What is this "scientific method" you all speak of?

[inocente]

That is not a correct statement. What is knowledgeable whether it is related to feeling, art, or reason, science needs a trained mind without that the concepts like beautiful, ugly, good, evil, etc are all meaningless.

Are you claiming that only a trained elite can conceive the true meaning of art?

On what basis do you claim Renoir is more/less meaningfully arty than Warhol?

On what basis do you claim that Pink Floyd is objectively more/less beautiful than the music of Steve Reich?

 

[tonyrey]

The thread is about science, so let’s use the scientific method.

The null hypothesis H[sub]0[/sub], what seems most probable and self-evident, is that people have different ideas of what is beautiful, that beauty is subjective, existing in the mind seeing a thing rather than in the thing itself.

You are proposing the alternative hypothesis H[sub]a[/sub], that beauty exists in the thing itself.

Science has exacting standards which require you to make a prediction by which your hypothesis can be tested empirically. If your hypothesis fails or if you can’t even propose a test, the null hypothesis stands.

What is your testable prediction? Why should we accept your hypothesis rather than what has always seemed self-evident, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

Is science the **sole **source of truth? If so what is the scientific basis of that hypothesis?

 

[Bahman]

Are you claiming that only a trained elite can conceive the true meaning of art?

Yes. I might enjoy a painting but never get into the core meaning.

On what basis do you claim Renoir is more/less meaningfully arty than Warhol?

I am not an artist but scientist and I guess my projection to art is valid.

On what basis do you claim that Pink Floyd is objectively more/less beautiful than the music of Steve Reich?

I am a physicist and I can say that Feynman path integral method is stronger than the traditional quantum mechanics.

 

[tonyrey]

There are only two possible approaches. Either one subscribes to the idea that there is an external, objective reality “out there”, or not. The second one is solipsism, which cannot be held in a rational fashion. As soon as the solipsist opens his mouth to say something or to eat something, he refutes the idea that there is nothing “outside” his mind. As such solipsism can be discarded.

A false dilemma! A third - and more logical approach - is a form of reality not restricted to one mind. Our primary datum and sole certainty is the conscious realm of thought, feeling and decision-making. We infer the existence of the physical world from our perceptions:

Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer.

W.V.Quine - *Two Dogmas of Empiricism *

 

[tonyrey]

Yes. I might enjoy a painting but never get into the core meaning.

I am not an artist but scientist and I guess my projection to art is valid.

I am a physicist and I can say that Feynman path integral method is stronger than the traditional quantum mechanics.

Is reality restricted to scientific methods and theories?

 

[Bahman]

Is reality restricted to scientific methods and theories?

Physical reality is not the whole reality and scientific method cannot completely answer all aspect of physical reality as well since the whole always is bigger than its constitutes and everything is connected. The body of science, scientific theories, is not static but dynamic hence it is acceptable as an approach which can explain the reality better and better but will never manage to provide the whole picture.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The thread is about science, so let’s use the scientific method.

The null hypothesis H[sub]0[/sub], what seems most probable and self-evident, is that people have different ideas of what is beautiful, that beauty is subjective, existing in the mind seeing a thing rather than in the thing itself.

You are proposing the alternative hypothesis H[sub]a[/sub], that beauty exists in the thing itself.

Science has exacting standards which require you to make a prediction by which your hypothesis can be tested empirically. If your hypothesis fails or if you can’t even propose a test, the null hypothesis stands.

What is your testable prediction? Why should we accept your hypothesis rather than what has always seemed self-evident, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

Okay. My testable hypothesis is the following:

If I were to splash paint of random colours all over my house; disfigure the materials and elements such as doors, windows, stonework and siding; leave rusting shells of automobiles and appliances all over the front yard; and begin growing all kinds of weeds and otherwise do my best to “uglify” the landscaping that currently exists there; I predict my neighbours will complain to the city, I will be cited for allowing my property to become insightly and I will be ordered to clean up the mess.

