Inner beauty

[Katica]

Some musings from earlier tonight:

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then the beholder determines value.
The beholder may be either others or the self.
The beholder cannot determine value simply by beholding.
Therefore, beauty is objective rather than subjective.

Your thoughts?

[Soyeong]

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then the beholder determines value.
The beholder may be either others or the self.
The beholder cannot determine value simply by beholding.
Therefore, beauty is objective rather than subjective.
If you’re saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then isn’t that the same as saying that it is subjective? The beholder does not determine the value simply by beholding because it’s value is different for each person, so it is subjective. If beauty was objective, then what is beautiful to one must be beautiful to all.

PS.
I think it is fairly obvious that Wyman thinks you are beautiful. :serenade:

EDIT:
Would that make beauty in the eye of the person talking about the beholder?

[Katica]

Thank you for taking me seriously, Soyeong.
"If beauty was objective, then what is beautiful to one must be beautiful to all."
Perhaps this is the way it is intended, but our sin nature has marred the beautiful? What if what we are looking at is beautiful but a filter makes us think it is ugly? For example, if one surveys a field a wildflowers, they are generally perceived as beautiful. But someone may pass by and say that it is just a bunch of weeds. Do they then lose their value? Or are they both valuable and unvaluable at the same time (because of the two beholders)?

There is too much beholding going on for me to behold. ;)

[Soyeong]

Perhaps this is the way it is intended, but our sin nature has marred the beautiful? What if what we are looking at is beautiful but a filter makes us think it is ugly?
Hmmm, that an interesting take on it. In a way, saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder is like saying that everything is ugly, but someone can still see it for being beautiful. You would flip the expression around and say that ugliness is in the eye of the beholder, in that everything is beautiful and that it is possible for someone to see past their “ugly filters” to see it as it truly is. In other words, everything would be objectively beautiful, but we see it as being subjectively ugly.


For example, if one surveys a field a wildflowers, they are generally perceived as beautiful. But someone may pass by and say that it is just a bunch of weeds. Do they then lose their value? Or are they both valuable and unvaluable at the same time (because of the two beholders)?
It is possible for the field to be objectively beautiful, but for some of us to be unable to subjectively fully appreciate it.

Now that I think about it, it could have been what the world was like when God created it. After the Fall, everything got passed through a “sin filter” and now it is impossible to see things without them first being tinted by sin. No two filters are the same, so we all see things differently. Some are able to see partially past the filter to see beauty where others are not able to, so in a sense, ugliness is in the eyes of those beholders.

[Katica]

In other words, everything would be objectively beautiful, but we see it as being subjectively ugly.

I concur :) Thanks for reasoning with me.
-Katica