Measuring Beauty | Can Beauty be Quantified?

[Mentat]

What if "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" just means that beauty has no meaning, aside from the effect it has on the beholder? I think Monique mentioned this possibility on the first page of this thread.

It's not that something is beautiful because it has this effect, since that still leaves it as an objective phenomenon (albeit, one with a purely subjective effect...the cause is still objective, and thus quantifiable). No, it is that the effect itself -- caused by whatever source, for whatever reason -- is beauty. Note: The effect itself is not beautiful, it is beauty. "Beautiful" would come to mean "having the ability to make one experience beauty", which is not very different from the typical definition of it anyway, is it?

In this case, everything is beautiful (assuming that everything has the ability to make at least one person experience "beauty"), and how beautiful something is is simply a measure of how potent the experience is for the beholder.

 

[odersven]

...

so many words for what you can't put a finger on.

Mentat basically has it. You must remember that all things have been created from a source (not metaphyisically or anything, they simply are, and do change) and that these things exist objectively since they were created. And yet, produce a subjective effect. That is the paradox in rational terminology.

There is no value to this - when you try and generalize the characteristics of beauty to a is or is not divide, you will not be able to see or understand it until you loose your definition.

 

[the number 42]

...these things exist objectively since they were created. And yet, produce a subjective effect. That is the paradox in rational terminology.

Alcohol exists objectively, and we could argue that it affects each person differently. But it affects people in a more similar way (e.g. slower reflexes, falling over) in general terms, than a drink like milk or a drink like water i.e. it is catergorically and objectively different. Within that category, alcohol comes in a variety of strengths.

Are 'beautiful' things of a different category than 'drab' things?
Are there degrees of beauty?
If strength of booze is in the gut of the drinker, can you drink a bottle of scotch and be sober?
And finally, if beauty be the booze of love, where's the bar?!

 

[odersven]

that was my point. Beauty in relation to anything is specialized and you cannot formulate a generality to condition beauty.

In plot form, you would have drab as the opposite of beauty. Yet, that would mean that whatever was beautiful to some degree could be defined by its corresponding relation to drab. This is the whole good vs evil argument. If something is not entirely good, or as good as something else, then it is composed of some evil. It is a stupid argument. So, I would say there is no degree to beauty because beauty is not a moral vice, it transgresses it.

When you observe (not experience) something in an analytical manner and try and measure the "beauty" of something, you are automatically objectifying what you are observing and cannot experience the beauty is presents because beauty is a subjective reaction of the experienced.

Analytical anything cannot translate emotions. That is why you would automatically fail in your attempt to quantitize beauty.

There is no definite now, only what is plausible. You cannot know where an electron will be all the time, and you cannot know the character of beauty all the time.

 

[shonagon53]

Here's a famous and interesting sociological exercise in measuring "beauty" as it exists as a social fact.

Pierre Bourdieu's "La Distinction" has been translated as "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste".




It's probably the most thorough and most quoted work on beauty in the social sciences and in psychology. In 1998, the work was voted by members of the International Sociological Association to be the third most important sociological treatise of the 20th century. Whatever that means...

Just for your information. :-)



[I know this is not an argument, but sometimes info should suffice. I just think the matter is too complex to be discussed on a message board.]

 

[the number 42]

... you would have drab as the opposite of beauty. Yet, that would mean that whatever was beautiful to some degree could be defined by its corresponding relation to drab. This is the whole good vs evil argument. If something is not entirely good, or as good as something else, then it is composed of some evil. It is a stupid argument. So, I would say there is no degree to beauty because beauty is not a moral vice, it transgresses it.

Perhaps beauty is qualitatively different to drab i.e. they exist not on a dimension, but as separate categories, as much as things can be considered separate. And that one is not good nor the other evil. Drab is evil? I need to exorcise my wardrobe! I think we can fairly leave good vs evil arguments well alone.