I further predict that my defense that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” will be laughed at by the judge and I will be ridiculed for making such a ridiculous statement as a defense.

Now, I have a reasonable expectation that this will happen as I predict. You, apparently, do not. Why don’t YOU, then, go ahead and test my hypothesis?

I, therefore, make another testable prediction that you will not do so because you don’t really believe the null hypothesis H[sub]0[/sub] to accurately depict reality.

While you are at it, I also predict that if you were to bring your paint by number set of acrylic paints from ‘Goldfish in a Bowl’ to your local art gallery (find a really well known one or three to satisfy yourself that my prediction is accurate) and begin painting over the Renoirs, Picassos and Da Vincis while making the statement that you prefer the colours from your palette to those of the original, I predict you will get arrested, heavily fined and possibly incur a long jail sentence.

Skeptical? You know what to do about that.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Ah, but the propositions of science can be ascertained by the scientific method, while there is no such method for the question of beauty. Apples and oranges. Now, if you could present a testable epistemological method - for example a “beauty-meter” - then the situation would change.

It is your task to present a method which will decide this question. Inocente has presented the same problem.

Well, you presented your hypothesis. I am eagerly waiting for the proof.

Now I find it promising that you accepted that the “pleasing taste” is only contingent upon the taste buds - if I understand your position correctly. (If I am off the mark, please correct me.) If I am right in this assessment, it would be a miniature, but still significant step toward mutual understanding.

Personally, the subjective / objective dichotomy is too much of a blunt knife since it doesn’t really get at the issue unless the idea behind subjective and objective is fully understood.

I think this issue is better understood using three descriptors:

1. preferences
2. judgements
3. facts
   Any questionable claim falls into one of those three categories.

For example, “This fish tastes salty,” is a factual claim which can be checked by whether salts exist in the composition of the fish. The fact that someone can taste the salt or whether their taste apparatus can detect it to any degree is an issue with the function of their senses. But the existence of salt is indisputable.

If the same person were to make a claim like, “I prefer fish that taste salty,” THAT would be an indisputable claim of preference. No one would argue the matter BECAUSE it is understood to be merely a preference claim.

Judgement claims are different from both the above partly because they are not easily settled. A great deal of data – ontological and factual – must be gathered, weighed, assessed and understood BEFORE a judgement can be made. Tentative OPINIONS are allowed in the process provided good reasons for holding those opinions accompany the opinions.

Judgements are not simple statements of preference, they are subject to critique in ways that preferences are not. Court rulings, those that judges are called upon to make, are classic examples of ‘judgements,’ but there are a virtual infinite number of such judgements. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is, itself, exactly this kind of claim - a judgement claim.

Judgement claims can rely upon factual data and this is where the scientific method comes in. However, making sound judgements require more than mere facts, they require a sound grasp of ontological reality and, minimally, an internally consistent metaphysic. Essentially, judgements require an understanding of means and ends (teleology) because “reason for” is assumed in making them.

Using the “salty fish” example, a judgement claim would be something like “Salty fish are a healthy food.” This is not a mere preference claim, it is an objective claim because a determination of its truth is possible but only possible by considering a number of factors and gathering a great deal of data. “Healthy” entails with reference to a specific end – keeping human beings alive and with all appropriate functions intact. In the meantime, opinions are legitimate, because human well-being is a complex issue; but not all opinions are equally valid.

Opinions are not mere expressions of preference and anyone who claims they are doesn’t understand the philosophical implications of what they are claiming.

The confusion between terms such as “subjective,” “preference,” “opinions” and “judgements” is the core of the issue with regards to beauty, morality and truth.

I could say more about preferences and “subjectivity” but I think this is enough for one post.

 

[Bahman]

Okay. My testable hypothesis is the following:

If I were to splash paint of random colours all over my house; disfigure the materials and elements such as doors, windows, stonework and siding; leave rusting shells of automobiles and appliances all over the front yard; and begin growing all kinds of weeds and otherwise do my best to “uglify” the landscaping that currently exists there; I predict my neighbours will complain to the city, I will be cited for allowing my property to become insightly and I will be ordered to clean up the mess.

