00:00:00.000 I have a friend who is an artist and is sometimes taken of you, which I agree with my
00:00:11.320 You hold up a flower and say, look how beautiful it is, and I agree, I think.
00:00:15.600 And he says, you see, as I as an artist can see how beautiful this is.
00:00:19.320 But you as a scientist, oh, take this all apart and it becomes dull thing.
00:00:26.840 First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me, too.
00:00:31.320 I believe, although I may not be quite as refined as aesthetically as he is, that I can't
00:00:39.480 At the same time, I see that much more about the flower that he sees.
00:00:43.400 I could imagine the cells, the complicated actions, and so I would also have a beauty.
00:00:48.240 I mean, it's not just beauty at this dimension of one centimeter, there's also beauty at a
00:00:52.560 smaller dimension, the inner structure, also the processes, the fact that the colors and
00:01:00.280 the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it, is interesting.
00:01:09.480 It adds a question, is this aesthetic sense also exist in a lot of forms that does it?
00:01:16.400 It all kinds of interesting questions, which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement
00:01:38.680 Welcome to Topcast, episode 33, chapter 14 of the beginning of infinity, titled, Why
00:01:46.360 Now that's just your opinion that flowers are beautiful, so they're not in any objective
00:01:51.800 That was a quick episode, so look forward to next week for the evolution of culture.
00:01:59.480 It's so easy, it's such a general purpose objection to say, well, it's just your opinion
00:02:04.480 that that movie was a bad movie, it's just your opinion that Justin Bieber is a bad singer,
00:02:09.280 it's just your opinion that Mozart is a better composer than someone else.
00:02:14.400 It's one of those arguments that everyone knows.
00:02:17.200 This idea that in art or music or movies or fiction, there's no objective standards,
00:02:24.160 and that everyone just has their opinion, it's merely a matter of taste and so we're never
00:02:27.680 going to converge on what is actually good when it comes to art.
00:02:30.840 Well, we're going to explore that today, we're going to explore that through the lens
00:02:37.560 When we say beautiful, we're going to come to understand that what this means, at least
00:02:43.840 So I began this episode with a short clip from Richard Feynman, where he tells the story
00:02:48.800 about a proverbial friend who comes to him and complains about physicist and says,
00:02:53.440 you've business, you like to deconstruct thing.
00:02:56.360 That's just denuding the beauty of nature by explaining it.
00:03:00.640 Of course, Feynman's response is, that's completely wrong.
00:03:07.240 The beauty of the rainbow is available to the physicist, just as it is to anyone else.
00:03:12.560 That kind of beauty, that kind of visual beauty.
00:03:16.840 There's a beauty of the theory itself, which explains why the rainbow happens.
00:03:21.200 And there's the beauty of the feeling of understanding, of comprehending what's actually going
00:03:26.480 These simple laws acting on simple objects in the universe, to cause marvelous effects,
00:03:31.280 taking white light and splitting it into all the colors of the rainbow.
00:03:38.000 That's a kind of beauty, not available to someone who doesn't understand the physics.
00:03:42.120 So a physicist isn't removing beauty, or removing beauty by explaining something.
00:03:46.760 And I think Feynman's point when he talks about is that people should want to try to understand
00:03:51.920 things like that, to understand physics, to the extent that they're interested in it.
00:03:55.640 Because it is a kind of beauty, it is a way of appreciating the world that otherwise wouldn't
00:04:01.200 It's similar to the criticism that some people trained in the classics, or trained in the
00:04:05.240 arts, make of people trained in the sciences, possibly rightly.
00:04:08.960 But if you don't understand Shakespeare, you don't understand some of the great works.
00:04:13.080 If you don't haven't read the classic philosophers, then you are missing something of the
00:04:17.480 beauty of reality, the reality that is being created by people, of course.
00:04:22.440 Indeed, at least a year's gone by, not so much today, in fact, it's the other way around.
00:04:27.920 But in years gone by, it was said that even if you were well-trained in science and mathematics,
00:04:33.240 you were nonetheless uneducated if you didn't read the classics, if you didn't have
00:04:38.080 a good understanding of Shakespeare and Homer and the humanities, let's say.
00:04:41.920 And it used to be really said in the other direction, you know, if you didn't understand
00:04:48.640 But if you didn't understand the second law of thermodynamics, but nonetheless you had
00:04:52.280 a Bachelor of Arts degree, you were still educated.
00:04:55.200 There was no sin in not understanding the second law of thermodynamics, let's say.
00:04:59.400 But now, of course, we've got the problem, the pendulum swinging in the other direction.
