I feel like everything I read or listen to something from David Deutsch, my mind becomes a little bit more beautiful, and the world becomes a little bit more magical
I love him because his genius speaks to and not away from the human condition, he's the new einstein. He understands science as a relationship to experience instead of separating experience from science. He goes from quantum physics and quantum computers to redefining aesthetics and parenting. That type of clarity is pretty much a once in a lifetime thing. Virtually every single conscious being is only useful to a certain point but don't understand how to wrap it around into everyone and everything. He does. You do the science and the smart stuff, but only as a prerequisite.
Just finished The Beginning of Infinity. What an amazing piece of work. I hope to see more of Dr. Deutsch and see him in some debates or talks with other physicists/philosophers. I hope these ideas spread far and wide.
This one of the best discussions of beauty I have seen. The onset of the creativity and beauty expressed in the artwork of the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet may be the point at which humans evolved to a point that, beyond being passive observers of beauty, they now have the capacity to be active creators of beauty. What a remarkable moment that must have been for those first artists! There may be a series of steps in human consciousness, 1st no awareness of beauty, 2nd awareness of beauty, 3rd the ability to create beauty, 4th to fully manifest beauty in our own consciousness? Would that be a point at which humanity fully inhabits and manifests the objective reality of beauty? What sort of being would that be? If there is an objective reality to beauty, does it imply that beauty is a fundamental aspect of reality, like the charge on an electron? Similar to what is theorized by the panpsychist that consciousness is intrinsic to matter?
All my life I have thought that "De gustibus..." is nonsense, in a sense that yes, individual preference is a thing and it has it's value, but SOME things are simply above that - objectively. This was an amazing lecture!
Brilliant David, thanks a lot mate :) am going to be re-listening to this and showing my friends. I share the hopes you mention at the end, I just feel sad that I probably won't live to see it!
Thank you David Deutsch. I have often pondered this very mystery - why do humans find flowers beautiful? Your explanation would never have occurred to me and I thank you for it. The concept of objective beauty is very interesting. I am convinced that there is such a thing as objective truth, even if I don't know what it is, so why not objective beauty too?
You inspired me to get more interested in new areas of philosophy other than science after I read the chapter on objective beauty in Beginning of Infinity, thanks for that.
He says art as self expression cannot exist, because that would be the expression of something that already exists in a person, however many artists would argue that their own artistic process involves a discovery of themselves through their art, thus art can be both self-expressive and novel.
The argument is that objective standards of beauty exist. Self-expression could be used to achieve those standards (in fact, all art is self expression because we use our brains to make it, which are unique), but self-expression pursued for its own sake is not art. That's how I understand it, anyway.
Wonderful stuff. The world made more sense to me when I realised that my life, our lives, are our artworks. We paint our lives like a picture. We want our lives to be beautiful. We make mistakes. We may even start all over with a new canvas. In this way we see art is perhaps the most fundamental thing. Notice how much we value it. Notice how much actors and musicians are celebrated for it.
the skill of reproduction "is not in itself artistic precisely because it is perfectible. real art is capable of going on from there and doing something beyond the perfection of any skill" -David Deutsch
The truth of the matter is that we, and the universe as a whole, are formed by a specific Fibonacci based mathematical structure named Menorah Matrix. The mathematical structure is based on two integrated repeating patterns and being based on the FS it is intrinsically tied to the golden ratio. Visual beauty just as music/sounds inspire us the sense of beauty out of the recognition of these inbuilt patterns in ourselves. Simply said, beauty is recognition of our true essence, which derives from the Intelligent Mind that created and implemented it in this physical universe.
I enjoy every minute of it. It must have taken plants very long time to figure out this wonderful feature of attracting many different species at the same time, objectively. Think about it, we human are doing the same thing!
Excellent talk. A few thoughts: #1) What's the difference between "beauty" which can often have a superficial dimension, or association with vanity, and genuine aesthetic thoughtfulness, sophistication and improvement? #2) How could the hypothesis of humans becoming more objectively beautiful (via sexual selection, or aesthetic consideration / presentation) be true if we established beauty is "in the eye of the beholder" illustrated by the example of other species evolved to find their particular niche / morphology attractive. Overall, a fascinating reflection on objectivity and aesthetics. Interesting to consider aesthetics, as a body of knowledge, could be something perpetually refined, with an infinite potential for progress.
According to the Botany of Desire, plants make themselves attractive to humans in order to have more opportunties to propogade in more locations around the world. Plus, we create new variations my breeding plants to our taste. This adds to their variation. I am comfuses as to why we are attracted to the same thing as insects. We also have complex social structures in common with flowers. Is esthetics a property of consciousness? And culture?
I experienced a few rare moments of disagreement with Professor Deutsch. For instance, I see the Easter Island sculptures as perfectly legitimate art. They are merely performing in a role which calls for a rather narrow expression. They are heiratic and huge. Very powerful, I should say. If they are tragic as well this adds to their pathos. The approximate duplication is also an intentional disposition of materials, thus irrelevant to the aesthetic question, as I see it..
One thing that I think we should account for is... boredom. No matter how beautiful a thing is, we'll eventually get bored of it, and hence fashion changes time to time.
I feel boredom is more 'our' problem than the problem of object of beauty. Is it because we are a incomplete, unfulfilled entity, that we seek constant stimulation? Otherwise, why would a fulfilled thing seek further stimulation?
The point is rather, that you, or anybody else for that matter, being bored doesn't negate it's beauty, As mentioned by another answer above, I agree that beauty can be objective, boredom on the other hand is always subjective. Also, it is very hard to find a measurement or a definition for 'boredom' which makes it negating beauty a parochial, human error.
