the world is a beautiful place

Odd how you ignored my posts. I believe beauty doesn't exist without humans. Everything is just an arrangement of atoms, humans turn those arrangements into beauty and sorrow and... and...

 

i think beauty is both something that can be appreciated, as well as something that does not need to be appreciated.
if no one is there to see something beautiful, does that really mean it isn't beautiful?

i guess you could compare it to that thing about 'if a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?' the answer is no, since sound is vibrations that travel to our ears, and without any ears to hear it, it makes no sound.

but i think beauty and sound are different, since sound is more tangible than beauty.

i mean natural beauty. so if you take away the things that ruin the natural beauty, such as us, wouldn't it remain beautiful always?

my point of view is that the point of life is not advancement. I think it is to de-advance. i know that isn't a word, but humanity has, in my opinion, lost its purpose. I think it is to meditate, and reach a certain level, like to re-open our third eye. Us having lost access to our 3rd eye is an advancement, in a way. So, we must backtrack, i think.
the whole 9-5 thing isn't what humanity was intended for. if we were intended to use our intelligence for anything, it is NOT advancement of technology. Advancements in technology only compel us to be lazier and lazier, which we are decidedly not intended for.

i didn't intend to ignore your posts O:
so i went back and made sure i got some of them.

what do you think about my idea that beauty is unlike sound?^^^^

 

I appreciate the reply.

Well, when you define sound you can mean different things. It can defined as "the sensation perceived by the sense of hearing" or "the mechanical radiant energy that is transmitted by longitudinal pressure waves in a material medium (as air) and is the objective cause of hearing." So it depends how you define sound, because the longitudinal pressure waves always exist regardless of the presence of ears.

Additionally, I agree with the Merriam-Webster dictionary on the definition of beauty: "the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit". Beauty isn't in the form of something, otherwise everyone would agree on what is beautiful and what is not. Beauty is within you.

How are humans not natural? For that matter, how is ANYTHING not natural?

Sounds like wishful thinking to me, a longing for what you wish to be: our access to a "3rd eye". Kind of like how a lot of Christians believe we shouldn't be advancing, but opening our hearts to God and preparing for the Apocalypse.

 

The world is here for OUR benefit. Not the other way around.

 

Hell yeah

 

I'm pretty sure I've seen certain animals experiencing sorrow (and hapiness) as well.

 

based on this statement, you represent a culture of takers

 

I don't represent anything but my opinion. Everyone is put here to live their lives, and the natural resources of the world are for our benefit. Why else would we have all of this shit at our disposal? We are meant to take from the world. I'm not saying we should take it for granted and use it in vain, but it's definitely here for our benefit.

 

And what authority determines how the world should be? You? The Koran? The gamma male of a dolphin pod?

 

You should be more than pretty sure, haha, because you are right. Yet humans experience emotions more consciously, hence our development of language and the existence of words like beauty. Animals may experience a range of emotions, from happiness to sadness to annoyance to fear, but they do not experience beauty, it is an utterly human concept.

 

Which emotion accounts for mating displays? Colors change, becoming more brilliant, dancing, shimmering, shaking. It appears that eye catching is a reproductive strategy, the capacity to prefer a shiny object to a dull one.

 

Some birds have a very specific taste for architecture

 

i hadn't noticed this post until now... i really like the points your make, i agree with the idea of a world minus monetary systems.

that's a matter of opinion, because admiring beautiful things is something many people do for a living. any form of an artist admires beautiful things, and for every mainstream form of art, there are critiques as well...
plus why wouldn't admiration of beautiful things be seen as advancement as well? being able to appreciate beauty is alot of what opening your third eye is all about. (atleast i think so)

by the definition of sound where longitudinal waves are always present, and assuming beauty is essentially the same... beauty would be present, no matter if there were no eyes to percieve it. according to the other, its tricky. there would be no one to feel the sensation of experiencing beauty, and so therefore, there would be no beauty. so its all a point of view/personal opinion. i also really like your definition of beauty from websters.

things created by humans are unnatural. nature is... naturally occuring substances. not things we create in turn.
i suppose you could make an argument regarding the idea that our creations are natural as well... any thought on that? O:
i don't think they are, considering they ruin true nature...

as for christians... the idea that our lives should be dedicated to the worship of an 'invisible being' of supposed higher power, and in preparation for death seems overall preposterous to me.
advancement is all just based on opinion.

Even so, we ruin our resources beyond recognition in most cases... so even in that idea, we are still losing benefits because we're fucking it up.

I'm thinking along the lines of natural processes.

 

Heinlein said it well:

"There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" -- but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the "naturist" reveals his hatred for his own race -- i.e., his own self hatred."

Also, keep in mind that one of the biggest ecological crises this planet has experienced was when bacteria started polluting the atmosphere with oxygen a few million years ago.

And, since this is the Stoner's Lounge, I must ask if you would prefer smoking wild hemp flowers to the buds of the latest unnatural creation of one of our fine human botanists in Willits or Amsterdam?

 

I didn't ment the world, the world as a whole and all the things in it that gets it working is the most beautiful thing in the world
But yeah, beauty is subjective of course. I admire the beauty of other worlds very much as well

 

Even terms like nature and unnatural are just made up by our minds and defined by our urge to understand. Seems everything is derived in some way from nature but we choose to create categories in what's what and what's not. Also, although some definitions are really handy, the name is just a word and we associate things with every word we hear or read and so link it to other definitions (which associations may influence your admiration on the subject). So perhaps it's all just in our mind that mechanical stuff and machines etc. are unnatural

 

Humans are naturally occurring organisms, so anything we create could be considered natural, as it is in our nature to do so. That being said, I understand what you believe and it's commendable. I don't have to say much more, Asmodean really hits along what I was getting at.

 

I think it's possible that animals experience something like beauty -- appreciation for the world. Definitely I would think monkeys do...elephants. They see their young and appreciate them.

That said, I DON'T think animals experience beauty, as our concept of beauty has the word attached to it. Just like animals don't really experience fear, or hate, love, etc. It's a different experience for a creature that has language. Like, if you're loving something, you think of ways to describe it, whereas an animal supposedly just feels it.

But different animals may have languages of their own as well. Especially body language. Their body language may be very finely tuned, whereas ours is as well, but we don't really just speak to each other using our bodies...by which I suppose I mean that we don't remember what a person said using their body language usually, but what came out of their mouth.

 

this is well said and very true. even the concept of 'ruining' the planet or wrecking the environment is questionable... we are another species on the planet, from the same origins as everything else, how can we wreck anything? furthermore wtf is 'wrecked'? the world changes, it has and it will and we are a part of that, and it's always beautiful if you have the right eyes, imo.

all that said, it is commendable because you have a spirit pointed in the right direction, towards respecting the world around us. respect is important, imo that's what it's all about... not conservation, not preservation, but respect. i dig that...

im baked... so excuse not making sense...

 

^^^No good post, you made perfect sense.

Good post as well, that is pretty much what I meant by beauty being an utterly human concept, as it is based on our main method of communication, language.