00:05:03.000 I think this pendulum that does swing in either direction is misconceived.
00:05:07.680 But today, of course, there's a lot of accusations made of people, at least on social
00:05:11.160 media anyway, accusations made from one person to another that so-and-so is scientifically
00:05:18.800 All of us are ignorant to some extent, but to claim that it's a sin, or that you have no
00:05:22.640 right to speak on a certain topic, because you are ignorant of that topic.
00:05:32.920 We are all infinitely ignorant, as paparas taught us.
00:05:36.160 What perhaps is a sin, what perhaps is a sin, is claiming to have knowledge that you do
00:05:40.680 not have, of course, that can be wrong, or refusing to learn anything further once you
00:05:45.840 think you know something, whether that's in the realm of the arts or the humanities or
00:05:50.600 in science, okay, but that discussion is taking us a little bit far away from the point
00:05:56.080 A good supplement to this video, not only is the book, of course, but also David Deutsch
00:06:01.080 has an excellent talk that he gave to the Museum of Modern Art, and that's available
00:06:09.000 Or you can just type in David Deutsch Flowers into the YouTube search bar, and it'll
00:06:14.560 Now, all of that said, let's get into chapter 14, why are flowers beautiful?
00:06:19.520 Now it begins with a quote from Richard Dawkins writing in his book, Climbing Mountain
00:06:24.000 Probable, which was written in 1996, published in 1996, and Dawkins wrote, my daughter
00:06:30.040 Juliet then aged six, pointed out some flowers by the wayside.
00:06:34.920 I asked her what she thought wildflowers were for.
00:06:37.920 She gave a rather thoughtful answer, two things she said, to make the world pretty, and
00:06:44.520 I was touched by this, and sorry I had to tell her that it wasn't true, end quote.
00:06:54.160 Displace one note, and there would be diminishment.
00:06:56.320 Displace one phrase, and the structure would fall.
00:06:59.200 That is how Mozart's music is described in Peter's chafers, 1979 play Armadeus.
00:07:04.760 Should also just pause there my interjection here.
00:07:08.560 There's also a movie based upon that play of the same name, Armadeus.
00:07:15.680 It got 11 Academy Award nominations, it won Best Picture for that year.
00:07:20.840 It's burned into my mind because I was brought up in the Star Wars generation, which
00:07:26.480 And like many people who were brought up in the Star Wars generation, at least many young
00:07:30.080 boys, anyway, we watched the movie so often we could recite the words off by heart.
00:07:35.840 The only other movie I think that I'm able to still recite most of the words off by
00:07:43.640 It's one of the movies that I really enjoyed as a kid.
00:07:47.520 I think my grandmother had me watch it at some point and then I just fell in love with
00:07:50.840 the music as well as the story, but the music was so wonderful and that led me into an
00:07:55.040 appreciation of classical music, which was rather an odd thing for a young boy, at least
00:08:04.120 And so, yeah, I never learnt to play classical music, I'm not musically inclined in any
00:08:08.440 way, shape or form, but I certainly appreciate classical music.
00:08:12.800 Okay, let's get back to the book enough about me.
00:08:15.280 So David has just said, um, to this place one note and there would be diminishment,
00:08:18.280 this place one phrase and the structure would fall.
00:08:20.520 This is reminiscent of the remark made by John Archwald Wheeler with which this book begins
00:08:25.320 speaking of a hoped for unified theory of fundamental physics, an idea so simple, so beautiful
00:08:30.560 that when we grasp it, how could it have been otherwise?
00:08:34.200 Shafer and Wheeler were describing the same attribute, being hard to vary, while still doing
00:08:39.400 In the first case, it is an attribute of aesthetically good music, and in the second of good
00:08:44.240 scientific explanations, and Wheeler speaks of the scientific theory as being beautiful,
00:08:49.720 in the same breath as describing it as hard to vary.
00:08:53.680 Scientific theory is a harder vary because they correspond closely with an objective truth,
00:08:57.840 which is independent of our culture, our personal preferences, and our biological makeup.
00:09:02.920 But what made Peter Shaffer think that Mozart's music is hard to vary?
00:09:07.160 The prevailing view among both artists and non-artists is, I think, that there is nothing
00:09:14.280 Beauty says the adage is in the eye of the beholder.
00:09:16.320 The very phrase, it's a matter of taste, is used interchangeably with, there is no objective
00:09:21.960 Artistic standards are, in this view, nothing more than artifacts of fashion and other
00:09:25.600 cultural accidents, or of individual whim or of biological predisposition.
