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Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre  So beauty, as found in the tension between expectation and reality (I love that phrasing), is a kind of beauty, a more appealing beauty, rather than a requirement for all kinds of beauty? |
Hm, I didn't think of it in terms of degrees or requirements. I'm coming at this from the angle of, "That's beautiful, but why?" rather than "That's more beautiful than this, why?" A description of beauty, rather than a how-to guide to beautification. I'm not terribly convinced you can measure beauty, even when you can predict it.
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Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre For example, a woman who has all the attractive physical characteristics that I'd expect, plus a surprise (a quirky smile), would be more beautiful than one without that specific smile, but the latter would still be beautiful. |
Too isolating. Part of the problem of beauty is that it always seems to accompany a deep complexity that couldn't possibly be described in a few words.
One of my favorite lines of literature is from the Wheel of Time (and I suspect he stole it from somewhere else). The protagonist is being grilled on his affection for another woman, and he responds, "How do you compare two sunsets?"
I think that beauty is, or isn't. I don't think there are degrees.
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Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre where my expectations are not exceeded, I think the main difference is a reduced degree of pleasure. My emotional response would be less, though it would still be strong enough for me to consider her beautiful. |
Certainly. Emotions, and the chemicals underlying them, have long been deeply mysterious. My hypothesis is that the mixture of chemicals is what produces emotion, but the myriad
ways, the incredible number of possible combinations, you can mix and match them are so diverse that the emotions are almost always different. Kind of like a chess game. Simple, rigid rules, and yet impossible to really predict where a game will go.
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Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre In order to get to the point where beauty would be lost, my expectations would have to go unmet, by either raising them (i.e., certain attributes become common and thus less appealing (everyone has blue eyes, but green is where it's at)) |
Right. Blue eyes would be boring. What's so special about blue eyes? A person would be very unlikely to remark on the beauty of your eyes; instead, they might find you beautiful for a different reason.
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Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre or by certain attributes no longer satisfying them (you know, I used to love dimples, but now...). |
That seems to address something different. Since beauty is part and parcel an emotional response, any accompanying emotional response may change one's reaction to it. "He was such a beautiful guy... but now that he's dumped me..."
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Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre Though it could be that neither you nor Koster are saying that expectations must be exceeded, where expectation is linked to beauty, in order for something to be considered beautiful. Just that it makes the beauty more apparent. |
No. If expectations are not exceeded, I would say that it won't strike you as beautiful. (One of the greatest things about human beings is their constant change: thus, no matter how well you know a person, you can always been surprised just enough to trigger beauty.)
Without the extra twist, it's far more unlikely to register, because you already anticipate everything about it and nothing will trigger a change in perception. The low end of that is that you notice it. The high end of it is beauty.
So, let's take a spectrum. On one end, we write, "It meets every expectation." Here, it's unextraordinary. Boring. Invisible. On the other, we write, "It violates every expectation." Here, it's too weird. Uncanny Valley. Disturbing. Alien.
In the middle, we have two axes. One is horizontal (from "meets" to "violates"), and the other is vertical (reactions from "positive" to "negative"). Fix the zero point at the "meets" end of the horizontal axis, and at the center of the vertical axis. I would say that beauty is found in the region of 40-80% towards the "violates" end, and somewhere in the positive portion. This merits a diagram.
Heh. I'm actually rather unconvinced by my own ideas. I feel like something was missed. But I've spent more time than I expected to on this, so I wonder if you might spot it.
