Best of the Week: Parmenides and change

The part of Sophie's World that has interested me most so far is discussing the idea of change, specifically the one suggested by Parmenides. The line that started making me think wason page 36, that said that Parmenides "believed that our senses give us an incorrect picture of the world, a picture that does not tally with our reason." This idea has been stuck in my head ever since I read it. I often think about something I learned in Easter Religions class sophomore year, the Buddhist idea that we are CONSTANTLY changing, and even science agrees. The body that we are in is not the same one we were in a few years ago-- every cell renews itself, therefore, if all of our cells are different, we are different. Our way of thinking changes and advances, as well.
This idea was brought up again in Sophie's World in the chapter on Plato. On page 84, the idea horses not being all the same, and also in the section of the book that discussed how even though a river is called the same, it is really not the same river or water that was viewed previously. As humans, we classify everything using our senses, and conclude that if something shared a location with something else, it is the same thing.

The main thought that has lasted in my head is about reality-- what is real? Is nothing real? Is life an illusion? Things like the sunset, as mentioned in the Flaming Lips' song "Do You Realize?, are examples of illusions that we have come to understand. Without seeing the big picture, it seems to humans like the sunset is one set thing-- the sun is setting and creating beautiful colors. However, once you can look at the whole earth, one can see that we are actually just revolving. I think that there are so many things in our world that if we could see them from a perspective outside of our own, we would realize how wrong we are, and that we just cannot understand them the way we see them now.

The Definition of Beauty

I struggle with listing things that are beautiful. I think that figuring out what I find beautiful would help me define the word, but the only thing that pops into my head is a blurry green landscape. My initial definition to beauty is much like the one given in the dictionary-- beauty is a quality of something that evokes emotion and pleasure. This attempt at a definition is much to vague, broad, general, and unhelpful. Using this definition would deem cotton candy, family vacations or cheddar Goldfish snacks (all things that evoke pleasure or make me happy) as beautiful.

Beauty IS in the eye of the beholder. Of course, humans have very similar ideas to what beauty is, but picking out THE most beautiful is always subjective. That being said, the definition of beauty, or the way the we feel when we see something beautiful, could very well be genetic. Men find women with certain waist to hip ratios more beautiful that other women because that ratio reflect a woman's fertility. Therefore, this attraction seems like a genetic disposition present in humans in order to come out ahead in the survival of the fittest, and to carry on the human race. People find symmetry in face of someone of the opposite sex to be more beautiful and attractive because it reflect health.

As mentioned in "Call of Beauty," this is also true with landscapes-- we find open green pastures to be beautiful because it means that no predators could be hiding in the open area, and maybe because green signifies life.

Still, it seems that some men find women who are physically very artificial (make-up, surgery) beautiful. I included the video of a woman being altered by make-up and Photoshop because it made me think about skewed perceptions of beauty.

YouTube Video: Altered Beauty

Maybe beauty has nothing to do with survival of the fittest. What affects young childrens perception of beauty? Is it based on parent's opinions, the 'pretty girl' character in TV shows, or is it inborn?

Right now, writing this blog post, I can feel myself slipping deeper into confusion about the definition of beauty. Every step I think I take in the right direction, I contradict myself and find more holes in my theory.

Beauty is something that causes pleasure or evokes emotion that you want to be next to, with, or present in. People would want to be next to a beautiful flower, with a beautiful person or in a beautiful part of nature. Beauty defines something you want. The antonyms of 'beauty', including repulsive, unappealing, unattractive and offensive, offer insight into what beauty really means. Beauty must attract. Beauty must cause pleasure or intrigue. Beauty must be felt.

What if? Destruction of Art

Stories of historical creation, such as" The Televisionary" by Malcolm Gladwell, get me thinking. All of these technological feats are based of of past success like harnessing electricity, creating lightbulbs, radios, the internet-- I could go on and on with lists of technological advances that shape the way future inventors look at things.

It's commonly understood that engineers need the knowledge of previous generations to move forward, but what about artists? What would happen if all past art was destroyed, or just never known about. If people didn't know about Picasso's cubism or Donatello's incredible perspective illusionism with his sculptures, what would have happened to these fields of art?

Though I usually think about art as people expressing a burst of creativity, it is much more complex than that. It is an expression using accumulated knowledge from past generations.

If art were all destroyed and no current artists knew of things from the past, we would start going in reverse. Artists would still receive immense pressure from society to paint inside the lines and not to ever create anything risqué. Eventually we would reach the point we are at today, but it is important to realize that art is history-- we must see how much art is like many other fields. It takes times to move forward, and there are waves of certain creativity. In essence, to keep moving forward, we must hold on to our past.

Best of Week: Stefan Sagmeister

Seeing Stefan Sagmeister's speech was the most interesting activity of the week.

In one part of his speech, he told about a group of people who replaced safety plaques on the trains of New York City with gag signs that looked similar at a glance. This made me think-- would I have noticed the change? I consider myself observant, but I had trouble convincing myself that I would actually have realized that something was different.

People race through their days, hardly stopping to notice the world going by. Though a sign on a train is unimportant, it made me think of how little people care. People see a homeless person on the street, and they'll walk by without acknowledging the fact that a person is sitting on the curb.

This thought reminded me of a story I read a few years ago in the Washington Post about the world famous violinist Joshua Bell. The highly-regarded musician donned a t-shirt, and played in D.C for an hour as an experiment. Two people stopped to listen to his incredible talent, while everyone else, hundreds and hundreds of people, walked by. His world renowned talent and his incredibly highly priced concert tickets stood nowhere between those who walked right by, and their destinations.

People can walk through the streets of a city with blinders worse than the horses they see in the street-- at least the horses are looking at what is in front of them. As a whole, our society is not conscientious of what is going on around us. And even if we do notice, who takes the time to care?

photo: moriza