20:40 "merely copying a work of art is not a creative act" seems to contradict your view, David, that creativity evolved because it promoted conformity. I would argue that copying may not be new art but it is a creative act *by the copier* because he/she has to figure out how the original artist did it. So new understanding has to be created in the copiers mind that wasn't there before (even though it exists, or existed, in the mind of the original artist).
Also, by the way, the Easter Island statues aren't particularly ancient (1250-1500, roughly when Oxford and Cambridge Universities were getting started).
@@benjaminhope1524 They're also quite different from each other. There's literally hundreds of them, and I don't think they were even striving to make them similar. Most are quite distinct, though the ones on the picture David used aren't the best example of that.
David Deutsch is enhancing my life!! I only wish I had come across him years ago! David loves Popper but I find also lots of parallels between the ideas he expresses with the ideas I find in Whitehead's philosophy, and yet he never mentions Whitehead - I do wonder why; Does he disagree at some point with Whitehead? or has David not read Whitehead (I find that idea not credible).
Everything to a p functioning human is important the idea of waste the feeling on terror, the thought of loss. Then the dominant sense at the time of storage
I don't understand why self-expression cannot also be objectively true. If an artist is truly mining human experience, she will find truths in herself worth expressing. Some of those will evoke responses in others because they recognize some new truth she captured. Wouldn't that be objective?
Then if you don’t know what beauty is the story about the object is a memory waiting to be ignited and compared, the flowers are high and my favorite ones are the Pussy willows I guess and the very large dinosaur sunflowers , they form a hidden place that only the water knows enough to travel the mountains are behind it and the place I think my mom works but it maybe just a business nothing to do with my life but the mountains and all the apartments looking the same makes me forget if mine is high or low, It’s my birthday and I am warned that the fireworks will come out above the mountains at any moment and I will blow out candles and it lasted forever, but everything outside is high up and dark and I’m almost eye level with the fireworks, everything is colorful , but seems to be metallic, the air seems different in the way that effects people to behave differently, more warmly I also had to talk in Korean to my Grandma
As a designer, this explanation of beauty and aesthetics surpasses all the philosophical explanations I've read so far. I had come to the similar conclusion after years of reading physics as a hobby. But I have an opinion. Human objective beauty is not the ultimate objective beauty. And I believe the ultimate one is within every atom, and every gene. It is a "initial" mathematical patterns that make up matter. And the ultimate goal is not really progress towards perfection, but the search for the most efficient combination of pattern /harmony for efficiency at that space and time that can shrink / slow down entropy, constantly and forever modifying itself to most efficiently adopt to NOW.
Here is my belief: Flowers and most "attractive" patterns in nature have evolved to exploit simple mathematical equations (e.g., fractals) that resonate with neural circuitry. Such neural circuitry has evolved to search for mathematical patterns found in nature to inform the animal of its environment. An alligator is "unattractive" because it has evolved to eliminate attractive mathematical patterns that would give away its presence. Humans are supercharged pattern searchers and recognizers. :)
If the alligator eliminates attractive mathematical patterns from his figure in order to merge with the environment, then how come humans find that environment beautiful by itself? Moreover, why can a slightly sloppy piece of music played by an amateur folk band be more beautiful than a precisely thought out mathematical structure of sounds that dont subscribe to any type of established musical gender? how come the mathematical precision of a rennaisance cathedral produce an aesthetic effect comparable to that of the somewhat contingent proportions of a gothic , or byzantine cathedral? I think that mathematical simplicity in nature is just the result of the most efficient way of cellular and proteinic arrangement. Our attraction to things, however, do seem to have more to do with personal resonance with an object.
That's because you have risen above your subjectively ingrained by evolution displeasure with those animals. Everyone has subjective attractions and aversions to things, but his point is that they also have objective ones, like flowers.
@@jakeb.2990 You wouldn't just be worried if you saw them in the wild, you would be instinctively repulsed before you could consciously process anything. This is all beside the point anyway, i suggest you watch the video again. Nothing you've said counters his points.
Distinct from all other animals in that we are the only universal explainers capable of creating explanatory knowledge. We aren't animals, "we" are minds.
Deutsch's theory of beauty is a self contained and subjective theory, thereby disqualifying everything given after his first example of a particular thought contributing to something supposedly "better". If I choose to make something discordant or unconventional as an aesthetic judgement, then that is my subjective decision made from an infinite number of possible decisions. Everything in life or perception is an approximation. Knowledge is illusory. So far, mystery is the stuff of life.
The example of the Easter Island staues as not being art, presumes the creator(s) where just copying and not intentionally deciding to repeat the forms as an aesthetic statement. Creating art has at least two requirements: intention and context. As a matter of fact, everything we perceive and think about is in some kind of context. Intention is crucial when it comes to art. The viewer is also part of the process of creation in that the viewer must be affected by it. Art is not intended to be created in a vacuum.
Mystics like Gurdjieff asserted the existence of "objective beauty" giving the Sphinx in Egypt as one example. DD is not the first to claim this. Perceptual psychologists have referred to this tradition of thinking as "realism" and more importantly, "direct realism". Best development of this: J.J. Gibson and the "ecological approach" - science is catching up with Gibson. See 28:06 Objective reality is functional, perceivable, and subtler levels that >influence our behaviour< we call aesthetics.
Is it possible to conceive of/ design a 'flower' that a human would classify as such, yet to that same human, not be beautiful? Perhaps that might be a nice test :)
59:31 Likely so, but that's avoiding the point. If you showed the actual night sky to a person who'd never seen it before, I'll tell you right now that person is not going to be aesthetically unimpressed.
People can appreciate spiders yes, but you have missed the point. His point is first, that a thing does not have to be symmetrical to be aesthetically pleasing. Second, that not all things that are symmetrical are aesthetically pleasing. If you can find just one person that is repelled by a symmetrical thing, then symmetry is not universally beautiful.