I further predict that my defense that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” will be laughed at by the judge and I will be ridiculed for making such a ridiculous statement as a defense.

Now, I have a reasonable expectation that this will happen as I predict. You, apparently, do not. Why don’t YOU, then, go ahead and test my hypothesis?

I, therefore, make another testable prediction that you will not do so because you don’t really believe the null hypothesis H[sub]0[/sub] to accurately depict reality.

While you are at it, I also predict that if you were to bring your paint by number set of acrylic paints from ‘Goldfish in a Bowl’ to your local art gallery (find a really well known one or three to satisfy yourself that my prediction is accurate) and begin painting over the Renoirs, Picassos and Da Vincis while making the statement that you prefer the colours from your palette to those of the original, I predict you will get arrested, heavily fined and possibly incur a long jail sentence.

Skeptical? You know what to do about that.

No, peter. I have a simpler argument: do you have a simple measure for correctness of theory? Beauty to feeling/art plays the same role that correctness plays in reason/science.

 

[Peter_Plato]

No peter. I have a simpler argument: do you have a simple measure for correctness of theory. Beauty to feeling plays the same role that correctness plays in science.

Assuming that any particular individual’s “feelings” arise from a well-formed psyche, which is not always the case.

This might be correct in the final analysis, but you would have to provide a complete accounting of what a well-formed psyche is and why that accounting would be the correct one.

This is partly the problem with the “subjective” and “objective” determination when it relies solely on methodological naturalism. Objective then becomes restricted to what can be measured quantitatively whereas beauty, goodness and truth require a qualitative accounting.

Some might argue that truth does not, but if determinations of truth depend upon the question or dimension of significance or meaning, then truth IS and must be qualitative and not merely quantitative, which is why the scientific method and methodological naturalism are both most certainly inadequate.

 

[Bahman]

Assuming that any particular individual’s “feelings” arise from a well-formed psyche, which is not always the case.

This might be correct in the final analysis, but you would have to provide a complete accounting of what a well-formed psyche is and why that accounting would be the correct one.

This is partly the problem with the “subjective” and “objective” determination when it relies solely on methodological naturalism. Objective then becomes restricted to what can be measured quantitatively whereas beauty, goodness and truth require a qualitative accounting.

Some might argue that truth does not, but if determinations of truth depend upon the question or dimension of significance or meaning, then truth IS and must be qualitative and not merely quantitative, which is why the scientific method and methodological naturalism are both most certainly inadequate.

You cut it dude. Beauty and correctness are qualitative things.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Is science the **sole **source of truth? If so what is the scientific basis of that hypothesis?

You have hit upon an interesting point.

The beautiful (as noun not as adjective) can be ontological, existing SYMBIOTICALLY both in the object and in the conscious mind, without being subject to verification by the scientific method. This is why science seems to be really helpless when dealing not only with metaphysical ontology, but also with art and morals. It is for this very reason that the creative intuition of the artist is not expected to be applied to scientific matters. In the rare exceptions of right and left brain duality we see people talented both in science and the arts, but we do not expect them to invoke one side of their brain to justify and validate or confirm the other side.

.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Ah, but the propositions of science can be ascertained by the scientific method, while there is no such method for the question of beauty. Apples and oranges. Now, if you could present a testable epistemological method - for example a “beauty-meter” - then the situation would change.

Very simply, given my distinction between preferences and judgements, I propose the following:

If someone were to say, “I prefer the taste of spicy to bland foods,” you would not argue with their statement, nor would any reasonable person BECAUSE everyone understands that such a statement is entirely grounded in their subjective preference.

If, however, someone were to say, I prefer the look of rotting flesh or dismembered bodies, that statement would be grounds for wondering whether the person is of sound mind or has become psychologically unbalanced. The reason is because judgements about beauty require a sound and properly functioning human being, whereas preferring spicy to bland food requires nothing of the kind.