Even if we can't percieve it objectively in all its wonder - as we filter everything through our limited senses - perhaps it does exist out there, in the real world. But if you are suggesting that we cannot measure beauty, and that's all there is too it, then we have come to the end of an otherwise interesting thread.

And thanks for the reference, but I hope I don't have to buy a book to have a discussion on Physics Forums - I'd be broke within a week

 

[THANOS]

There are many differnt kinds of beauty. A friend once told me beauty exist for our survival. So i thought more on that and agreed. What we see as beautiful will most likly be preserved and treasured. Like gold, diamonds, roses, cats, dogs, nature, babies of all types of animals and humans. Mating is a part of survial also and we all have differnt personalitys so it makes sense that our sense of beauty may differ also. Humans don't need to fight over mates like animals altough some do. Humans are more likly to find their mate by enojying their personality and/or looks.

 

[shonagon53]

And thanks for the reference, but I hope I don't have to buy a book to have a discussion on Physics Forums - I'd be broke within a week

It's called a library card.

 

[wtfc]

Can beauty be measured? in any way shape or form? even if its subjective to one person's ideas... can it still be measured? Or is beauty an abstract sort of thing that one cannot put a value on?

Why does the west always get into such things. Just relax and enjoy ! Why do u have to measure anything like beauty.
Catterpillar turns into a butterfly. If a catterpillar was not beautiful, how would butterfly trun out to be beautiful.

 

[shonagon53]

Why does the west always get into such things. Just relax and enjoy ! Why do u have to measure anything like beauty.
Catterpillar turns into a butterfly. If a catterpillar was not beautiful, how would butterfly trun out to be beautiful.

You do have a point about the West's obsession with measuring everything. This morning I received not less than 4 e-mails promising me an easy and cheap way of adding at least 2 inches there where Western man thinks it's important!
One of the e-mails included a detailed chart showing the different sizes of different races. It was called "Size Matters. Don't make your girlfriend go black. She'll never come back!"

You truly have a point.

 

[Philocrat]

Beauty has only one definition...

It is an ability to overcome, or raise oneself above, all causal and relational laws of nature!

 

[the number 42]

If a catterpillar was not beautiful, how would butterfly trun out to be beautiful.

Is potential for beauty the same as beauty? Is potential for intelligence (foetus) the same as possessing intelligence (adult boffin)?

I've got to be honest, wtfc; if you honestly think - on an emotional level rather than an intellectual level - that a maggot is equal in beauty to a butterfly, I would be very hestitant to see how you decorate your living room.

 

[marcus]

Here's a famous and interesting sociological exercise in measuring "beauty" as it exists as a social fact.

Pierre Bourdieu's "La Distinction" has been translated as "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste".


... the matter is too complex to be discussed on a message board.]

Hello shonagon
thanks for the title
I went to amazon with your link and read about 10 pages for free

it is certainly a book worth looking at
if one is interested in taste and what underlies it

personally i believe there is a component of the sense of beauty which is genetically programmed because it has evolved
and that there are some survival/reproductive success things connected to being able to spot beauty almost reflexively---without rational or verbal process

of course much much much of one's taste is learned and even trained into one----and undoubtably correlates as Bourdieu says with social class (but I am interested in the evolved/genetically programmed substrate of it, which I think is there before training)

early on in this thread I have tried to introspect and express some of this about the sense of beauty

(sense of beauty seems operationally definable to me, but the abstract idea of "beauty" not so definable or only secondarily definable)

 

[young e.]

Requisites of measuring beauty

Well the term "MEASURE" lexically mean "...to regulate by a standard..." so i think that if this topic would be the case the closest posibble method is first we must set a certain reference point or a DATUM then set a standard and then postulate a unit of beauty. It is very hard for us to measure something (in this case beauty) in which we don't know where to refer or what is the regulating standard. Then if this requisites could not be satisfied then there would not be any possibility that BEAUTY could be measured--- and thence we could let out the term "BEAUTY" in the world of measurement and just consider it as just a psychological matter on how we evaluate certain things around us...