He’s talking crap…and lots of it. Here’s the answer in ONE sentence….Flowers are “beautiful” to us because we evolved to like them because the lands where they grow is fertile and the humans that didn’t find such things beautiful had a lower chance of survival. Now you know. Same reason a valley is beautiful….because you can see prey animals on the other side and see danger coming etc etc….same reason we like a house with an elevated view.
@DrewMcFederiesCEO 1. why would it need to cater for ALL human behavior? Who ever said it did? On second thought, it actually might. You touch something hot, you feel pain. You are hungry? Also evolution. Want sex? Same thing. You love your children, same thing. Seek pleasure, same thing. Fear danger, same thing. Want money/resources, same thing. Like playing FPS shooting (hunting) games, same thing. In fact, I hereby challenge you to tell me ONE human behavior that cannot be logically traced back to have an evolutionary function. Likely you will find some, but you will have to think about it and more than half of human behavior CAN be assigned and evolutionary value. 2. Nope. You not thinking clearly man. We do all the rockets to the moon things because we evolved a trait where we always epwant to take things to the next level. Likely evolved out of the benefits of exploring and building new tools. So sorry man, I don’t hate you or have ill will towards you. You just another human I share earth with. That’s good. But 100% you have been shown to be incorrect in this comment. I haven’t read to the end of yours yet, but I think it will be logically overridden. And this is good for both of us. The point of these comments between you and me is not to best each other, but to find truth. 3. Yes, genetic triggers. Thanks for being real. And yes…culture changes over time. But you missing the understanding that the fact that we even HAVE a culture, is evolutionary psychology. We evolved group thinking and the ability to collectively maintain and update a culture in response to the outside world. This includes feedback looks for the culture changing in espouse to itself too. So, a few people in the society do ABC and the other people responds with XYZ and eventually the culture settles. It’s called the pendulum effect. Cultures swings to extremes and then settles somewhere in the middle and it becomes “normal”. It’s an evolutionary group psychology attribute humans developed over millions of years. Or at least the last 200,000. Na man, no I’ll will towards you at all. But yeah, I have a mind that is seldom rivaled. I can tell other things too. Lots and LOTS of clear understandings. If you want to choose another topic, we can deep dive into that. One thing I find interesting that the men of the world do not realize…even in these red pill men podcast things. It’s the women evolved PMS to separate themselves over time if he is consistently not gettin ther pregnant. It actually evolved to break them up so she can mate with a male that WILL get her pregnant. She has a long negative memory about the male to facilitate this process. She is also not targeting her anger towards friends, family and coworkers, just him. And then of course, we see that if we give the female Deproprovera contraceptive injection, the PMS is gone because the body things it’s pregnant. She also becomes pleasant and easy to follow the man because she is “pregnant” and need him to provide for her inthe jungle. Bro there are COUNTLESS things like this I realized. From the errors in our understanding of gravity to how to get mega rich. (3.5 million now and I expect 10- realistically) I can’t turn it off man…can’t stop it. But yeah, choose a new topic you are interested in and we can explore
@DrewMcFederiesCEO Naaaa….hang on. You have hit the nail on the head about the ability to override. But yes, it really IS the evolved ability to override. You mentioned that, but discounted it because you “cannot make predictions”. But you absolutely can do that. You can simply predict that someone will take their hand of a fire if you put it in there. You can predict that someone will be heart broken in the event of a break up. It’s absolutely everywhere, predicted and confirmed. I’m not sure why you said it’s not predictable. Did I misunderstand? We can also predict what they will do in response to the food being placed in front of them. First, they are going to recognize the movement in their eyes and that will transmit to their brain. Can definitely predict that. Then they will process the data based on previously processed data in memory. Then a decisions will be mate to eat it or not eat it. Definitely can predict that there will be a decision made. The reason we don’t know what the decision is, is because we don’t know the DNA and the past experience if this human. But they do….they follow the DNA and the experience of life. Therefore they themselves are the poof that the decision they will make is known. It’s known by them. This is clearly evident as when making the decision, they proved that they knew the decision. WE don’t know it, because we didn’t have the knowledge they had. But they knew…clearly the information didn’t come from any external source. You know what though….ALL of this is moot when we factor in that the mind is illusionary. What are your thoughts on that little nugget?
I disagree with this. It's based on a desire for certain qualities in your theory of beauty - qualities that I don't desire much myself. I believe that it's perfectly okay to have multiple, contradictory theories, that there is no need to have any relative value for anything. Sure, it's sort of self-consistent, what you've done, but I think it is a better explanation to say that aesthetics is like a function of evaluation of a set of data, that every time we perceive something, that perception might contribute something to another, greater perception, based on other factors. I am skeptical of the value of "Logic", of the idea that a theory can be "right" or "wrong". I just use a theory if it is a useful theory, and it is entirely unnecessary to worry about what the "truth" might be. The explanation itself is the meat of the argument. Arguments according to "contradiction" only really work in the rigorous mathematical settings, where axioms exist. In the real world, proof by contradiction is rather weak, because contradictions in nature do exist, even in physics. Also, I have no scientific evidence that suggests that the idea of "objective" and "subjective" are useful concepts, without presupposing it. So I don't care to use it. One idea I've had about flowers is that most natural things are beautiful, that they imitate mathematical forms, that our eyes and brains are able to see mathematical form, and that it resonates with our brain's circuitry because it is also mathematical, and when we look at a flower, or a leaf, or a piece of architecture, our brains are active, which produces a sense of appreciation. Bright colors just serve to grab our attention. This theory works well with other theories about the mind, about nature, about signals and noise and perception, and my own experience. It is sufficiently predictive and adaptable to be able to create things that other people appreciate. Still, other ideas are interesting to hear.