00:09:31.160 Many are willing to concede that in science and mathematics one idea can be objectively
00:09:35.120 true within another, though, as we have seen, some deny even that.
00:09:38.800 But most insist, there is no such thing as one object being objectively more beautiful
00:09:44.600 Mathematics has its proofs, so the argument goes, and science has its experimental tests.
00:09:49.680 But if you choose to believe that Mozart was an inept and cacophanous composer, then
00:09:54.240 neither logic nor experiment nor anything else objective will ever contradict you.
00:09:59.760 OK, pause there, skipping over the next bit, where David compares that objection to empiricism,
00:10:07.240 and also he begins to introduce the idea, and although we may not be able to yet, or perhaps
00:10:13.520 even at any time in the near future, be able to use science to objectively show or prove
00:10:20.360 or provide evidence that a particular piece of art is objectively better than another piece
00:10:26.720 Because not mean there's no objectivity to it, because facts can nonetheless be brought
00:10:34.960 He says facts can be used to criticise aesthetic theories as they can moral theories.
00:10:39.880 But I'm skipping all of that, and I will pick it up where David says, just as pronounced
00:10:45.960 key pointed out that scientific discovery depends upon a commitment to certain moral values,
00:10:51.240 might it not also entail the appreciation of certain forms of beauty?
00:10:54.560 It is a fact, often mentioned, but seldom explained, that deep truth is often beautiful.
00:11:00.480 Mathematicians and theoretical scientists call this form of beauty elegance.
00:11:07.400 It is by no means synonymous with how good or how true an explanation is.
00:11:12.040 The poet John Keats assertion, which I think was ironic, that beauty is truth.
00:11:16.840 Truth beauty is refuted by what the evolutionist Thomas Huxley called the Great Tragedy
00:11:21.480 of Science, the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact, which is so constantly
00:11:26.040 being enacted under the eyes of philosophers, by philosophers he meant scientists.
00:11:30.320 I think Huxley too was being ironic in calling this process a great tragedy, especially
00:11:34.840 since he was referring to the refutation of spontaneous generation theories.
00:11:38.640 But it is true that some important mathematical proofs and some scientific theories are
00:11:44.640 Yet the truth so often is elegant that elegance is, at least, a useful heuristic, when
00:11:51.560 And when a beautiful hypothesis is slain, it is more often not replaced, as the spontaneous
00:11:56.120 generation theory was, by a more beautiful one.
00:11:58.840 Surely, this is not coincidence, it is a regularity in nature, so it must have an explanation.
00:12:06.320 So we've got the idea here of beauty in science and mathematics, beauty of a theorem being
00:12:12.240 a useful heuristic, a useful rule, a useful guide in order to point us in the right direction
00:12:17.240 as to what we're looking for when it comes to truth.
00:12:20.840 Now that's one aspect of this, the other aspect is the fact that that is routinely what
00:12:26.840 we find in science and mathematics, that more often than not, regularly we find that
00:12:31.960 elegance is a guide to the truth, is itself in need of an explanation.
00:12:38.600 Okay, and then David begins to talk about a comparison between creation in art and creation
00:12:46.240 And the important point in this paragraph that I'm just skipping through is that both
00:12:51.280 the scientists and the artists or the musical composer have waste paper baskets.
00:12:59.480 Well, if you're a scientist and you're trying to find the answer to a particular question,
00:13:03.400 a particular scientific question or a mathematician trying to show some theorem and you're
00:13:06.960 making mistakes along the way, you're throwing out, discarding what you got wrong when you've
00:13:14.360 If it's all mere creativity uncoupled from criticism, uncoupled from comparisons to some
00:13:21.000 objective standard to a reality that's out there in some way, then there shouldn't be
00:13:26.240 any need for the waste paper basket because you're not comparing it to any objective
00:13:31.480 criteria, but there must be an objective criteria because not only does the music meet
00:13:35.240 your standards, but it meets the standards of many other people as well.
00:13:38.640 So the composer is not merely creating in some unhinged way, but they are creating within
00:13:46.240 the scope of certain criteria, certain objective criteria for beauty within the area of
00:13:52.080 And so when they make errors in that, that gets discarded in the waste paper basket.
00:13:54.800 So this is the significance of the waste paper basket within both science and art.
00:14:00.200 It is a metaphor for the fact that you can make errors.
00:14:07.040 And being wrong is objective, you're either wrong or you're not.
00:14:11.000 And David goes on to write, quote, composers like Ludwig van Beethoven agonized through
00:14:16.080 change after change, apparently seeking something that they knew was there to be created,
00:14:21.160 apparently meeting a standard that could be met only after much creative effort and much
00:14:28.240 In both science and art, there are the exceptional creators like Mozart or the mathematician
00:14:33.160 Srinivasa Ramanajan who reputedly made brilliant contributions without any such effort.
