Symmetry beautiful?

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chinatu
 
Reply Wed 25 Nov, 2009 12:49 am
@Lost2ize,
symmetry gives beauty the basis and simplicity makes it far-reaching.
 
Fido
 
Reply Wed 25 Nov, 2009 07:58 am
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;105752 wrote:
We like symmetry. We like twins. We like singularities. We like triangles. Perhaps it's hard-wired. I always think of Pythagoras and Plato and how philosophy is rooted in the mysticism and beauty of geometry. (So I've read..)

I think Jung's notion of archetype is highly applicable to trends in philosophic thought as well as art and perhaps even architecture. What does something like the Washington Monument mean? Then of course we have the pyramids.

2 cents.

We generally associate symmetry with health; with genetic abnormalities and disease causing extreme assymmetry...

I know most of what I know about pythagoras from reading about afterlife in Roman mythology, which was never a constant and came in time to resemble the Christian beliefs many hold today... The point being that even if the math was Okay, all the rest was baseless speculation about that which no one can know...

---------- Post added 11-25-2009 at 09:10 AM ----------

chinatu;105753 wrote:
symmetry gives beauty the basis and simplicity makes it far-reaching.

Proof...If we look for symmetry, where do we find it??? Look at a circle, which if true to the form is in all sense symmetrical...Where can we find the perfect, that is, symmetrical circle except in the form, that is, the IDEA of the circle??? If we say: ball bearings or marbles then I would suggest that they are perfect only so far as can be seen, that deformations would be visible if our ability to measure them were better...

If people have a gross dextro /levo symmetry we do not have a front to back symmetry, and no one would think us perfect if we did...So the symmetry we have come to desire is specious... All people, and all animals are in a sense, symmetrical, yet given environmental or genetic factors all individuals differ from right to left... So; measured against our idea of perfection we fail, and all fail...And yet, life is life not because it is perfect, which it is not, but because it is all we have...
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Thu 26 Nov, 2009 12:56 am
@Fido,
I agree that perfect symmetry is not something we can find in this world, no more than the perfect triangle. Nor can the Euclidean point exist outside our minds. Didn't Plato have a sign up that told those ignorant of geometry to Keep Out?

I think we are touching upon the relationship of the Ideal and the Real. A person could look at imperfect life as the cradle of perfect imagination.

We could think of our asymmetrical mortal bodies as the vessels of our Poetic Genius (as Blake would call it.) I do think that our dreams of symmetry are part of what make life beautiful.
 
HexHammer
 
Reply Sun 23 May, 2010 10:35 am
@Lost2ize,
Lost2ize;104681 wrote:
I have often wondered the role that symmetry and simplicity play in our interpretations of beauty.

Certainly detail is influential. Few people would find a perfect circle much to stop and admire about. Though if a few colors are added, then a few more shapes, and a few more colors and then the finished product being the Mona Lisa, people will come from miles around.

But I wonder if symmetry and simplicity if even sublimity play a role on our idea of beauty.
Sure some find symmetric shapes beautiful, but I don't think it's a basis of general beauty, I would think such as things that relates to the "golden ratio" and Fibbonachi symmetry.
 
Soul Brother
 
Reply Mon 24 May, 2010 11:29 am
@Reconstructo,
Camerama;105166 wrote:
What can be a greater good than more wealth?


I would not conceive of money as wealth, in fact quite the opposite!

Fido;105264 wrote:
Read your Bible before preaching to me... Look at the world of Jesus: So poor that people were denying their financial obligation to their parents, and bringing lawsuits over a tunic...See him attacking the money changers on the temple steps, and why??? It seems that no one could make an offering with a foreign coin, so people had to change their money for them... But where did they get the coins of Judea???You do not have to be so smart to figure out that coins were recycled from within the temple to feed the pockets of parasites... And look at the priests who would not help the man set upon by thieves, and why??? Well, to touch blood would have required a month of ritual cleaning, so to protect their livelyhoods they walked on by...And in that poor place thick with poor people, were people were fighting over a slight difference of wages, there was money... The Roman Colloseum was built out of the spoils of the city of Jerusalem...The money was there but only those with a way into the preistly class could have any, and when the bled to death Jews rebeled against Rome, Jeruselem could not defend itself, so they ruined their society for no gain to themselves, unless the diaspora is cast in a soft light...

We might well say the rich are intelligent, but not all of the intelligent are rich...The rich have their share of dolts too, but they usually find a smart lawyer to separate them from their cash...Our society has long since become frozen, resistent to change and offering very few opportunities...We can count the smart, the inventive, and the determined rich easily enough, but we have no idea how many are stiffled, and ruined, and discouraged for lack of any true opportunity...