***KHOULSZZSZ***

 

[shonagon53]

personally i believe there is a component of the sense of beauty which is genetically programmed because it has evolved
and that there are some survival/reproductive success things connected to being able to spot beauty almost reflexively---without rational or verbal process

(but I am interested in the evolved/genetically programmed substrate of it, which I think is there before training)

(sense of beauty seems operationally definable to me, but the abstract idea of "beauty" not so definable or only secondarily definable)

Fully agree here. It's just a matter of what interests the researcher most.
I think that for all "cultural" matters, there can be a fundamental "evolutionary" or socio-biological explanation or at least an explanation referring to "subconscious" and non-reflective dynamics.

But then you're saying very universal things: being able to spot beauty serves survival; being able to smell bad things is necessary to spot out bad food and recognize people, etc...

These things are often so universal that they tend to become almost devoid of meaning (all people in all cultures eat food in order to survive).

My interest simply goes out more to how different groups have built different strategies of "organizing" beauty as a social construct. And how "beauty" can be used as a tool to distinguish groups and create boundaries between them.

I know this can be considered to be merely "the surface" on a deep layer of evolutionary processes. Although I think both lines of thought aren't mutually exclusive: distinguishing groups and forging group cohesion (through marks of identity, and culture in general -- which includes notions of beauty), are crucial for the survival of any group.

 

[shonagon53]

I've got to be honest, wtfc; if you honestly think - on an emotional level rather than an intellectual level - that a maggot is equal in beauty to a butterfly, I would be very hestitant to see how you decorate your living room.

See, that's interesting. In this kind of debates, it's always interesting to refer to food preferences in different cultures. You simply can't imagine to eat dogs, horses or insects. And still, billions of people do it every day. And they simply can't imagine you to eat such disgusting things like pigs.

Again, everything from which you don't die when you eat it, can be considered to be "food". But if you say that, you say nothing. The interesting things begin when you start to look at why certain groups eat certain things, and how they use these food habits to distinguish themselves from other groups.

That's my dissatisfaction with mere socio-biological or evolutionary explanations of many things we humans do. We all eat. But that's too basic. That way you state the obvious. To me, socio-biology is often the science of stating the obvious.

 

[marcus]

Fully agree here. It's just a matter of what interests the researcher most.
I think that for all "cultural" matters, there can be a fundamental "evolutionary" or socio-biological...

My interest simply goes out more to how different groups have built different strategies of "organizing" beauty as a social construct. And how "beauty" can be used as a tool to distinguish groups and create boundaries between them.
...

you seem to have the discussion well in hand.
I can come in and read a smattering of posts only sporadically
and so cannot contribute much to discussion

I thought Bourdieu was real interesting and hadnt seen it before

Alas, Bourdieu research was with French of 1960s
a culture and society no longer existing
all local cultures are being smashed by globalization
and some traditional people are angry

a friend of mine was invited to a conference about the book "Jihad and McWorld" and spoke with the author. It was a troubling experience and she did not seem entirely happy afterwards.

I love certain mathematics and certain circa 1800 vienna-type choral music.
If a Mullah who liked those things would come, maybe, in desperation, I would join a traditionalist group. We would have a rule against broadcast TV and rightwing Talkshows.