00:14:39.640 But from what we know of knowledge creation, we have to conclude that in such cases the
00:14:43.440 effort and the mistakes did happen invisibly inside their brains, pause their mind reflection,
00:14:52.000 There is a mystique about mathematicians, certainly.
00:14:57.720 And when it comes to these phenomenal mathematicians, like Ramanajan is one of the most famous
00:15:07.080 There is this mystique about how exactly they're doing what they're doing.
00:15:11.880 Not only is there this mystique among the general community about mathematicians, because
00:15:17.200 the overwhelming majority of people are not particularly knowledgeable at mathematics.
00:15:20.920 And I include myself in this category, even though I did university level mathematics.
00:15:25.880 Now I look at the overwhelming majority of mathematics at the university level and I don't
00:15:32.440 So mathematics has this mystique in the community, but beyond that, when you get into particularly
00:15:37.800 excellent mathematicians, there is a further layer or level of mystery when it comes to
00:15:45.120 these people as if they have some access to divinely inspired truth.
00:15:51.480 And it's almost, it's very similar in many ways to the way people we used to think of
00:15:59.440 As if, for example, the Pope had a direct line, somehow to God or merely priest it.
00:16:05.800 You still hear people talk this way today about the Dalai Lama.
00:16:09.640 And you know, many people claim that there is just something about him that is different
00:16:15.480 And I might very well be true, that might be the case.
00:16:18.520 But it's not like it is something truly mystical or supernatural or something that can't
00:16:24.080 be understood if you merely apply yourself to try and understand the same as true of mathematics.
00:16:29.440 Now, Ramana Jan is held up often as the exception to this rule of being able to understand
00:16:38.240 He supposedly someone who simply was able to write down theorems without proof.
00:16:44.680 Now, there's an excellent book by Hari, a mathematician's apology, very much worth reading
00:17:08.800 And there's a movie based upon this book as well.
00:17:12.400 So there's a book based upon that account called the man who knew infinity and then there
00:17:18.320 So the man who knew infinity is worth looking up on Netflix or wherever he can find it.
00:17:23.640 The thing is about Ramana Jan, nonetheless, if you look into the details, he was absolutely
00:17:27.840 certainly fallible even when it came to mathematics and even when it came to the theorems
00:17:32.880 Yes, the majority of them when he wrote them down, it seemed to be the case that they
00:17:39.800 Other mathematicians were able to provide the proof.
00:17:42.360 Ramana Jan had to learn how to do proofs himself and that was what Hari was doing.
00:17:46.240 Hari was trying to teach him the way that mathematicians were done, that mathematics
00:17:54.440 It wasn't like Ramana Jan was able to teach Hari how he was doing what he was doing.
00:18:01.120 It's just that we don't know how to learn these things.
00:18:03.400 Just like many people don't know how to learn mathematics, full stop.
00:18:06.600 The way in which Ramana Jan did mathematics, it must have been done in his mind somehow.
00:18:12.320 We know it had to be conjecture and refutation.
00:18:14.680 That's the only way that knowledge is made, he's created.
00:18:18.400 But precisely what the method was, because it wasn't a standard method of proof, was for him
00:18:25.880 So in other words, it was in explicit knowledge that he had.
00:18:28.960 It's probably similar to, it could be compared to the way in which a great tennis player
00:18:33.400 is able to play tennis, the way in which Roger Federer is nine times out of ten, able
00:18:37.680 to serve the ball at very high velocity right into the place where he wanted to go.
00:18:42.120 So he can't explain it, he can try, he can try to explain it, he can try and put words
00:18:45.520 together, but that's not going to convey exactly how to do what he does.
00:18:54.520 And you can look up the fact that some of the theorems that Ramana Jan wrote down turned
00:18:59.000 out, could be turned out weren't true, you could prove that they weren't true in fact.
00:19:05.000 So he was making mistakes, so even this method available to him, whatever it was, itself
00:19:11.920 So the only reason I'm emphasizing this is because there is something different about the
00:19:18.880 way in which Ramana Jan was going about doing what he did.
00:19:22.840 But it wasn't like it was something something, it's not like Ramana Jan is proof positive
00:19:28.920 that mathematics is this domain of certain truth and you can tap into that domain of certain
00:19:34.920 You can't tap into the domain of certain truth, you can conjecture what it's like, that's
00:19:38.760 called tapping in, but what you're actually doing is you're trying to explain that realm,
00:19:47.280 So Ramana Jan had some way of conjecturing what the necessary truth was without actually
00:19:56.640 So there must be some process, we just don't know what that is yet.