The properly functioning subjectivity of the person is itself an objectively determinable set of characteristics.

Which takes us back to a claim you made about the morality of the Holocaust. You claimed that if the majority of German society had agreed that the extermination of Jews was acceptable it WOULD HAVE BEEN morally acceptable.

Making such a statement, in itself, means that YOU would find genocide as committed by the Nazis morally acceptable provided the majority of society around you decided that it was. Hello?

With regard to beauty, you would, likewise, be compelled to insist that if the majority of society came to consider rotting flesh and dismembered bodies to be “beautiful” that would pose no inherent problem for you since you have no other concept of what beauty is except that it MERELY lies “in the eye of the beholder” and thus changeable for any eye because, like preferring spicy foods, nothing hangs on it or upon whether different eyes view it differently

There would be nothing inherently wrong, in your view, with changing society to find dismembered bodies, murder, rape, etc., appealing and completely moral since there is nothing inherently, objectively wrong with such things, in themselves. You see NO problem with that?
Hello?

 

[Hee_Zen]

My testable hypothesis is the following:

If I were to splash paint of random colours all over my house; disfigure the materials and elements such as doors, windows, stonework and siding; leave rusting shells of automobiles and appliances all over the front yard; and begin growing all kinds of weeds and otherwise do my best to “uglify” the landscaping that currently exists there; I predict my neighbours will complain to the city, I will be cited for allowing my property to become insightly and I will be ordered to clean up the mess.

You would not be cited for the “ugliness” of your house, you would be cited for violations of some ordinances. The “beauty” of your new arrangements would not even be mentioned.

While you are at it, I also predict that if you were to bring your paint by number set of acrylic paints from ‘Goldfish in a Bowl’ to your local art gallery (find a really well known one or three to satisfy yourself that my prediction is accurate) and begin painting over the Renoirs, Picassos and Da Vincis while making the statement that you prefer the colours from your palette to those of the original, I predict you will get arrested, heavily fined and possibly incur a long jail sentence.

Again, apples and oranges. Painting over someone else’s creation is vandalism. Try to use a fresh canvas, paint whatever you want on it, and ask if your creation qualifies as “beautiful” or “ugly”. You will get mixed responses, based upon the “taste” of the critic. There is a great theater show, named “Art”, where the central piece of the story is a canvas painted uniformly white. Some people will find it “beautiful”, others will simply laugh.

Personally, the subjective / objective dichotomy is too much of a blunt knife since it doesn’t really get at the issue unless the idea behind subjective and objective is fully understood.

I think this issue is better understood using three descriptors:

1. preferences
2. judgements
3. facts
   Any questionable claim falls into one of those three categories.

For example, “This fish tastes salty,” is a factual claim which can be checked by whether salts exist in the composition of the fish. The fact that someone can taste the salt or whether their taste apparatus can detect it to any degree is an issue with the function of their senses. But the existence of salt is indisputable.

Slow down, please. There is “salt” in that fish. No one disputes that. But that is not the question. The question is “does it taste salty” or is it “bland”, regardless of the salt being in it? And that is where the subjective element comes into the picture. Some people use very little salt, so for them the taste might be “just right”, while for those who use a lot of salt, the same dish would be too “bland”. And for those people who never tasted salt before, it would be unbearably “salty”. It has nothing to do with the **amount **of salt in the dish, it has everything to do with the **preference **of the person to tastes it.

Your example of “This fish tastes salty, is a factual claim” is incorrect. It is not a factual claim. The factual claim would be: “there is a certain amount of salt in this fish”. That would be a real factual claim.

If the same person were to make a claim like, “I prefer fish that taste salty,” THAT would be an indisputable claim of preference. No one would argue the matter BECAUSE it is understood to be merely a preference claim.

Correct, but it has nothing to do with the question: is this particular fish “too salty”, or “perfectly salted”, or “not salty enough”?