I normally decline to be objective about cultural values
(to do the kind of sociological study that interests you, it may be
necessary to make at least a show of objectivity)

I believe in the reality of beauty
I think the human mind has evolved
and it has evolved with an ability to have a sense of beauty
(the details do not matter to me. it does not matter if
some people love pig-stew and others love cow-stew
as long as they LOVE the food they eat and care about making it delicious)
the differences do not matter and they are sociological
accidents but somehow the human brain has evolved
an ability to thoroughly enjoy singing contrapuntal
4-part sacred choral music from 1750-1850

or 1950 new Jersey doo-wop

or the Paean to Apollo that Xenophon's soldiers sang when they
had to fight the hill-people of the Anabasis.

the amazing thing, the miracle, is that the mind should have
this love of music in the first place

and so on

and the stars

and screw the rest

(so as I say my particpation is extremely sporadic but I think
to discuss beauty and the sense of beauty is to discuss what is
absolutely the most important most essential thing)

 

[the number 42]

You simply can't imagine to eat dogs, horses or insects. And still, billions of people do it every day. And they simply can't imagine you to eat such disgusting things like pigs.

Again, everything from which you don't die when you eat it, can be considered to be "food".

Yes, we all eat food, from bugs to other people. And there are individual and cultural differences in what is preferred. Yet all of this stuff is 'food'. But apart from sideshows, people don't eat glass or metal. A categorical distinction can be made between 'food' and 'non-food'. And I am suggesting that some things can be considered 'pleasing to the eye' (beauty), and others 'unpleasing to the eye'. Of course there are individual and cultural variations, but only the severely disturbed can look at a car wreck or a mutilation and consider it 'beautiful'.

 

[0TheSwerve0]

Can someone be sexually attractive yet have minimal beauty? Are beauty and attractiveness different? I guess it depends on whether you're talking about humans or just objects and images in general.

 

[The Bob]

Anything can be beautiful if you look at it in the right way.

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[0TheSwerve0]

You mean when you're on drugs, right? In that case it would also depend on your mood. Plus, when you're drunk, a lot of people look beautiful/attractive that would not suit you on other occasions.

 

[Dayle Record]

There is a lot of beauty here, this group creates it, free.

http://www.phidelity.com/cms2/index.php?set_albumName=album55&id=DSCF0449&option=com_gallery&Itemid=72&include=view_photo.php

 

[reilly]

A
Question: Why is the chord C#, F#, B, Eb, F#, Bb, much, much better than C#, F#, C, Eb, G, Bb ?

Here are some more bad chords: C#, F, C, Eb, F#, Bb, ...or this one... D, F#, B, Eb, F, C
Here are some more good chords: C (in the bass followed by) Bb C D F G and A ... or: C Bb C# E G and A

Chords are good or bad depending on their context, how they are voiced, and how they are used -- in fast passages, or slow ones, how are they resolved etc. Your first example of a "bad" chord, could be used effectively in arpeggiated form -- you can hear dissonances like this in Charles Ive's works.I'm not so sure it's necessarily bad.

Actually, your next two "bad" chords are used in jazz music. The C# F C... can be thought of as a C# major 7 with an Eb minor on top, something you can find in Herbie Hancock's music. The D, F# etc is a D dominant 7 with a flat nine (Eb), a sharp 9(F) and a 13th(B) -- putting a natural 13th with flat/sharp ninths is somewhat unusual, but you can certainly hear it in Thelonius Monk's music.

It all depends.

As far as measuring beauty or other highly subjective matters, statisticians have developed some powerful techniques generally known as perceptual mapping and multidimensional scaling. They are often used in marketing -- largely developed at the University of Pennsylvania -- to get at such questions as how to balance sweetness vs. packaging -- the red or the blue -- and price -- and. Or, they have been used, sometime ago to find the characteristics of the "ideal" political candidate. The techniques are highly sophisticated and very mathematical, and, generally work with appropriate survey data.They are used fairly widely in market research, often with considerable success.

Years ago, I and some colleagues applied multidimensional scaling to see if we could discern what made a pop hit, and to learn how to use the technique. As best as I can remember, "the beat" was primary, and I don't recall what else.

But, these techniques could be use to try to measure beauty, and probably have been so used. This stuff is for real. Do a GOOGLE if you want to learn more.

