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@pilgrimshost,

pilgrimshost wrote:

Is a rainbow beautifal. Why would it be deemed as such when it is just light refractions in the water vapor (i think!)?

...for having reduced the beauty of a rainbow to a prism. Such is the difference between poetry and science; the former caters to our contemplative needs, and the latter our practical ones. The important thing (as in the case of aesthetics) is to not confuse the two.

@NoAngst,

Well i was just 'throwing out' the qustion, i didnt mean to confuse it, just stating its elimental qualities. This was for the purpose of a foundation to question why?

@pilgrimshost,

I believe a rainbow resembles the idea of beauty. The question is how much? My wife also posseses the quality of beauty, but more so than a rainbow?

@de Silentio,

To think about it,as my dad once said and there isnt a philosophical or spiritual bone in his body "it is ludicrus to say a rainbow has beautifal'' because it is just a metological phenomina (i hope ive used the correct turm).

@pilgrimshost,

metaphysical phenomena. Wait, your English, maybe you spell differently. You see colour, and I see color. Smile

Does this make a rainbow different to you and me? Just Kidding.

@de Silentio,

Ive just realised and re edited. but my dad is streight up and down science and all things logical etc.

@pilgrimshost,

Oh and colour is spelt colour! Smile

@pilgrimshost,

pilgrimshost wrote:

Well i was just 'throwing out' the qustion, i didnt mean to confuse it, just stating its elimental qualities. This was for the purpose of a foundation to question why?

I thought I answered your question. A rainbow is in fact a prism; that Wordsworth thinks it is "a little bridge of happiness that crying angels make" or that you think it is "beautiful" doesn't change the fact of the matter, merely expresses how you "feel" about it (i.e., it is in the eye of the beholder).

@NoAngst,

Ok, help me out here are you employing a scool of thought to answer this because I always thought it was a huge debating subject'the rainbow' mainly because it is...i cant think of the word...full of possibilities. Wink

@pilgrimshost,

pilgrimshost wrote:

Ok, help me out here are you employing a scool of thought to answer this because I always thought it was a huge debating subject'the rainbow' mainly because it is...i cant think of the word...full of possibilities.

No school of thought here. Seems to me that a rainbow is in fact a prism; anything else you want to of make of it is merely anything else you want to of make it ("beautiful", "a little bridge of happiness that crying angels make", etc., etc), none of which will be true in fact.

@NoAngst,

So are you saying it isnt beautiful? yes it is a prism but like a painting with its millions of paint marks is just a collection of materials and paint!

@NoAngst,

NoAngst wrote:

...for having reduced the beauty of a rainbow to a prism. Such is the difference between poetry and science; the former caters to our contemplative needs, and the latter our practical ones. The important thing (as in the case of aesthetics) is to not confuse the two.

They are always, inevitably confused.

Where do you find such a hard and fast distinction between a practical truth and a poetic truth?

At the end of the rainbow?

--- RH.

@perplexity,

perplexity wrote:

They are always, inevitably confused.

Where do you find such a hard and fast distinction between a practical truth and a poetic truth?

No, they are not always, inevitably confused. They are only always, inevitably confused by poets posing as philosophers. More, there is no hard and fast distinction between a practical truth and a poetic truth. That is because there is no poetic truth; the claims so made are merely apposite and felicitous expressions of sentiment or emotion. That a rainbow is "a little bridge of happiness that crying angels make" is not a statement of truth; it is a statement of how Wordsworth feels about rainbows. But that a rainbow is a prism is not a statement of what Newton feels about rainbows; it is a statement of truth, corroborated by empirical means. How does one similarly corroborate that a rainbow is instead "a little bridge of happiness that crying angels make"? Indeed, how do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

@NoAngst,

WELL, it would seem i was right, a simple concept of a rainbow can generate a wide debate! Why is it such a problem to infuse(not confuse) metrical concepts to philosophy?

@NoAngst,

NoAngst wrote:

... it is a statement of how Wordsworth feels about rainbows...

Which is of course a truth.

Newsflash:

People do have feelings, feelings which are true and important to them; and as I watch online forums like this, from day to day, I see that their feelings get the better of their logic, more often than not.

--- RH.

@perplexity,

perplexity wrote:

Which is of course a truth.

Newsflash:

People do have feelings, feelings which are true and important to them; and as I watch online forums like this, from day to day, I see that their feelings get the better of their logic, more often than not.

You are certainly evidence of that.

@NoAngst,

NoAngst wrote:

You are certainly evidence of that.

On an online line forum everybody seems to think that they know what I feel better than I do; that would not be news.

-- RH.

@perplexity,

perplexity wrote:

On an online line forum everybody seems to think that they know what I feel better than I do; that would not be news.

On an online forum or anywhere else, nobody knows what you feel better than you do. But what is your point? That what you feel or believe is true for you is true in fact? Hardly, or shall exhume Dostoevsky's protagonist?

@NoAngst,

NoAngst wrote:

On an online forum or anywhere else, nobody knows what you feel better than you do. But what is your point? That what you feel or believe is true for you is true in fact? Hardly, or shall exhume Dostoevsky's protagonist?

If they don't know, why then are they so keen to appear to know?

Feelings are facts.
Delusions are facts.
Feelings are not beliefs.

Would you write a love letter or would you rather send a graph of your daily heartbeat, temperature and blood pressure?

This is where confusions of truth arise more than anywhere else, in the psychological projection, because people habitually understand according to what they would mean if they said the same, and this sort of forum, devoid of most of our sensory stimuli, are wonderfully useful as a contining experiment in that respect.

The danger of emotional prejudice is not so much in the expression of a truth, but rather in the comprehension of somebody else's truth. That is what matters in the first instance.

Rather than Dostoevsky's protagonist I prefer the principles of cybernetics to help to come to terms with reality.

Did you ever sit on a jury?

-- RH.

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