Beauty and Dark Ugliness

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What is it?

Why is one thing or person beautiful, while another is not?

Does Beauty have any value? Why or why not?

Is there something in us that helps us determine: "This thing is beautiful. This other thing is not." What is that in us that determines beauty?

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And the true darker question of this thread:

Have you ever witnessed a member of the opposite sex, who you once considered beautiful and whom you were quite in love with, inexplicably turn forever quite ugly right before your eyes?

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Is there something in us that helps us determine: "This thing is beautiful. This other thing is not." What is that in us that determines beauty?

It´s our individual model which satisfies ourselves. You can say this thing is beautiful but you´ll aways say this thing is nicer than other because it will be your reference to admit a thing is beautiful or not. So, you start to racionalize the objects and you apply them a specific value which it´ll determine wether fits into your model.

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"value" being the key word in that."Specific" tones it down.

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Re: Beauty and Dark Ugliness
extra medium

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What is beauty?

The result of individual sensibility, within the criteria of an historical culture and civilization. And that is why, here and now, some things are beautiful and other are not.

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Does Beauty have any value? Why or why not?

Yes. The value of pleasure. Esthetic pleasure. A sonnet from Mallarmé is beautiful in itself - to us - and that is it's value.

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Is there something in us that helps us determine: "This thing is beautiful. This other thing is not." What is that in us that determines beauty?

The same criteria. Individual sensibility and the artistic criteria of our civilization. I deeply love Beethoven's 15th Quartet, but I doubt that a musician in the european XII century, would appreciate it.
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Have you ever witnessed a member of the opposite sex, who you once considered beautiful and whom you were quite in love with, inexplicably turn forever quite ugly right before your eyes?

Yes, I had that experience once. But I think the problem was not in her beauty. It was in my eyes. In fact, I didn't love her anymore. I saw her the way she was, not as the ideal image of a lover, but as a stranger.

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The word aesthetic can be used as a noun meaning 'that which appeals to the senses.'
I'm not so sure we have a lot of control over that which we subjectively perceive to be beautiful.

For me it has to do with proportion (but not exclusively with proportion).

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Re: Beauty and Dark Ugliness

extra medium wrote:

And the true darker question of this thread:

Have you ever witnessed a member of the opposite sex, who you once considered beautiful and whom you were quite in love with, inexplicably turn forever quite ugly right before your eyes?

Oh yes, many times Twisted Evil

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Re: Beauty and Dark Ugliness

extra medium wrote:

What is it?

Why is one thing or person beautiful, while another is not?

I've come to identify 'beauty' with concepts such as 'organization', 'care', 'quality', 'effort', 'skill' ...

'Ugly' is precisely the lack of these things.

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Does Beauty have any value? Why or why not?

'Beauty' is but one concept 'behind' or 'under' the concept of 'value'. That is, we 'value' 'beauty' as much as we determine is necessary or appropriate.

It sounds as if you're asking this question in some 'objective' sense. Different people value 'beauty' in different ways: they place it in different places.

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Is there something in us that helps us determine: "This thing is beautiful. This other thing is not." What is that in us that determines beauty?

Your use of "something in us" is vague and ambiguous. I can't quite understand what you're asking based on the terms you've employed.

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Have you ever witnessed a member of the opposite sex, who you once considered beautiful and whom you were quite in love with, inexplicably turn forever quite ugly right before your eyes?

Of course. Generally speaking, things we don't know very much about ('lust' in this context) are often 'beautiful.' Once we come to know more of them (again, in this context, 'their faults', 'their ugliness'), that beauty is reduced considerably.

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Beauty and Dark Ugliness

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