What would you find as "scientific evidence that suggests that the idea of "objective" and "subjective" are useful" ? I found this a bit odd, as pretty much the whole scientific discipline of empiricist experiments is based on measuring something objective. In some sense you might say that every single sceintific evidence, is evidence that objective is useful. So you might want to reconsider your position if your opinion was built entirely on that axiom
If you don't care about things like "logic" and "truth", then you're saying that you believe in nonsensical things and irrationalities that are illogical and have nothing to do with reality. And if you DON'T care about those things, then you can't have any opinions about reality, which you actually have. So yeah, you are basically being illogical.
I pretty much agree, but not on the last part. I don't think things are, in themselves, mathematical. We impose mathematical ideas on the world and this, as you say, is useful. That does not mean that the mathematics is actually "out there". Triangles do not exist because straight lines don't exist, these are useful constructs of the mind but not an objective truth (I guess I do find it useful in this case to talk about an objective truth, but I think it might be an empty category). Of course there's the question of "how come mathematical concepts are useful? Isn't it because something in nature is inherently mathematical?". I'm not sure I have a good answer to that, but I do know that triangles do not happen in nature.
what a load of tosh! beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and different eyes behold different things. Insects see a source of food, and humans see.... see what, exactly? they see colour and shape. the smooth curvy shapes (and colours) of a flower remind a man of of the smooth curvy shapes (and colours) of a woman's anatomy. it's not rocket science, it's not nonsense about objective beauty. and inter-species signalling. All signals are inter-special, because they are signals! Sigh, ... let me be more precise: the shape that flowers (especially orchids) remind people of is the shape of the vulva. There is very possibly an objective beauty in the elegance of an equation, or the symmetry of a sphere, but that's a world away from the beauty of a flower.
so I just wasted an hour listening to this nonsense. 1. value is necessarily and definitionally SUBJECTIVE. "objective value" is a contradiction in terms 2. this 'objective standard' of beauty that you appeal to when artists take a photo, or write music, is nothing more than majority opinion. it is majority opinion they are aiming for. or at the very least, their own opinion 3. I feel like you have done nothing more than make an argument from ignorance. you spent no time supporting your own hypothesis, merely attempted to shoot down other hypotheses. 4. you are absolutely right, it is objectively true that people find some things beautiful. however, this does NOT mean the thing is objectively beautiful. your argument attempts to conflate the two
Then how did Flowers evolve to become subjectively attractive to bees simultaneously with bees becoming subjectively attracted to flowers. What other way can the flower become more attractive to a bee than by increasing it's objective beauty. You might say by just figuring something out about the bees brain and exploiting it. But what in the bees brain would give it the propensity to be exploited and made more attracted to you other than it's attraction to objective beauty.
@@AltumNovo "flowers" didnt. Some flowers did, those that happened to be attractive to bees, survive today. Likewise, those species', particularly of bee, that happened to be attracted to flowers, survive today. Those that didnt, arent around. Throw 100 marbles at a wall with a 1 inch hole in it. You point to the 3-4 that got through the hole and ask how did that happen? Beauty and attraction are subjective. There may be features that are commonly found attractive, but that doesnt make them objective.
@@TheColossis If features are found attractive commonly enough they they are just as objective as a well established fact in science. That is there's no guarantee that they are objective, but they are our best current explanation of what is objectively true and beautiful respectively.
@@TheColossis Just as most widely accepted scientific theory =/= objective fact. Nothing is completely objective, some things are just the best explanation we have.
![เบิ้ล ปทุมราช - อ้ายกินดอง น้องลาบงัว ft. สแน็ก อัจฉรีย์ [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-OK--KaSPcI/mqdefault.jpg)
I feel like everything I read or listen to something from David Deutsch, my mind becomes a little bit more beautiful, and the world becomes a little bit more magical
Mine expanded just by reading your comment. Your honesty is rare, and brings a smile to my face.
Thanks for existing.
This guy is a wonderful human being.
I love him and his ideas so much
I’m not so much I don’t think
I could listen to David Deutsch forever about anything....
Tl;dr please
This guy make me feel dumb. Like I have never looked at things the way he explains. This guy is treasure for humanity.
Exactly... Feels like he explains the most mundane things in the most incredible light.
I would more say he makes you become smarter.
I love him because his genius speaks to and not away from the human condition, he's the new einstein. He understands science as a relationship to experience instead of separating experience from science. He goes from quantum physics and quantum computers to redefining aesthetics and parenting. That type of clarity is pretty much a once in a lifetime thing. Virtually every single conscious being is only useful to a certain point but don't understand how to wrap it around into everyone and everything. He does. You do the science and the smart stuff, but only as a prerequisite.
Just finished The Beginning of Infinity. What an amazing piece of work. I hope to see more of Dr. Deutsch and see him in some debates or talks with other physicists/philosophers. I hope these ideas spread far and wide.
That's a whole philosophy stretching art, elegance and science. Very inspiring
4:15 the transition 😂
I dare to say this is the deepest theory of aesthetics ever created. DD is a true genius of our era.
This one of the best discussions of beauty I have seen. The onset of the creativity and beauty expressed in the artwork of the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet may be the point at which humans evolved to a point that, beyond being passive observers of beauty, they now have the capacity to be active creators of beauty. What a remarkable moment that must have been for those first artists! There may be a series of steps in human consciousness, 1st no awareness of beauty, 2nd awareness of beauty, 3rd the ability to create beauty, 4th to fully manifest beauty in our own consciousness? Would that be a point at which humanity fully inhabits and manifests the objective reality of beauty? What sort of being would that be?
