Here is the kind of stuff that I would've churned out in my enlightened but oh-so-uninformed moments. Notice the shallowness of all the big words. Which is why I still shy away from writing stuff like this, even when my mind was switched on its "smart" mode.
If you don't find the explanation "Because God made us this way" tempting after reading this (in fact, after reading any book trying to explain what beauty is) then you truly are smarter than me. By the way, I wrote the article below.
If you don't find the explanation "Because God made us this way" tempting after reading this (in fact, after reading any book trying to explain what beauty is) then you truly are smarter than me. By the way, I wrote the article below.
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Take a picture. Describe it. It’s not that hard, really. You can do it with much less than a thousand words (contrary to popular belief).
But it is not easy to describe colour, or atmosphere, or emotion. There are words to quantify them, sure. Happy, sad, blue, red, dour, perky. The feeling of a moment is almost impossible to capture. Photography comes close, but “feelings” evoked by something, by trees swaying and their leaves rustling, by a lover’s kiss or a son’s hug, can never be solidified, frozen and kept forever.
Therein lies the problem with any attempt to replicate such moments, for the creation of a perfect moment is made up of two parts. The object: the newborn baby; the observer: the new father. Without one it is impossible to have the other. This is not to say that beauty is contingent upon the observer (For if humanity were obliterated, would not the dying tree in the autumn still appear as beautiful? Would not the Himalayan mountains still appear as grand?).
Some (and I define “some” as anyone utilizing the recent findings of neurobiology) would say that emotion is strictly confined to the brain. Thus, we have a chemical responsible for happiness, one for sadness, another for sexual arousal, and so on and so forth. As such, if there were no such chemicals in the brain, a newborn baby will be met with nothing but a dispassionate grin (or perhaps a frown) from the father.
A pharmaceutical extension of this theory would probably lie in the drug Prozac, with its ability to alleviate depression, OCD and a slew of other disorders. It is tempting to conclude that someday, there may be a drug that makes someone fall in love. If this were to happen, all the myth, all the nobility and all the romance will be stripped of the most unique and venerated of emotions. Love, then, will be nothing more than your mind on drugs.
Returning then, to the main theme of the evocation of emotion, a question must be asked: Why do we feel the way we do when we glance at the picture of a meadow, of a lake, or of a snow covered landscape? Why can we call it beautiful? Or, more interestingly, why do we “feel” that it is beautiful? Is beauty even objective, in the end?
There is an objective element to beauty, in truth. Anyone- anyone- will prefer a young, fair and lithe young woman as a potential mate than a frail, haggard, decrepit woman. Their levels of admiration might defer, but of the two, the former would be the universally preferred choice.
An evolutionary explanation, at this point, seems inviting. The more attractive women make better mates. Hence, our aesthetic senses have evolved in this direction. A few scientists in this tradition then go on to explain our fondness for landscape photos: because the particular terrain would have been more suitable for living in, or perhaps spotting potential prey.
Some would dismiss such explanations as just that: explanations. Such explanations are coherent but do not correspond. Or at the very least, there is not enough evidence to prove them.
As such, the author is tempted to take the middle-of-the-fence position and say that we cannot know for sure.
Back, once again, to our original question: what makes scenery so special?
‘Because we find it beautiful’ does not answer it, it only moves the question a step back.
The dictates of evolution, which results in a release of chemicals in the brain which then makes us feel “in awe” when we glance a picture of a majestic mountain, or a waterfall as it cascades down.
We can accept that explanation, even if it does not explain why some people find (if you were to excuse an attempt at a joke) Pamela Anderson “attractive” or the music (the enjoyment of acoustics is a slightly different domain, although it overlaps considerably with visual aesthetics) of Britney Spears “enjoyable”.
Or, perhaps we can wait and see what neuroscience (or even perhaps philosophy) can reveal to us in the future. But the author does not expect much.
But it is not easy to describe colour, or atmosphere, or emotion. There are words to quantify them, sure. Happy, sad, blue, red, dour, perky. The feeling of a moment is almost impossible to capture. Photography comes close, but “feelings” evoked by something, by trees swaying and their leaves rustling, by a lover’s kiss or a son’s hug, can never be solidified, frozen and kept forever.
Therein lies the problem with any attempt to replicate such moments, for the creation of a perfect moment is made up of two parts. The object: the newborn baby; the observer: the new father. Without one it is impossible to have the other. This is not to say that beauty is contingent upon the observer (For if humanity were obliterated, would not the dying tree in the autumn still appear as beautiful? Would not the Himalayan mountains still appear as grand?).
Some (and I define “some” as anyone utilizing the recent findings of neurobiology) would say that emotion is strictly confined to the brain. Thus, we have a chemical responsible for happiness, one for sadness, another for sexual arousal, and so on and so forth. As such, if there were no such chemicals in the brain, a newborn baby will be met with nothing but a dispassionate grin (or perhaps a frown) from the father.
A pharmaceutical extension of this theory would probably lie in the drug Prozac, with its ability to alleviate depression, OCD and a slew of other disorders. It is tempting to conclude that someday, there may be a drug that makes someone fall in love. If this were to happen, all the myth, all the nobility and all the romance will be stripped of the most unique and venerated of emotions. Love, then, will be nothing more than your mind on drugs.
Returning then, to the main theme of the evocation of emotion, a question must be asked: Why do we feel the way we do when we glance at the picture of a meadow, of a lake, or of a snow covered landscape? Why can we call it beautiful? Or, more interestingly, why do we “feel” that it is beautiful? Is beauty even objective, in the end?
There is an objective element to beauty, in truth. Anyone- anyone- will prefer a young, fair and lithe young woman as a potential mate than a frail, haggard, decrepit woman. Their levels of admiration might defer, but of the two, the former would be the universally preferred choice.
An evolutionary explanation, at this point, seems inviting. The more attractive women make better mates. Hence, our aesthetic senses have evolved in this direction. A few scientists in this tradition then go on to explain our fondness for landscape photos: because the particular terrain would have been more suitable for living in, or perhaps spotting potential prey.
Some would dismiss such explanations as just that: explanations. Such explanations are coherent but do not correspond. Or at the very least, there is not enough evidence to prove them.
As such, the author is tempted to take the middle-of-the-fence position and say that we cannot know for sure.
Back, once again, to our original question: what makes scenery so special?
‘Because we find it beautiful’ does not answer it, it only moves the question a step back.
‘Why do we find it beautiful?’
The dictates of evolution, which results in a release of chemicals in the brain which then makes us feel “in awe” when we glance a picture of a majestic mountain, or a waterfall as it cascades down.
We can accept that explanation, even if it does not explain why some people find (if you were to excuse an attempt at a joke) Pamela Anderson “attractive” or the music (the enjoyment of acoustics is a slightly different domain, although it overlaps considerably with visual aesthetics) of Britney Spears “enjoyable”.
Or, perhaps we can wait and see what neuroscience (or even perhaps philosophy) can reveal to us in the future. But the author does not expect much.
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