Judgement claims are different from both the above partly because they are not easily settled. A great deal of data – ontological and factual – must be gathered, weighed, assessed and understood BEFORE a judgement can be made. Tentative OPINIONS are allowed in the process provided good reasons for holding those opinions accompany the opinions.

Judgements are not simple statements of preference, they are subject to critique in ways that preferences are not. Court rulings, those that judges are called upon to make, are classic examples of ‘judgements,’ but there are a virtual infinite number of such judgements. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is, itself, exactly this kind of claim - a judgement claim.

Judgement claims can rely upon factual data and this is where the scientific method comes in. However, making sound judgements require more than mere facts, they require a sound grasp of ontological reality and, minimally, an internally consistent metaphysic. Essentially, judgements require an understanding of means and ends (teleology) because “reason for” is assumed in making them.

Using the “salty fish” example, a judgement claim would be something like “Salty fish are a healthy food.” This is not a mere preference claim, it is an objective claim because a determination of its truth is possible but only possible by considering a number of factors and gathering a great deal of data. “Healthy” entails with reference to a specific end – keeping human beings alive and with all appropriate functions intact. In the meantime, opinions are legitimate, because human well-being is a complex issue; but not all opinions are equally valid.

This was all very nice, but has nothing to do with the question: “does this piece of fish taste salty?” or is it “bland?”. Taste has everything to do with “preferences”.

Opinions are not mere expressions of preference and anyone who claims they are doesn’t understand the philosophical implications of what they are claiming.

Of course they are. What philosophical implications are you talking about? That certain claims are subjective? And by the way, the “subjective vs. objective” is not a “blunt knife”.

 

[Bahman]

Very simply, given my distinction between preferences and judgements, I propose the following:

If someone were to say, “I prefer the taste of spicy to bland foods,” you would not argue with their statement, nor would any reasonable person BECAUSE everyone understands that such a statement is entirely grounded in their subjective preference.

If, however, someone were to say, I prefer the look of rotting flesh or dismembered bodies, that statement would be grounds for wondering whether the person is of sound mind or has become psychologically unbalanced. The reason is because judgements about beauty require a sound and properly functioning human being, whereas preferring spicy to bland food requires nothing of the kind.

The properly functioning subjectivity of the person is itself an objectively determinable set of characteristics.

Which takes us back to a claim you made about the morality of the Holocaust. You claimed that if the majority of German society had agreed that the extermination of Jews was acceptable it WOULD HAVE BEEN morally acceptable.

Making such a statement, in itself, means that YOU would find genocide as committed by the Nazis morally acceptable provided the majority of society around you decided that it was. Hello?

With regard to beauty, you would, likewise, be compelled to insist that if the majority of society came to consider rotting flesh and dismembered bodies to be “beautiful” that would pose no inherent problem for you since you have no other concept of what beauty is except “in the eye of the beholder” and thus changeable to your eye.

There would be nothing inherently wrong, in your view, with changing society to find dismembered bodies, murder, rape, etc., appealing and completely moral since there is nothing inherently, objectively wrong with such things, in themselves. You see NO problem with that?
Hello?

You are going to wrong path petter. Beauty to art plays the same role as morality to ethics. We can judge an act but we cannot sit in the position of divine justice.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You would not be cited for the “ugliness” of your house, you would be cited for violations of some ordinances. The “beauty” of your new arrangements would not even be mentioned.

Yeah, right, like aesthetic considerations had nothing to do with the drafting of those ordinances to begin with.

Again, apples and oranges. Painting over someone else’s creation is vandalism.

Yes, I suppose if Da Vinci or Picasso painted over your paint by number canvas, you and everyone else would call that vandalism, too.



This is getting deliciously absurd.

 

[tonyrey]

Physical reality is not the whole reality and scientific method cannot completely answer all aspect of physical reality as well since the whole always is bigger than its constitutes and everything is connected. The body of science, scientific theories, is not static but dynamic hence it is acceptable as an approach which can explain the reality better and better but will never manage to provide the whole picture.