00:20:00.360 No doubt one day we will know exactly what he was doing and we'll be able to teach other
00:20:06.040 And it might be a more efficient way of doing mathematics than what is presently done,
00:20:10.320 which is starting from the axi and the going through the rules of inference and getting
00:20:13.640 to the conclusion, which you call your theorem or using computers or whatever else.
00:20:18.080 Okay, after that lengthy diversion, let's go back to the book and David writes, are these
00:20:24.760 By the way, the resemblance is he's talking about is this search for truth and this
00:20:29.600 discarding of errors between science and the arts and mathematics indeed.
00:20:35.800 These resemblances only superficial, was Beethoven fooling himself when he thought that
00:20:39.680 the sheets in his waste paper basket contained mistakes, that they were worse than the sheets
00:20:44.400 he would eventually publish, was he merely meeting the arbitrary standards of his culture,
00:20:49.000 like the 20th century women who carefully adjusted their headlines each year to conform
00:20:53.160 to the latest fashions, or is there a real meaning in saying that the music of Beethoven
00:20:57.680 Mozart was far above that of their Stone Age ancestors banging mammoth bones together,
00:21:04.120 as Romana Jen's mathematics was above tally marks, okay, pause there, me again with
00:21:11.800 So at this point, this is the point where people object with a challenge.
00:21:17.360 You can't tell who's objectively better, Cardi B, Madonna, ACDC, your favourite K-pop
00:21:24.280 girl group, and because you cannot objectively say which one's better, this is supposed
00:21:29.800 to be a reputation of that entire philosophy, this entire idea that there is any object
00:21:36.200 And in fact, this often happens with aspects of the philosophy of David Deutsch, that
00:21:41.480 a problem is not soluble right now, or rather that a problem does not have a solution right
00:21:46.200 now, a solution that we don't have a solution for a particular problem, that this somehow
00:21:50.440 entails there can be no such solution, although the problem is inherently unsoluble,
00:21:55.640 this is wrong, the idea that problems are soluble, the idea that there is an objectivity
00:22:00.520 to the arts does not entail that we know what all those criteria are, that we have a solution
00:22:06.200 to what the objective criteria are for the arts right now.
00:22:09.760 So there may be a way of ranking these singers, let's say, or these bands, but just because
00:22:15.360 we can't do it now, it does not mean there is no objectivity to this at all.
00:22:19.720 And as we all come to see, there could be, there must be, a subjective component as well,
00:22:25.080 but we could rank order them in terms of the objective standards.
00:22:28.760 And finally, we knew what the objective standards were.
00:22:31.320 We possibly are able to, if you're an expert in music, know some of the objective standards,
00:22:35.320 I'm certainly not an expert in music, but no doubt a proper musician could probably
00:22:38.960 write down something, something to do with harmony, something to do with quality of seeing,
00:22:45.360 by some criteria, and so on, because it certainly is the case that I cannot tell who did
00:22:51.360 it better when it comes to these bands, the it being the music.
00:22:55.400 We all have our opinions, some will insist that all classical music always outclasses
00:23:00.960 all pop music, and even pop music always outclasses rap music.
00:23:06.560 But just because we do not know what the objective criteria is does not mean they do not
00:23:12.520 And as David rightly says, just there, do you really think that some Stone Age people bashing
00:23:17.200 rocks together cannot be distinguished from rivalries can shirt over two violins?
00:23:24.280 Of course there is an objective difference, it's not merely subjective.
00:23:28.600 Everyone will agree, everyone will be able to tell the difference between the value and
00:23:33.920 Not merely in terms of they sound different, but one sounds better.
00:23:37.040 One is something that you are attracted to and that you would prefer to keep returning
00:23:42.200 If you were confined in a prison and they gave you the alternative of either listening
00:23:47.600 to these loudly-backed mammoth tusks together, open phones, or open box, or whatever,
00:23:54.600 or you can listen to Vivaldi on a route, I think most of the publishers are available.
00:24:00.720 So we know that there is this, we know already, there's an objective difference between
00:24:05.960 noise, disorganized type sound, poor music, and better music.
00:24:13.080 It is a coarse-grained way of ranking things that we have at the moment, but that doesn't
00:24:20.720 We have a coarse-grained way of understanding biology and physics as well.