If there is an objective reality to beauty, does it imply that beauty is a fundamental aspect of reality, like the charge on an electron? Similar to what is theorized by the panpsychist that consciousness is intrinsic to matter?
All my life I have thought that "De gustibus..." is nonsense, in a sense that yes, individual preference is a thing and it has it's value, but SOME things are simply above that - objectively. This was an amazing lecture!
This talk is incredibly insightful.
Brilliant David, thanks a lot mate :) am going to be re-listening to this and showing my friends. I share the hopes you mention at the end, I just feel sad that I probably won't live to see it!
My best moments shortlist:
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Thank you David Deutsch. I have often pondered this very mystery - why do humans find flowers beautiful? Your explanation would never have occurred to me and I thank you for it. The concept of objective beauty is very interesting. I am convinced that there is such a thing as objective truth, even if I don't know what it is, so why not objective beauty too?
You inspired me to get more interested in new areas of philosophy other than science after I read the chapter on objective beauty in Beginning of Infinity, thanks for that.
Amazingly illuminating. Thank you David.
Love this talk. Thank you.
the more thought and feelings we put into the creation of things the more beautiful it is....
He says art as self expression cannot exist, because that would be the expression of something that already exists in a person, however many artists would argue that their own artistic process involves a discovery of themselves through their art, thus art can be both self-expressive and novel.
The argument is that objective standards of beauty exist. Self-expression could be used to achieve those standards (in fact, all art is self expression because we use our brains to make it, which are unique), but self-expression pursued for its own sake is not art. That's how I understand it, anyway.
Wonderful stuff. The world made more sense to me when I realised that my life, our lives, are our artworks. We paint our lives like a picture. We want our lives to be beautiful. We make mistakes. We may even start all over with a new canvas. In this way we see art is perhaps the most fundamental thing. Notice how much we value it. Notice how much actors and musicians are celebrated for it.
the skill of reproduction "is not in itself artistic precisely because it is perfectible. real art is capable of going on from there and doing something beyond the perfection of any skill" -David Deutsch
The truth of the matter is that we, and the universe as a whole, are formed by a specific Fibonacci based mathematical structure named Menorah Matrix. The mathematical structure is based on two integrated repeating patterns and being based on the FS it is intrinsically tied to the golden ratio. Visual beauty just as music/sounds inspire us the sense of beauty out of the recognition of these inbuilt patterns in ourselves. Simply said, beauty is recognition of our true essence, which derives from the Intelligent Mind that created and implemented it in this physical universe.
I enjoy every minute of it. It must have taken plants very long time to figure out this wonderful feature of attracting many different species at the same time, objectively. Think about it, we human are doing the same thing!
Any man that knows what thee likes is a man worth listening too
It’s very sad to find out Harlem Ellison and LOYD BIGGILE has passed, I still feel and reminisce about the places we’d go together
The arrangement of sensible materials to an esthetic end..
Awesome information.
The object it’s self is a memory, the working process of the memory is a moving museum
Excellent talk. A few thoughts:
#1) What's the difference between "beauty" which can often have a superficial dimension, or association with vanity, and genuine aesthetic thoughtfulness, sophistication and improvement?
#2) How could the hypothesis of humans becoming more objectively beautiful (via sexual selection, or aesthetic consideration / presentation) be true if we established beauty is "in the eye of the beholder" illustrated by the example of other species evolved to find their particular niche / morphology attractive.
Overall, a fascinating reflection on objectivity and aesthetics. Interesting to consider aesthetics, as a body of knowledge, could be something perpetually refined, with an infinite potential for progress.
“Art is inherently objective” can only be true in classless society where the spheres of human life and nature are one and the same.
I just love David.
According to the Botany of Desire, plants make themselves attractive to humans in order to have more opportunties to propogade in more locations around the world. Plus, we create new variations my breeding plants to our taste. This adds to their variation. I am comfuses as to why we are attracted to the same thing as insects. We also have complex social structures in common with flowers. Is esthetics a property of consciousness? And culture?
This you tube post is beautiful.
I experienced a few rare moments of disagreement with Professor Deutsch. For instance, I see the Easter Island sculptures as perfectly legitimate art. They are merely performing in a role which calls for a rather narrow expression. They are heiratic and huge. Very powerful, I should say. If they are tragic as well this adds to their pathos. The approximate duplication is also an intentional disposition of materials, thus irrelevant to the aesthetic question, as I see it..
One thing that I think we should account for is... boredom. No matter how beautiful a thing is, we'll eventually get bored of it, and hence fashion changes time to time.
I feel boredom is more 'our' problem than the problem of object of beauty. Is it because we are a incomplete, unfulfilled entity, that we seek constant stimulation? Otherwise, why would a fulfilled thing seek further stimulation?
Beauty is objective, boredom is subjective.
But one can probably still recognize something as objectively beautiful/good but being personally bored of it.
The point is rather, that you, or anybody else for that matter, being bored doesn't negate it's beauty, As mentioned by another answer above, I agree that beauty can be objective, boredom on the other hand is always subjective.
Also, it is very hard to find a measurement or a definition for 'boredom' which makes it negating beauty a parochial, human error.
20:40 "merely copying a work of art is not a creative act" seems to contradict your view, David, that creativity evolved because it promoted conformity. I would argue that copying may not be new art but it is a creative act *by the copier* because he/she has to figure out how the original artist did it. So new understanding has to be created in the copiers mind that wasn't there before (even though it exists, or existed, in the mind of the original artist).
Also, by the way, the Easter Island statues aren't particularly ancient (1250-1500, roughly when Oxford and Cambridge Universities were getting started).
@@benjaminhope1524 They're also quite different from each other. There's literally hundreds of them, and I don't think they were even striving to make them similar. Most are quite distinct, though the ones on the picture David used aren't the best example of that.
