Objective Beauty Exists

"Beethoven is the greatest composer of all. Mozart was a virtuous composer whose harmonic and melodic complexity came to him, as he once wrote, like a cow pisses, but there is something haunting and unknown in Beethoven that makes him the greatest ever. Mozart embodied the elegance of life, Beethoven the despair" (Waylon Fairbanks) "You may be asking, who is this Waylon bloke -- well that's me. True, I didn't split the atom, but in the realm of beauty, accomplishment, fame, intellect, even expertise, it doesn't matter. I am not wrong is my statement, and neither is Einstein. Beauty is a psychological matter of perspective. Because perspective is a cognitive reaction to that which is sensed, it is inherently subjective. I find it rather troubling that you started your argument with a subjective quote about one composer being better than another. Mahler in fact preferred Beethoven to Mozart, and even Wagner to Beethoven, and because Mahler was more accomplished musically than Einstein (who was a mediocre violinist), does that make Wagner the greatest? No. " Your confidence is impressive but I think it has clouded your understanding of my point about Mozart. The beauty that was or is within his music is math; it is objective in both application and in concept. Within the parameters of beauty and logic it contains elegance, perfection, and symmetry. I chose Mozart not because he was the "best", but because he demonstrates these qualities best. "Your distinction between attractiveness and beauty is irrelevant, for beauty, even in its derived form, is ultimately human. " Well that would be a major component of the debate then, no? If it is objective it is not ultimately human. Attractiveness will bring in factors or even motives that are external to beauty in the judgment process. One can be attracted to things that are not beautiful, one can even be repulsed by that which is beautiful, depending on the individual. If something possesses properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality and the individual is repulsed by it for some reason unique to the individual, the something possesses those properties will still possess them. My very point is that beauty exists outside of the mind and dwells within the objectivity of math and physics. As human beings we use things; things that are objective in their existence both concept and physical, and one of the things we use is beauty. I do acknowledge that it is a different way of understanding beauty, and it requires an open mind, and we have to take a step away from our egocentric natures. "I am not much impressed by your Einstein quotes. " My purpose wasn't to impress you, but rather to produce an authority on the nature of objectivity (See Measurement Realism and Objectivity by John Norton. ). The quality of my sources should be relevant to the readers of this debate as we are judged by our sources. I'm unsure what would impress you, but again it isn't important to me or the debate. Furthermore the comparisons between Mozart and Einstein are fairly notorious and of common knowledge. Of course you are perfectly free to continue using yourself as a source. "Since your argument is based on the rationale that mathematic ratios and theorems dictate beauty, I would like to point out two gaping flaws in this: firstly, nobody has ever proven or discovered a universal theorem that is objectively beautiful (don't give me that golden ratio crap). You're asking everyone reading this debate to rely on faith that there are these mysterious integrals roaming through nature making things lovely, and sorry sir, we debaters rely on logic and reason, not faith, to inform our thoughts. " I have not pointed to faith as a basis of beauty, but rather logic and reason, I think that's fairly obvious. I specifically avoided the Golden Ratio because of the knee jerk emotional response it would evoke like calling it "crap". I full know the nature of the participants on this site, and rely on their ability to find the strength in my argument. Again, if nothing else an open mind is valued here. "Secondly, you are forgetting that the mathematical sense through which we view the world, itself, is a human construct. Something even as simple as depth perception in painting had to be invented. In a culture that had no word or morpheme for "symmetry", surely symmetry would not be taken into account in looking at a piece of work. You forget linguistic determinism and cultural relativism when you indulge in these two dangerous assumptions. " Again, you don't fully grasp the nature of objectivity. Math is not subjective. 2+2 = 4 whether or not we are capable of understanding it the values remain, and it is an objective truism. The laws of physics are not subjective; it conceptually exists, and is perfectly symmetrical. Nothing can corrupt the equation in that sense, and it remains objective. I believe that the barrier in seeing beauty as objective lies within the egocentrism that you have clearly demonstrated for me and the readers. Egocentrism ~ Subjectivity. "Using your musical analogy, think about this: the chromatic scale in the Western Musical Tradition has 12 tones, which were discovered by Pythagoras. In India, their musical scale has 22 tones because they have notes between what we'd consider a half-tone and whole-tone. We cannot fully comprehend the "beauty" of their music because our Western ears aren't accustomed to it, and visa versa. The objective beauty is an illusion based on what we hear. I cannot help but indulge in another example. You brought up J. S. Bach's fugues. His most noteworthy collection of fugues were "A well-tempered Clavier". When we listen to these masterful fugues, we listen to them on the harpsichord tuned in a system called equal temperament, where the intervals between the 12 notes are equally spaced (if you're a musical person, you'll note that the circle of 5ths doesn't resolve itself). When Bach wrote them, we was using his own system of tuning call "well temperament", where the intervals were not static. This means that the mathematical intervals are different and that the fugues we now hear today sound much different than they did before. We regard them as beautiful because in the 18th century, musicians standardized temperament, so the music we've heard for 300 years has accustomed our year to equal temperament. But if Bach heard his pieces played today, he'd shriek in disgust. "Who tuned that damn harpsichord! " I hope I did not get too technical in this example, but I hope the point is clear, that the music you are citing isn't even objective, so how can its beauty be? Your little piece about Mozart being an amateur mathematician is strangely ad hominem. Like I previously quoted, Mozart said he "wrote music like cows pissed. " He could write an opera with one hand while writing a concerto with his other hand, and hold a conversation while writing a symphony. He was genius. " This is pretty much a lot of nonsense, speculation, and irrelevance. It doesn't really address the argument well. "His infatuation with math provides no insight into his genius. " - and that's just wrong. -My argument remains unscathed. -My sources, conduct, grammar and spelling should fare well in comparison.