plastic surgery, clothing, photoshoot locations, etc, then capture hundreds or thousands of images from which to select the best one, then technically redact any imperfection, and finally faithfully reproduce it in images for store's cosmetic aisles, ads on webpages, SI "swimsuit" editions, etc. What you get is a ridiculously high (and prohibitively expensive) standard of beauty that looks very real, but never actually existed and never will.

 

Let's not forget that these quite expensive images are meant to make us feel substandard so that we go out and by the eyeliner, or the clothing, or the shampoo, or whatever.

 

And it convinces us to believe that beauty is all about looks.

[SamBridge]

The problem seems to lie in distinguishing two main concepts of beauty. One concept is complexity, and the comprehension of expression of deeper meaning in a variety of physics or mental or emotional (or combinations of those) ways that often stimulate platonic interest, while the other type of beauty is more subconscious beauty that is related as previously mentioned to symmetry and likely rooted in evolutionary neurological responses. Obviously people can have more or less of one of these "beauties", but to me they seem to be somewhat different things; so different they should have their own names.

Edited May 25, 2013 by SamBridge

[zapatos]

Unfortunately, marketing bombards our conscious with these picture-perfect images of physical beauty.

Quite frankly, I am glad that they show us these picture perfect images of physical beauty. I enjoy them.

I am also glad that landscape photographers wait around for just the right conditions, and use filters and Photoshop.

Same goes for special effects in movies. It doesn't bother me at all that what I am seeing never existed and never will.

I am glad that women wear makeup, nice clothes, and go to the gym.

If it was up to me, everyone would be beautiful.

 

I also enjoy pleasant odors, sounds, and tastes.

[Phi for All]

Indeed.

 

Unfortunately, marketing bombards our conscious with these picture-perfect images of physical beauty. Begin with people whose only job is to look beautiful (ie, starve themselves thin, work out hours every day, etc), add outrageously huge amounts of expensive cosmetics, beauty treatments, plastic surgery, clothing, photoshoot locations, etc, then capture hundreds or thousands of images from which to select the best one, then technically redact any imperfection, and finally faithfully reproduce it in images for store's cosmetic aisles, ads on webpages, SI "swimsuit" editions, etc. What you get is a ridiculously high (and prohibitively expensive) standard of beauty that looks very real, but never actually existed and never will.

 

Let's not forget that these quite expensive images are meant to make us feel substandard so that we go out and by the eyeliner, or the clothing, or the shampoo, or whatever.

 

And it convinces us to believe that beauty is all about looks.

 

Personal appearance marketing really isn't aimed at making you feel substandard, although it can easily look that way. It's really aimed at forming a perception that the products being marketed are capable of solving your beauty problems. You don't have to be ugly to want to look better.

 

Branding attempts to manage gaps in perception between what the company wants as its image and how the customers perceive that image. It doesn't help them to make you feel bad. What they assume is that you already perceive a need to look better, so they show you what could be possible. If an advertisement makes you feel inferior, you are NOT going to do business with that company. In other words, your feelings of being substandard are not created by the advertisers, they existed before that and are simply being manipulated by the marketing.

 

I'm not trying to defend modern marketing, I find it deceptively influential, underestimated in its effect by the majority and detrimental in many ways. But I wanted to correct this concept of "these quite expensive images are meant to make us feel substandard so that we go out and by the eyeliner, or the clothing, or the shampoo, or whatever". You already feel a certain way, already have a certain ideal of beauty, already have a perception about the various companies trying to get you to use them. Managing your perceptions is what they want, and they can't be effective if they're the ones who made you feel bad about your looks in the first place.