David Deutsch is enhancing my life!! I only wish I had come across him years ago! David loves Popper but I find also lots of parallels between the ideas he expresses with the ideas I find in Whitehead's philosophy, and yet he never mentions Whitehead - I do wonder why; Does he disagree at some point with Whitehead? or has David not read Whitehead (I find that idea not credible).
This is objectively the best video on TH-cam.
What about finding things like aerodynamics design beautiful... like that of cheetahs that are very efficient and aerodynamic.
Is objectivity characterised by a specific form of process?
What do you mean?
Beauty compares too everything else and becomes mythical to humans
Everything to a p functioning human is important the idea of waste the feeling on terror, the thought of loss. Then the dominant sense at the time of storage
David, I just came into contact with your existence this morning! Nice thoughts!
Is there anywhere that we can find the transcripts to this talk?
Tankyo lern me tings
So u are a stylish person in reality
I don't understand why self-expression cannot also be objectively true. If an artist is truly mining human experience, she will find truths in herself worth expressing. Some of those will evoke responses in others because they recognize some new truth she captured. Wouldn't that be objective?
Self expression can be but not for reasons you think
Parts of the brain that may have not developed or fallen completely off
Then if you don’t know what beauty is the story about the object is a memory waiting to be ignited and compared, the flowers are high and my favorite ones are the Pussy willows I guess and the very large dinosaur sunflowers , they form a hidden place that only the water knows enough to travel the mountains are behind it and the place I think my mom works but it maybe just a business nothing to do with my life but the mountains and all the apartments looking the same makes me forget if mine is high or low, It’s my birthday and I am warned that the fireworks will come out above the mountains at any moment and I will blow out candles and it lasted forever, but everything outside is high up and dark and I’m almost eye level with the fireworks, everything is colorful , but seems to be metallic, the air seems different in the way that effects people to behave differently, more warmly I also had to talk in Korean to my Grandma
As a designer, this explanation of beauty and aesthetics surpasses all the philosophical explanations I've read so far. I had come to the similar conclusion after years of reading physics as a hobby. But I have an opinion. Human objective beauty is not the ultimate objective beauty. And I believe the ultimate one is within every atom, and every gene. It is a "initial" mathematical patterns that make up matter. And the ultimate goal is not really progress towards perfection, but the search for the most efficient combination of pattern /harmony for efficiency at that space and time that can shrink / slow down entropy, constantly and forever modifying itself to most efficiently adopt to NOW.
2:46
Is this implying that some humans are objectively more beautiful than others?
Beauty also has special recognition a distance between objects because it compares to the story of self
And I am
Here is my belief: Flowers and most "attractive" patterns in nature have evolved to exploit simple mathematical equations (e.g., fractals) that resonate with neural circuitry. Such neural circuitry has evolved to search for mathematical patterns found in nature to inform the animal of its environment. An alligator is "unattractive" because it has evolved to eliminate attractive mathematical patterns that would give away its presence. Humans are supercharged pattern searchers and recognizers. :)
If the alligator eliminates attractive mathematical patterns from his figure in order to merge with the environment, then how come humans find that environment beautiful by itself?
Moreover, why can a slightly sloppy piece of music played by an amateur folk band be more beautiful than a precisely thought out mathematical structure of sounds that dont subscribe to any type of established musical gender?
how come the mathematical precision of a rennaisance cathedral produce an aesthetic effect comparable to that of the somewhat contingent proportions of a gothic , or byzantine cathedral?
I think that mathematical simplicity in nature is just the result of the most efficient way of cellular and proteinic arrangement. Our attraction to things, however, do seem to have more to do with personal resonance with an object.
Good point
I'm either missing something or not convinced by his argument that beauty is objective. 30:00 I for instance am not repulsed at all by this animal.
That's because you have risen above your subjectively ingrained by evolution displeasure with those animals. Everyone has subjective attractions and aversions to things, but his point is that they also have objective ones, like flowers.
@@AltumNovo I see no evidence that we have any innate repulsion for that animal
@@jakeb.2990 Do you realise what you just said?
@@AltumNovo not by any instinctive repulsion. I find tigers and lions gorgeous but I'd be very worried to find one in the wild.
@@jakeb.2990 You wouldn't just be worried if you saw them in the wild, you would be instinctively repulsed before you could consciously process anything. This is all beside the point anyway, i suggest you watch the video again. Nothing you've said counters his points.
hi mark
Tell David Deutsch that I aspect an answer from him.
Aesthetic is not about truth
Bravo Herr Prof.Dr. Deutsch, immer ein Vergnügen Ihren Ausführungen zu folgen🌺🐝
59:27 What the fuck, David?
Its true. Without knowledge of the fact that stars are more than just dots in the sky, we would not find them interesting.
We DID find them interesting. That's why we had to find out what they were. Anything mysterious interests us.
Brian McInnis Sure. But was that before or after the someone realised that stars might be more than just dots?
But the art has the demon
Flowers are beautiful because the mind creates a story about the creation of the object
Please stop referring to humans as though they weren't animals.
Distinct from all other animals in that we are the only universal explainers capable of creating explanatory knowledge. We aren't animals, "we" are minds.
Humans are animals but are qualitatively different from every other animal.
Deutsch's theory of beauty is a self contained and subjective theory, thereby disqualifying everything given after his first example of a particular thought contributing to something supposedly "better". If I choose to make something discordant or unconventional as an aesthetic judgement, then that is my subjective decision made from an infinite number of possible decisions. Everything in life or perception is an approximation. Knowledge is illusory. So far, mystery is the stuff of life.
Well you just submitted yourself to unreason.
