= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
loqi comments on Atheism = Untheism + Antitheism - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (179)
I agree with every sentence you've written except for this one:
Beauty may be context dependent (I don't know what it is actually) but if we have a concept of beauty, then it has evolved naturally within the physical universe. The concept is a property of some minds (human minds), thus its a property of the natural world. I would predict that perhaps not every kind of sapient being, but certainly some subset of all sapient beings, would also develop a concept of beauty. If beauty is an actual property of the natural world, then it has a pattern. It would be easier to understand this pattern if there were other sentient beings with concepts of beauty to compare with. A sentient being could use the meta-patterning of beauty, once identified, to perceive and measure beauty outside its own specific context. I have "faith" that meta-beauty would be beautiful to all sentient beings that appreciate beauty -- this is identical to saying that there is a meaningful pattern.
This doesn't make it a fundamental property of the natural world. I suspect it's just a label we use for a certain fuzzy class of emotional responses. I'm skeptical that it's all that different from other emotional responses. Consider that humans also share a concept of "creepiness". Do you also have faith that "meta-creepiness" would be creepy to all sentient beings capable of being "creeped out"? It may be tempting to ascribe your reaction to something like a house centipede to a fundamental property of the critter, but "creepy", like "beautiful", seems firmly situated in the class of 2-place words.