Aesthetics: What is beauty? (Earthlings 101, Episode 6)

Aesthetics: What is beauty? (Earthlings 101, Episode 6)



Sixth episode of Earthlings 101, the crash course for alien visitors.

What is beauty?
What is the evolutionary purpose of beauty?
Why are things like landscapes and flowers beautiful?
What about beautiful women and men?
What is pomp?
Is abstract beauty a tool to solve problems?
What is art?
Why are earthlings so crazy about beauty and art?
Is music an imitation of bird songs?
And what has all this to do with lolcats, porn and diet drinks?

Links
– Concept, artwork and text by Martin Kuppe
– Music by OcularNebula (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/407324)
– Speech synthesis by Ivona (http://www.ivona.com/en/)

Disclaimer
Please note that most things in these videos are either conclusions based on personal observation of earthlings, or ideas found in earthling literature. Although they seem pretty obvious to me, most of them are still to be scientifically proven. In terms of earthling science, those are hypotheses, not theories or facts.

Full episode text: http://tinyurl.com/E101-EP06

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36 thoughts on “Aesthetics: What is beauty? (Earthlings 101, Episode 6)”

  1. ANOTHER great video >< other animals (and other things, I suppose) developed what we, humans, in some and, perhaps in every point, call 'music'… the consonance of frequency from vibration waves feel's pleasant because of our natural mathematical sense; rhythm is a speed changing reference constant, as the root tone serves as a 'constant framework of wavelengths possibilities' (geographic and social interactions may do or do not play a main roll here), and music, along with all types of arts, is nothing but the aesthetic appreciation of chaotic constants… 

    (wich I love, by the way)… now, with a more personal opinion, 
    it's beautiful how a wavelenght double or half the distance of another wave sounds basically the same thing, with compressed waves sounding as high pithced notes and loose waves sounding as low pithced notes… its how we know what note is what note… and we can see a clearly pattern in all notes in a mathematical constant, aswell, I think that the complex the music is (increased complex harmony and melody along with breakings in rhythm constants), the harder it gets to 'understand it', making it so, a game within the music…

  2. Art, an imitation of pleasure. Well in this definition, then porn is a form of art, a substitute of sex… ¬_¬ that is sad and depressing, coz it means you fail to obtain the real thing.

    Your genetic code is crying for you.

  3. But when I see fresh snow, that hasn't been stepped on at all, a beautiful white plain, I go out of my way to avoid damaging it, and I would probably behave similarly when faced with a beautiful landscape, and would settle somewhere near, but not as pretty.

  4. A aspect of "Beauty" IMHO is a resonance in the observers mind with the world that aids in survival. A bowl of fruit that looks edible brings us pleasure. A still life of fruit sympathetically stimulates the same pleasure response, we find it beautiful. Even abstract paintings can do this. A Jackson Pollock drip painting is beautiful because it has fractal patterns the mind unconsciously recognizes.

  5. It's interesting to me that music was only briefly mentioned and compared with bird noises and then there was no further analysis about motives or appeal.

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