00:24:25.240 It's more refined than what it is in the arts, but it's not to say in any of these domains
00:24:30.760 And the point here is that in the arts, the arts being the most difficult, I guess, of
00:24:36.320 the subjects in order to make the case here about realism, about the fact that there are
00:24:43.240 It seems to be the case that people are quite willing to admit that there's an objective
00:24:47.080 difference between what is true and false in mathematics.
00:24:52.880 Then we start to get a bit wishy-washy, don't we, when it comes to morality and some people
00:24:59.640 And then sometimes even the people who think that morality might have an objective component,
00:25:04.200 they will deny the fact that art can have any objective component.
00:25:07.800 One of the reasons for this, and I guess we'll return to this idea, is that too many
00:25:12.120 people have simply been trained at school that anything can be art.
00:25:16.360 They've had that conversation, they've been taught that, well, to shonk's toilet, or
00:25:27.840 So we'll come back to modern art, modern art being the equivalent of relativism or postmodernism
00:25:33.240 in philosophy, a rejection of the idea of objective criteria, for beauty, or objective
00:25:38.320 criteria for anything, and that art can indeed be anything at all.
00:25:42.080 There's no truth of the matter, there's no better and worse, anything can be art.
00:25:45.800 Therefore anyone can be an artist, and anyone can claim that they've got the best art
00:25:50.920 In fact, I'll skip the part that David talks about next and go straight to where he
00:25:56.360 says, quote, quite generally cultural relativism about art or morality has a very hard time
00:26:04.040 explaining what people are doing when they think they are improving a tradition.
00:26:09.000 Then there is the equivalent of instrumentalism, is art no more than a means to non-artistic
00:26:14.320 For instance, artistic creations can deliver information.
00:26:16.840 A painting can depict something, and a piece of music can represent an emotion, but their
00:26:29.400 And here is another picture with much the same content, yet with greater aesthetic value.
00:26:36.440 And of course, if you're listening to this on the podcast, you won't know what pictures
00:26:39.520 I'm talking about, so I hope that you should go to YouTube or to the book, of course,
00:26:45.960 One can see that someone thought about the second picture in its composition, framing,
00:26:53.480 It has the appearance of design by the photographer.
00:26:58.040 Unlike Paley's watch, it does not seem to have a function.
00:27:01.160 It only seems to be more beautiful than the first picture, but what does that mean?
00:27:06.080 Just as an aside, everyone's a photographer these days aren't.
00:27:09.080 We've all got smartphones, and they all have astonishing cameras compared to anything
00:27:15.400 They can do some amazing things, but nonetheless, we should all notice that photography,
00:27:21.680 it turns out it's extremely difficult unless you're particularly talented or gifted in this.
00:27:30.320 This idea of simply bringing things into focus, this idea of cropping, this idea of thirds
00:27:37.560 Once you take a deep dive into photography, it can be certainly a lifetime's worth of work.
00:27:42.360 People just don't understand what is involved in this.
00:27:47.600 I think that most people just think that I hold a camera and point it at stuff.
00:27:52.600 There's a heck of a lot more to it than just that.
00:27:56.400 It's kind of strange that we all carry around this instrument with us all every single
00:28:01.160 day, which is such a powerful artistic tool, but so few of us actually know how to use it.
00:28:09.000 It's rather like we're all carrying around violins and playing them now and again.
00:28:16.560 One of this really can, but we all think that we're photographers to some extent and sometimes
00:28:23.880 We're going to see some of my photos today, I'm not a photographer, but I'm trying to
00:28:30.080 Let's get back to the book and David writes, one possible instrumental purpose of beauty
00:28:34.920 A beautiful object can be attracted to people who appreciate the beauty, attractiveness to
00:28:39.000 a given audience, can be functional, and there's a down-to-word scientifically measurable
00:28:44.360 Art can be literally attractive, in the sense of causing people to move towards it, visitors
00:28:49.200 to an art gallery can see a painting and be reluctant to leave, and then later be caused
00:28:56.280 People may travel great distances to hear a musical performance and so on.
00:28:59.840 If you see a work of art that you appreciate, that means that you want to dwell on it,
00:29:04.240 to give it your attention in order to appreciate more in it.
00:29:07.240 If you are an artist and halfway through creating a work of art, you see something in it
00:29:13.000 Again, you are being attracted by a beauty that you have not yet experienced.
00:29:16.640 You are being attracted by the idea of a piece of art, before you have created it.
00:29:22.160 Not all attractiveness has anything to do with aesthetics.
00:29:25.120 You lose your balance and fall off the log because we're all attracted to the planet
00:29:28.720 That may seem merely a play on the word attraction.