Beauty is or not but is because even poop is connected on the planet
The example of the Easter Island staues as not being art, presumes the creator(s) where just copying and not intentionally deciding to repeat the forms as an aesthetic statement. Creating art has at least two requirements: intention and context. As a matter of fact, everything we perceive and think about is in some kind of context. Intention is crucial when it comes to art. The viewer is also part of the process of creation in that the viewer must be affected by it. Art is not intended to be created in a vacuum.
Mystics like Gurdjieff asserted the existence of "objective beauty" giving the Sphinx in Egypt as one example. DD is not the first to claim this. Perceptual psychologists have referred to this tradition of thinking as "realism" and more importantly, "direct realism". Best development of this: J.J. Gibson and the "ecological approach" - science is catching up with Gibson. See 28:06 Objective reality is functional, perceivable, and subtler levels that >influence our behaviour< we call aesthetics.
Maybe flowers are beautiful to us because they mean that fertilization will occur for the plants we want to eat
Beauty and ugliness are some of what is most familiar in texture and color or maybe gaps
Is it possible to conceive of/ design a 'flower' that a human would classify as such, yet to that same human, not be beautiful?
Perhaps that might be a nice test :)
Come on... there are many flowers in nature that look ugly just like other humans and animals... then this explanation wouldn't apply to them.
59:31 Likely so, but that's avoiding the point. If you showed the actual night sky to a person who'd never seen it before, I'll tell you right now that person is not going to be aesthetically unimpressed.
38:15 Humans are perfectly capable of appreciating beauty in spiders. You're confusing instinctive, reflexive repulsion with aesthetic dislike.
People can appreciate spiders yes, but you have missed the point. His point is first, that a thing does not have to be symmetrical to be aesthetically pleasing. Second, that not all things that are symmetrical are aesthetically pleasing. If you can find just one person that is repelled by a symmetrical thing, then symmetry is not universally beautiful.
He did say people can learn to find things beautiful like praying mantis but they will not be objective
Tl;dr anyone?
He’s talking crap…and lots of it. Here’s the answer in ONE sentence….Flowers are “beautiful” to us because we evolved to like them because the lands where they grow is fertile and the humans that didn’t find such things beautiful had a lower chance of survival. Now you know. Same reason a valley is beautiful….because you can see prey animals on the other side and see danger coming etc etc….same reason we like a house with an elevated view.
@DrewMcFederiesCEO
1. why would it need to cater for ALL human behavior? Who ever said it did?
On second thought, it actually might.
You touch something hot, you feel pain. You are hungry? Also evolution. Want sex? Same thing. You love your children, same thing. Seek pleasure, same thing. Fear danger, same thing. Want money/resources, same thing. Like playing FPS shooting (hunting) games, same thing.
In fact, I hereby challenge you to tell me ONE human behavior that cannot be logically traced back to have an evolutionary function. Likely you will find some, but you will have to think about it and more than half of human behavior CAN be assigned and evolutionary value.
2. Nope. You not thinking clearly man. We do all the rockets to the moon things because we evolved a trait where we always epwant to take things to the next level. Likely evolved out of the benefits of exploring and building new tools. So sorry man, I don’t hate you or have ill will towards you. You just another human I share earth with. That’s good. But 100% you have been shown to be incorrect in this comment. I haven’t read to the end of yours yet, but I think it will be logically overridden. And this is good for both of us. The point of these comments between you and me is not to best each other, but to find truth.
3. Yes, genetic triggers. Thanks for being real. And yes…culture changes over time.
But you missing the understanding that the fact that we even HAVE a culture, is evolutionary psychology.
We evolved group thinking and the ability to collectively maintain and update a culture in response to the outside world. This includes feedback looks for the culture changing in espouse to itself too.
So, a few people in the society do ABC and the other people responds with XYZ and eventually the culture settles. It’s called the pendulum effect. Cultures swings to extremes and then settles somewhere in the middle and it becomes “normal”.
It’s an evolutionary group psychology attribute humans developed over millions of years. Or at least the last 200,000.
Na man, no I’ll will towards you at all. But yeah, I have a mind that is seldom rivaled.
I can tell other things too. Lots and LOTS of clear understandings.
If you want to choose another topic, we can deep dive into that.
One thing I find interesting that the men of the world do not realize…even in these red pill men podcast things. It’s the women evolved PMS to separate themselves over time if he is consistently not gettin ther pregnant. It actually evolved to break them up so she can mate with a male that WILL get her pregnant.
She has a long negative memory about the male to facilitate this process.
She is also not targeting her anger towards friends, family and coworkers, just him.
And then of course, we see that if we give the female Deproprovera contraceptive injection, the PMS is gone because the body things it’s pregnant. She also becomes pleasant and easy to follow the man because she is “pregnant” and need him to provide for her inthe jungle.
Bro there are COUNTLESS things like this I realized.
From the errors in our understanding of gravity to how to get mega rich. (3.5 million now and I expect 10- realistically)
I can’t turn it off man…can’t stop it.
But yeah, choose a new topic you are interested in and we can explore
@DrewMcFederiesCEO Naaaa….hang on. You have hit the nail on the head about the ability to override.
But yes, it really IS the evolved ability to override. You mentioned that, but discounted it because you “cannot make predictions”. But you absolutely can do that.
You can simply predict that someone will take their hand of a fire if you put it in there.
You can predict that someone will be heart broken in the event of a break up.
It’s absolutely everywhere, predicted and confirmed.
I’m not sure why you said it’s not predictable.
Did I misunderstand?
We can also predict what they will do in response to the food being placed in front of them.
First, they are going to recognize the movement in their eyes and that will transmit to their brain.
Can definitely predict that. Then they will process the data based on previously processed data in memory. Then a decisions will be mate to eat it or not eat it.
Definitely can predict that there will be a decision made.
