The Giant Door

...now I am left wondering again Rex, are you still stuck at your own initial "wall", or did you travel all the way to get to stuck yourself at my own wall ?

I especially love the Mandelbrot fractal imagery set to such appropriate music thanks!

Also I am delighted that this allegory of the giant door had been expanded to color, walls, windows and perhaps we should even consider keys and locking mechanisms. This door is one that opens to the sky, it opens to history in reverse. As if history is un-lived yet and the past is still future. The giant door will open and close, admit and prohibit, remember and forget based upon its own designs and outlook.

I'm sorry but the Mandelbrot fractal imagery has become one big cliche for me, sort of like the yin-yang symbol.

...it is ! And yes sometimes clichés fit, yet another cliché to think otherwise...

I suppose someone like you also thinks reading Shakespeare and the classics is a cliché not worth looking at...well I beg to differ, there are clichés who never get to be boring, especially when most of those who gladly point them don't get to understand them properly...
...now I can present you a sort of "U2" version of this cliché that doesn't fit my taste at all although it apparently goes well along with Mandelbrot sequence...
...here, a small tribute to your eloquent contributions, don´t need to thank me !

The more consciousness you influence the longer you live.

...ad you opt for better instead of longer, and by better I mean richer, I would have agreed...the thread has proven very interesting thank you Rex !

Perhaps a longer life is a testament to a richer life.

well yes and no...its complicated...
...richer is somehow longer but the argument is very dangerous...subjective experience does not justify itself...never mind...for practical purposes (this is a terrible expression I hate it) you have a point...

Though I agree with you in principle, I think quality and beauty of life are in the eye of the beholder and judgment is often subjective to one's own preference.

Both beauty and ugliness (and everything in between, I guess) are in the eye of the beholder.

It seems some scientists agree people tend to like symmetry....for instance the more symmetric and proportional the left part of the body or face is, the more agreement there is among people onto the beauty of someone...with objects is exactly the same.

I will nevertheless risk an opinion for the exceptions...say for instance someone likes a guy with big ears probably that someone has little ears and needs correction...symmetry will be more probable for the next generation...
...this is obviously a very linear example, there are far more complex genetic relations for attraction, namely a degree of priority's on what genes you are trying to get...while ears nose mouth legs arms all those things are visible there are a great deal of genetic traits which are almost invisible like for instance having a good immune system...still in the case people with good immune systems tend to be more in shape...so one way or the other people end up knowing probably through complex chemical signalling those informations assert the attraction arch.

In principle yes, nonetheless there is a common consensus for beauty and ugliness. Almost everyone is in awe with a rose full in bloom, a rainbow, and even people whose appearances are mesmerizing. Hardly anyone would have found fault at the face of Elizabeth Taylor, right?

I agree, but consensus is essentially a matter of shared subjectivities--beauty and ugliness in the "eyes" of multiple beholders. And our beliefs in objective realities is a matter of inter-subjectivites.

...if that was the case you would have a perfectly random distribution on what is beautiful... like tossing a coin in which the average would be the same for every candidate....of course that is not what happens...

It is not random always, in places it is like a rainbow. People are similar and like other of their ilk. Like a rainbow bends we must all bend with the light of love, parallel lenticular unity..

Again if so that just points to design or group symmetry...the overall comparison between groups still would make it random if there were no prevailing patterns in each one...but and I bet my ass on this one people chosen would still be the more symmetric like in each group.