00:29:31.920 Our attraction's worth is due not to aesthetic appreciation, but to a law or a physics,
00:29:36.840 which affects artists no more than it does artworks.
00:29:39.400 A red trapping light may induce us to stop and stare at it so long as it remains red.
00:29:44.040 But that is not artistic appreciation either, even though it is attraction.
00:29:49.200 But when analyse insufficient detail, everything is mechanical.
00:29:53.520 The laws of physics are sovereign, so one can draw the conclusion that beauty cannot
00:29:57.360 have an objective meaning other than that which we are attracted to by processes in our
00:30:04.320 One cannot, because by that argument, the physical world would not exist objectively either
00:30:11.320 since the laws of physics also determine what a scientist or mathematician wants to call
00:30:20.320 The laws of physics also determine what a scientist or mathematician wants to call true.
00:30:27.320 The laws of physics also determine what a scientist or mathematician wants to call true.
00:30:38.320 So on that account, that what I will say is the false account.
00:30:50.320 Physics causes you to think what you think, in a sense.
00:30:54.320 But it's not a good explanation to say, I'm thinking what I think simply because the laws of
00:31:03.320 So the question is for anyone who is a reductionist, is that anything you think is just
00:31:11.320 an outworking of the laws of physics, including what you think is true or false about those laws of
00:31:19.320 It's just a claim about the universality of physics, the laws apply everywhere, and at
00:31:24.320 all times, including to the contents of your own brain.
00:31:29.320 But if you want to understand, not merely state a trope about the universal laws of physics,
00:31:37.320 if you want to understand, understand mind you, have a theory of, have an explanation about
00:31:44.320 In this case, what is going on with certain kinds of attractiveness, you have to move beyond
00:31:50.280 Indeed, you have to move beyond physical laws for the vast majority of anything outside
00:31:56.280 of the physical sciences, skipping just a tiny little bit.
00:31:59.280 And David writes back to the book, new art is unpredictable, like new scientific discoveries.
00:32:06.280 Is that the unpredictability of randomness or the deeper unknowability of knowledge creation?
00:32:13.280 Sorry, I'm doing a lot of pausing today and injecting all my own stuff.
00:32:17.280 So just a point on that randomness, and more an aside than anything else.
00:32:22.280 I think it was Sabine Hoffenstatter, the physicist, who was the latest to get tangled up
00:32:27.280 in these concerns about randomness or indeterminacy in quantum theory and the many worlds
00:32:36.280 Briefly, this is the idea that one way of going with quantum theory is to say that what
00:32:43.280 happens next in any given experiment is simply random.
00:32:47.280 And the reason that people put this case to say that, well, the laws of physics create
00:32:53.280 inherent randomness in nature is because they cannot predict the outcome of the next experiment,
00:32:59.280 unlike in classical physics where if you're dropping a ball from a certain height, you
00:33:03.280 can predict precisely where it's going to land at any particular moment.
00:33:06.280 However, if we're firing photons at a double slit apparatus experiment, we cannot predict
00:33:12.280 precisely where that photon is going to end up on the screen where the experiment is being projected.
00:33:19.280 So to some extent, it appears as though this experiment is indeterminate, but what does
00:33:26.280 Well, it can't be the case that it means entirely random.
00:33:29.280 If it was entirely random, if there was nothing governing this, there was nothing
00:33:36.280 Then, whether the photon hits there or there on the screen is not random, it would
00:33:43.280 be random if once you find the photon from the apparatus, it metamorphosized into an elephant
00:33:49.280 or disappeared entirely into thin air and it never hit the screen.
00:33:55.280 Neither of these two are consistent with other known laws of physics, namely conservation
00:34:01.280 of energy, which we should really regard as a principle that other laws of physics
00:34:05.280 have to conform to, but the point is that it's not random.
00:34:08.280 You fire a photon and a photon ends up at the screen.
00:34:14.280 There's something there that's a regularity in nature, but there's more than a
00:34:18.280 more than that in terms of regularity in nature.
00:34:20.280 There is a pattern that is built up over time and the pattern is predictable.
00:34:26.280 So though we can't predict the exact place of any given photon, that is subjectively
00:34:35.280 Nonetheless, in the objective sense, there is certainly a law of physics that determines
00:34:43.280 It's not a random pattern and that pattern has an explanation and if you want to know more
00:34:46.280 about these patterns in physics, the laws of physics that I'm talking about, then see
00:34:52.280 the series on the multiverse or see David's chapter on the multiverse in the beginning
00:34:58.280 Now, the fact that you or I cannot determine the next place of photon lands, that's a fact
00:35:08.280 That's about us and our ignorance, that we can only see what's happening in one particular
00:35:15.280 And then that gets into deep questions about the nature of personhood and the fact that
00:35:21.280 There's certain things that we don't understand, but we understand that much.