1. What does provide the whole picture - as far as that is humanly possible?
2. What is the framework within which science operates?
3. What are the principles on which science is based?

 

[Peter_Plato]

You are going to wrong path petter. Beauty to art plays the same role as morality to ethics. We can judge an act but we cannot sit in the position of divine justice.

I disagree. You seem to be implying that we can neither assess ourselves nor change ourselves with regard to whether we are functioning appropriately as moral agents. To me, that is precisely what we are required to do – form our consciences to view morality from a proper ethical perspective by becoming good moral and spiritual agents. We are required to do so by divine justice and do receive guidance and grace from the divine to become and do just that.

What do you suppose redemption is? It is being brought from moral and spiritual blindness to sightedness; from moral and spiritual lameness to agency; from deprivation of being to being whole and holy.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Very simply, given my distinction between preferences and judgements, I propose the following:

If someone were to say, “I prefer the taste of spicy to bland foods,” you would not argue with their statement, nor would any reasonable person BECAUSE everyone understands that such a statement is entirely grounded in their subjective preference.

You still miss the whole point. The question is not simply whether the food is preferred spicy or bland; it is “is this particular dish spicy or bland”? And that cannot be answered without looking at the preference of the person.

If, however, someone were to say, I prefer the look of rotting flesh or dismembered bodies, that statement would be grounds for wondering whether the person is of sound mind or has become psychologically unbalanced. The reason is because judgements about beauty require a sound and properly functioning human being, whereas preferring spicy to bland food requires nothing of the kind.

You are in all sorts of trouble if you wish to set a “standard” for a “sound” mind. Not even psychiatrics can do it. For a long time homosexual attraction was considered a “mental illness”. Today it is accepted as normal. (Mind you, ***in this instance ***I am talking about the “attraction” only).

The properly functioning subjectivity of the person is itself an objectively determinable set of characteristics.

Is it? There is no clear dividing line between the “clinically insane” and the “slightly eccentric”.

Which takes us back to a claim you made about the morality of the Holocaust. You claimed that if the majority of German society had agreed that the extermination of Jews was acceptable it WOULD HAVE BEEN morally acceptable.

Nope, what I said was different. “…it WOULD HAVE BEEN morally acceptable FOR THEM”. The qualification is of utmost importance.

Making such a statement, in itself, means that YOU would find genocide as committed by the Nazis morally acceptable provided the majority of society around you decided that it was. Hello?

No, it does not mean anything of that kind. Please criticize what I actually said, and not what you think my words “imply” in your opinion. If you are in doubt what I mean, go ahead and ask for clarification.

With regard to beauty, you would, likewise, be compelled to insist that if the majority of society came to consider rotting flesh and dismembered bodies to be “beautiful” that would pose no inherent problem for you since you have no other concept of what beauty is except that it MERELY lies “in the eye of the beholder” and thus changeable for any eye because, like preferring spicy foods, nothing hangs on it or upon whether different eyes view it differently

I would really prefer if you would stick strictly to what I actually say, and not what you think it means. The opinion of the majority counts for nothing as far as the individual is concerned when it comes to aesthetic preferences.

There would be nothing inherently wrong, in your view, with changing society to find dismembered bodies, murder, rape, etc., appealing and completely moral since there is nothing inherently, objectively wrong with such things, in themselves. You see NO problem with that?
Hello?

Sigh. Would you please, pretty please stick to what I said and not your interpretation of it??? Is that too much to ask for?

 

[Peter_Plato]

And by the way, the “subjective vs. objective” is not a “blunt knife”.

What? Are sharp and blunt not merely matters of “subjective” determination?

At what point does a “blunt” knife become a “sharp” one?

Surely, that is not merely a matter of preference or taste, nor can it be one of pure fact.

It must be one of judgement with respect to objective ends and means, then?

Thank you for making my point! And a sharp one it was at that!