Re: TV: Documentary Science of Beauty

From: xgl (xli03@emory.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 25 2000 - 15:06:21 MDT


On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 natashavita@earthlink.net wrote:

>
> Nadia wrote on
> Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:20:23 EDT
> ------------------
>
> I love what you say about have a beautiful psychology. As one
> goes "out-of-body" by going on line, all that is visible (other
> than a typeface) is one's psyche. Sure we can go to a website,
> look at a picture, and sometimes the beauty inside is reflected
> outside. But. Too many times ugly people have beautiful skins,
> and they show their "true colors" on a list forum or in posts...
> or a person who seems frumpish and drab in person may have Beautiful
> Emotions and lovely thoughts, images...words flowing as an
> online entity... this "inside out" approach is what first fascinated
> me about meeting people thru the net.
>

        while i too have undergone the process of focusing away from the
physical body in my personal experience, i can not say the same for
society as a whole. turning on the tv or taking a walk outside, it seems
to me that despite lip-service to the contrary, the public places more
significance on physical beauty than ever before. the societies of the
first world, freed by technology from the necessities of subsistence but
not quite automorphic gods, seem to be preoccupied by evolved standards of
physical beauty in this technological limbo.

        if i may assume for a minute that the standards of physical
beauty, like preference for suger and fat, is mostly an evolved
adaptation; then it follows that this kind of beauty (to distinguish it
from pure artistic beauty, if such exists) can be reduced to a measuring
heuristic for utility. thus, if our destiny is toward increasing
rationality, we might increasingly find what is useful (powerful,
beneficial) to be beautiful.

        on the other hand, in the absence of radical modification
technology (ie, hardware), i suspect that humanity will remain
predominantly adaptation executers and the majority of people will
continue the trend toward more preoccupation with evolved physical beauty
instead of less.

-x



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