Regards,
Reilly Atkinson

 

[Billy T]

I have only read a few recent posts so repeating, i apologize, but some may be interested in the following fact:

If many people of one sex selected at random have photos taken of their faces and these photos are the data base shown to many other people (usually only of the opposite sex, in most such psychological tests) and they rate the "beauty" of the faces, one that always rates very high is not any of the original photos, but a computer generated image that is effectively the average of the entire data base.

I think about this demonstrated result in the following terms: Cows are very different from humans (my group ) and none appear particularly beautiful to me. They differ in appearance too much from my group. Likewise any face that differs greatly from the average of all faces I see will be "ugly" (mouth not centered under the nose, etc.)

Conversely a face which is very typical will never be considered "ugly" so when its scores are added up in the test, it will rate well above average, if not "highly". Each individual making ratings of the faces will rarely select the same face as "most beautiful" (once mass culture effects are removed - no recognizable "models" in the data set etc.).

If the rating group is segregated into different ethic groups during the data analysis, their set of highly rated faces will tend to have characteristic of their ethnic group.

Not much surprizing in all this, but in some sense, beauty is like I have seen often and never far from the average.

 

[<<<GUILLE>>>]

Two words:

Beauty is relative.

 

[Gale]

heh, i think i'd forgotten about this thread... lots of replies. thanks...

But really, i think people are focussing on people mostly. I'm really curious how it is that we all seem to be able to really appreciate rainbows or the stars. is it intrinsic? A lot of things in nature are generally agreed upon to be beautiful.

But anyways, i liked the thing about how when you look at something longer, it becomes more beautiful. I find that true in personal experience at least. Perhaps everything is beautiful then, but somethings take more time to appreciate? Also, about beauty being what is average... i think that's sort of true as well. At least perhaps, the most easily appreciated beauty tend to be most normal.

 

[dextercioby]

I think there's a ****load amount of nonsensical speculation in this thread...

Daniel.

P.S.Ooops,it's in the phylosophy forum.It think that figures...

 

[Loren Booda]

Billy T

and they rate the "beauty" of the faces, one that always rates very high is not any of the original photos, but a computer generated image that is effectively the average of the entire data base.

A virtual digital inbreeding!

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Kant measured beauty something along these lines- from prettyness through to sublime, and the sublime is perceived by the emotions it arouses of inadequacy and morality, negative emotions that when we realize we are actually the same as ever, we feel relief and joy.
I think the german idealists were the last to take this sort of study of beauty seriously- rather than as a call to justice, I remain pretty inadequate and immoral despite having this feeling quite a lot, and their ideals of attaining a notion of universal beauty were replaced (Adorno) by admittion of individual suffering- I think.

 

[SpaceTiger]

I think there's a ****load amount of nonsensical speculation in this thread...

P.S.Ooops,it's in the phylosophy forum.It think that figures...

Actually, I think this is one of those areas in which philosophy has rather serious practical implications. The way we view beauty will likely impact the way we approach many problems in our political, personal, and even scientific lives. And, of course, our view of beauty will influence that of others.

In our personal lives, the implications are obvious. If we want long-term happiness, should we focus primarily on superficial biological drivers, like physical appearance, or should we be looking for something deeper? I'm pretty curious about the answer to that question myself.

In the political realm, think of the current question of gay rights. Our cultural conception of the "beauty" behind a gay relationship will undoubtedly impact the decision we make about its legality.

Finally, there are many books on how scientists view the "beauty" of their work and how it impacts their opinions about new theories. I think most scientists would agree that relativity is a "beautiful" theory and they will likely use it as a standard for comparison to new ones. Why do they view it this way and is it really appropriate for them to do so?

It's my opinion that everybody should be at least a part-time philosopher because it's their responsibility to understand the guts of what they've devoted their lives to doing, whatever it may be. In particular, ethics are crucial. I think every physicist, in order to earn a Ph.D., should be required to have thought about potential ethical consequences of their work. In particular, we should all be thinking hard about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.