It happens in every society and every social form... They all reach a point of taking more life from the people than they give to the people...That point Montaigne made still goes: The profit of one is the loss of another, and we can find many people who can be taken... Why stop at the unintelligent??? Why not take the old, the young, or any body without the ability to resist...


Beautifully said.

Fido;105264 wrote:
it is upon the powerless that the rich feast, and not because it is justifyable, but because they can... Might is their right...


Since the beginning of history of man this has been applicable, and to the end of history of man this will bee applicable.....For man is flawed.
 
mark noble
 
Reply Mon 24 May, 2010 11:48 am
@Fido,
Fido;105264 wrote:
Read your Bible before preaching to me... Look at the world of Jesus: So poor that people were denying their financial obligation to their parents, and bringing lawsuits over a tunic...See him attacking the money changers on the temple steps, and why??? It seems that no one could make an offering with a foreign coin, so people had to change their money for them... But where did they get the coins of Judea???You do not have to be so smart to figure out that coins were recycled from within the temple to feed the pockets of parasites... And look at the priests who would not help the man set upon by thieves, and why??? Well, to touch blood would have required a month of ritual cleaning, so to protect their livelyhoods they walked on by...And in that poor place thick with poor people, were people were fighting over a slight difference of wages, there was money... The Roman Colloseum was built out of the spoils of the city of Jerusalem...The money was there but only those with a way into the preistly class could have any, and when the bled to death Jews rebeled against Rome, Jeruselem could not defend itself, so they ruined their society for no gain to themselves, unless the diaspora is cast in a soft light...

We might well say the rich are intelligent, but not all of the intelligent are rich...The rich have their share of dolts too, but they usually find a smart lawyer to separate them from their cash...Our society has long since become frozen, resistent to change and offering very few opportunities...We can count the smart, the inventive, and the determined rich easily enough, but we have no idea how many are stiffled, and ruined, and discouraged for lack of any true opportunity...

It happens in every society and every social form... They all reach a point of taking more life from the people than they give to the people...That point Montaigne made still goes: The profit of one is the loss of another, and we can find many people who can be taken... Why stop at the unintelligent??? Why not take the old, the young, or any body without the ability to resist... Well; it is upon the powerless that the rich feast, and not because it is justifyable, but because they can... Might is their right...


Hi Fido,

You have a good eye, sir.
I'd just like to add that - It was the exspense incurred due to the creation of such idolatrous monuments, like the colosseum, That led to the inevitable downfall of said empire.

Pride'll fell the proud, always.

Thankyou, and have a great day.

Mark...
 
HexHammer
 
Reply Mon 24 May, 2010 01:47 pm
@mark noble,
mark noble;168141 wrote:
I'd just like to add that - It was the exspense incurred due to the creation of such idolatrous monuments, like the colosseum, That led to the inevitable downfall of said empire.
Don't really see in what way. The Colloseum was fully financed, and just because they kicked some jew butt, and sold them as slaves, it was no different than kicking any other civilization's butt and sell them as slaves, buisness as usual.

It was the political system itself that was the problem, too much corruption.
 
mark noble
 
Reply Mon 24 May, 2010 03:03 pm
@HexHammer,
HexHammer;168174 wrote:
Don't really see in what way. The Colloseum was fully financed, and just because they kicked some jew butt, and sold them as slaves, it was no different than kicking any other civilization's butt and sell them as slaves, buisness as usual.

It was the political system itself that was the problem, too much corruption.


Hi Hexhammer,

What I know of great empires is - if they'd spent less on proving their power through such grand design, they'd have funded their armies properly and lessened the tax-burdens of their respective populaces.
We, in the UK have just witnessed the fall of our corrupt political system - Why? Filling their pockets on the backs of the workforce...Another proud empire fallen! (Thankfully...)...Inevitably too.

Anyway, have a terrific everything, sir.

Mark...
 
sometime sun
 
Reply Mon 24 May, 2010 03:19 pm
@mark noble,
It may have been said, symmetry is simplification, it is most pleasing because it is the least difficult to understand.
We find beauty in things we find we understand.
We find understanding in things we find beautiful.
Beauty could be described as something that helps us to understand or appreciate the universe and ourselves.
Beauty is certainty and self assurance.
Beauty is warm and comforting.
We say beauty because we wish to validate both our understanding and universe.
 
HexHammer
 
Reply Mon 24 May, 2010 03:28 pm
@mark noble,
mark noble;168202 wrote:
What I know of great empires is - if they'd spent less on proving their power through such grand design, they'd have funded their armies properly and lessened the tax-burdens of their respective populaces.
Your statemen seems purely based on spekulation, no where in ancient Roman history does it state any such relation between army and goverment.
 
 

 
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