The reason we don’t know what the decision is, is because we don’t know the DNA and the past experience if this human. But they do….they follow the DNA and the experience of life.
Therefore they themselves are the poof that the decision they will make is known. It’s known by them.
This is clearly evident as when making the decision, they proved that they knew the decision.
WE don’t know it, because we didn’t have the knowledge they had. But they knew…clearly the information didn’t come from any external source.
You know what though….ALL of this is moot when we factor in that the mind is illusionary.
What are your thoughts on that little nugget?
lol, bye everyone
30:02 Fuck you, Dave, that thing's beautiful.
French kiss it then! lol!
I disagree with this. It's based on a desire for certain qualities in your theory of beauty - qualities that I don't desire much myself. I believe that it's perfectly okay to have multiple, contradictory theories, that there is no need to have any relative value for anything. Sure, it's sort of self-consistent, what you've done, but I think it is a better explanation to say that aesthetics is like a function of evaluation of a set of data, that every time we perceive something, that perception might contribute something to another, greater perception, based on other factors. I am skeptical of the value of "Logic", of the idea that a theory can be "right" or "wrong".
I just use a theory if it is a useful theory, and it is entirely unnecessary to worry about what the "truth" might be. The explanation itself is the meat of the argument. Arguments according to "contradiction" only really work in the rigorous mathematical settings, where axioms exist. In the real world, proof by contradiction is rather weak, because contradictions in nature do exist, even in physics. Also, I have no scientific evidence that suggests that the idea of "objective" and "subjective" are useful concepts, without presupposing it. So I don't care to use it.
One idea I've had about flowers is that most natural things are beautiful, that they imitate mathematical forms, that our eyes and brains are able to see mathematical form, and that it resonates with our brain's circuitry because it is also mathematical, and when we look at a flower, or a leaf, or a piece of architecture, our brains are active, which produces a sense of appreciation. Bright colors just serve to grab our attention. This theory works well with other theories about the mind, about nature, about signals and noise and perception, and my own experience. It is sufficiently predictive and adaptable to be able to create things that other people appreciate. Still, other ideas are interesting to hear.
What would you find as "scientific evidence that suggests that the idea of "objective" and "subjective" are useful" ?
I found this a bit odd, as pretty much the whole scientific discipline of empiricist experiments is based on measuring something objective. In some sense you might say that every single sceintific evidence, is evidence that objective is useful.
So you might want to reconsider your position if your opinion was built entirely on that axiom
If you don't care about things like "logic" and "truth", then you're saying that you believe in nonsensical things and irrationalities that are illogical and have nothing to do with reality.
And if you DON'T care about those things, then you can't have any opinions about reality, which you actually have.
So yeah, you are basically being illogical.
I pretty much agree, but not on the last part. I don't think things are, in themselves, mathematical. We impose mathematical ideas on the world and this, as you say, is useful. That does not mean that the mathematics is actually "out there". Triangles do not exist because straight lines don't exist, these are useful constructs of the mind but not an objective truth (I guess I do find it useful in this case to talk about an objective truth, but I think it might be an empty category).
Of course there's the question of "how come mathematical concepts are useful? Isn't it because something in nature is inherently mathematical?". I'm not sure I have a good answer to that, but I do know that triangles do not happen in nature.
what a load of tosh! beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and different eyes behold different things. Insects see a source of food, and humans see.... see what, exactly? they see colour and shape. the smooth curvy shapes (and colours) of a flower remind a man of of the smooth curvy shapes (and colours) of a woman's anatomy. it's not rocket science, it's not nonsense about objective beauty. and inter-species signalling. All signals are inter-special, because they are signals! Sigh, ... let me be more precise: the shape that flowers (especially orchids) remind people of is the shape of the vulva.
There is very possibly an objective beauty in the elegance of an equation, or the symmetry of a sphere, but that's a world away from the beauty of a flower.
so I just wasted an hour listening to this nonsense.
1. value is necessarily and definitionally SUBJECTIVE. "objective value" is a contradiction in terms
2. this 'objective standard' of beauty that you appeal to when artists take a photo, or write music, is nothing more than majority opinion. it is majority opinion they are aiming for. or at the very least, their own opinion
3. I feel like you have done nothing more than make an argument from ignorance. you spent no time supporting your own hypothesis, merely attempted to shoot down other hypotheses.
4. you are absolutely right, it is objectively true that people find some things beautiful. however, this does NOT mean the thing is objectively beautiful. your argument attempts to conflate the two
Then how did Flowers evolve to become subjectively attractive to bees simultaneously with bees becoming subjectively attracted to flowers. What other way can the flower become more attractive to a bee than by increasing it's objective beauty. You might say by just figuring something out about the bees brain and exploiting it. But what in the bees brain would give it the propensity to be exploited and made more attracted to you other than it's attraction to objective beauty.
@@AltumNovo "flowers" didnt.
Some flowers did, those that happened to be attractive to bees, survive today. Likewise, those species', particularly of bee, that happened to be attracted to flowers, survive today. Those that didnt, arent around.
Throw 100 marbles at a wall with a 1 inch hole in it. You point to the 3-4 that got through the hole and ask how did that happen?
Beauty and attraction are subjective. There may be features that are commonly found attractive, but that doesnt make them objective.
@@TheColossis If features are found attractive commonly enough they they are just as objective as a well established fact in science. That is there's no guarantee that they are objective, but they are our best current explanation of what is objectively true and beautiful respectively.
@@AltumNovo again, common =/= objective. And no, it is not the best explanation. It is a pathetic attempt at an argument
@@TheColossis Just as most widely accepted scientific theory =/= objective fact. Nothing is completely objective, some things are just the best explanation we have.
Vulgar english-materialism, needs more transcendentalism
How so?
Not beautiful, colourful. Beauty is simple manipulation.