On Mathematics and Aesthetics

The Lord Slide Rule · June 04, 2015, 08:22:58 PM

(or Look at this Thread on 4chan)

Jim linked the following thread on Arky's chat (rip in pepperonis)

(I know, 4chinz)
http://boards.4chan.org/lit/thread/6638866

This thread is less about Dawkins, and more about OP, people that think like him and the aesthetics of math in general. Thoughts?

http://euclid.nmu.edu/~jophilli/essays/math-aesth.html

Here's a paper that defends mathematics as an aesthetic discipline. Read it or don't but it's pretty interesting.

More Than Mortal · June 04, 2015, 08:28:45 PM

Everything is an aesthetic discipline.

Pendulate · June 04, 2015, 08:35:02 PM

Quote from: Meta Cognition on June 04, 2015, 08:28:45 PM

Everything is an aesthetic discipline.

^

If you get personal enrichment from something, it's aesthetic. So practically anything can be aesthetic

Objective beauty, on the other hand...

The Lord Slide Rule · June 04, 2015, 08:35:50 PM

Quote from: Meta Cognition on June 04, 2015, 08:28:45 PM

Everything is an aesthetic discipline.

I'll admit I don't know much about aesthetics, I do think math possesses a certain beauty but I've no way to back it up. Care to elaborate?

The Lord Slide Rule · June 04, 2015, 08:36:47 PM

Quote from: Pendulate on June 04, 2015, 08:35:02 PM

Quote from: Meta Cognition on June 04, 2015, 08:28:45 PM
Everything is an aesthetic discipline.
^

If you get personal enrichment from something, it's aesthetic. So practically anything can be aesthetic

Objective beauty, on the other hand...

I'll refer you to my previous admission of ignorance.

What's the difference?

More Than Mortal · June 04, 2015, 08:39:28 PM

Quote from: SexyBarracuda on June 04, 2015, 08:35:50 PM

Care to elaborate?

I don't know if it's an actual idea any philosopher has ever seriously thought about, although Pirsig got close to it in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Harris gets close to it with his Eudaimonic science of morality, but I like to call it the Aesthetic Origin.

All human activity begins with some kind of value-judgement. Everything we endeavour to do necessarily comes from an aesthetic basis of judging something according to some merit.

Pendulate · June 04, 2015, 08:55:45 PM

Quote from: SexyBarracuda on June 04, 2015, 08:36:47 PM

Quote from: Pendulate on June 04, 2015, 08:35:02 PM
Quote from: Meta Cognition on June 04, 2015, 08:28:45 PM
Everything is an aesthetic discipline.
^

If you get personal enrichment from something, it's aesthetic. So practically anything can be aesthetic

Objective beauty, on the other hand...
I'll refer you to my previous admission of ignorance.

What's the difference?

Between subjective and objective beauty?

Aesthetics is, broadly, the study of how external objects relate to internal experiences. So, the Mona Lisa has aesthetic value, or beauty, because it evokes certain pleasant, or "beautiful" experiences. Technically speaking, asparagus has aesthetic beauty, assuming you like like asparagus.

But that's clearly just subjective; someone else may find asparagus disgusting and the Mona Lisa the work of a talentless hack. So to argue that something is objectively beautiful usually requires invoking some kind of metaphysical claim, tweaking the definition of beauty (not an entirely invalid thing to do), and perhaps even claiming that some people are just wrong about what's beautiful and what isn't.

There are a lot of long-winded philosophical terms wrapped up in this, which I'll avoid getting into here.