00:35:25.280 We occupy this particular universe and we don't have access to the other universes where
00:35:33.280 So our ignorance about where the next photon is going to land on the screen is a fact about
00:35:40.280 But the fact about the universe is that the photons will, that single photon will take up
00:35:48.280 And those possible positions are given by the relevant laws of physics.
00:35:52.280 Because we don't occupy all universes, the only way to test this is to repeat the experiment
00:35:56.280 over and over again and approximate what would have happened if you had a fire just one and
00:36:01.280 been able to see where it went in all the other universes.
00:36:04.280 Now, repeating the experiment over and over again just simply means that you're moving
00:36:08.280 through time and time as a special case of the different universes.
00:36:12.280 So subjective indeterminacy by which I mean human ignorance, the fact that we do not know precisely
00:36:18.280 what happens next is no proof of objective indeterminacy, the claim that nothing determines
00:36:29.280 If there were no laws then we could expect the photon to vanish utterly into thin air or to turn
00:36:39.280 It's not utterly random because there are laws to be abate here.
00:36:42.280 There are quantum laws of physics to obey here.
00:36:45.280 But this idea that David mentions there just in passing of the unpredictability of randomness
00:36:52.280 is the unpredictability of subjective randomness.
00:36:58.280 They appear to be random to us because we don't have knowledge of the situation of everything
00:37:03.280 that we need to know in order to make the prediction.
00:37:06.280 And indeed, so far as we know, it's impossible for us to make a prediction of that kind
00:37:11.280 about where the photon is going to land, let's say.
00:37:13.280 But there's also another kind of unpredictability which is to do with the unknowability
00:37:21.280 And continuing, David says, quote, in other words, is art truly creative like science
00:37:28.280 That question is usually asked the other way around because the idea of creativity
00:37:31.280 is still rather confused by various misconceptions.
00:37:34.280 Impiricism missed caste science as an automatic non-creative process.
00:37:39.280 And art, though acknowledged as creative, has often been seen as the antithesis of science
00:37:44.280 and hence irrational, random, inexplicable, and hence unjudible, and non-objective.
00:37:50.280 But if beauty is objective, then a new work of art, like a newly discovered
00:37:55.280 law of nature or mathematical theorem, adds something irreducibly new to the world.
00:38:01.280 So another confusion brought to you by your local high school, I would say.
00:38:13.280 At least, at least implicitly, art is where you do creative stuff
00:38:18.280 and science as where you simply learn about reality and you've got no choice in the matter.
00:38:23.280 I should say there's been at least some kind of renaissance in science teaching.
00:38:28.280 And now, at least at least lip services paid to the idea
00:38:32.280 that in mathematics and in science there can be creativity.
00:38:37.280 However, the actual teaching of mathematics and science in schools, especially mathematics,
00:38:45.280 You go through and do exercises, which is the appropriate word for what's going on there.
00:38:52.280 Nevertheless, culture is still satisfied with the idea that art's creative
00:38:57.280 and science is just an uncreative reporting of what reality is like.
00:39:02.280 But that latter view is the misconception of empiricism, of course.
00:39:05.280 It casts the scientist as a reader of nature rather than the creator of explanations.
00:39:14.280 Creativity without any constraint is nonsense and non art.
00:39:20.280 Creativity and criticism together make the theory closer to true or in art more beautiful.
00:39:26.280 As David observes, the waste paper basket of the composer fills up over time
00:39:30.280 as they criticize their creativity and refine it in line with some criteria of beauty or harmony.
00:39:40.280 then you end up making no progress at all because you just say that everything is bad
00:39:47.280 And if you have creativity, unencumbered by criticism,
00:39:53.280 So this idea of creativity and criticism together is very important.
00:39:58.280 And I would say that criticisms when done properly typically have a large creative element to them as well.
00:40:07.280 You can improve the ways in which you criticize something.
00:40:10.280 So even criticism is a creative act to a large extent too.
00:40:20.280 But in human tastes, there can be genuine novelty.
00:40:23.280 Because we are universal explainers, we are not simply obeying our genes.
00:40:27.280 For instance, humans often act in ways that are contrary to any preferences that might plausibly have been built into our genes.
00:40:34.280 People fast, sometimes for aesthetic reasons, some abstain from sex,
00:40:38.280 people act in very diverse ways for religious reasons
00:40:41.280 or for any number of other reasons, philosophical or scientific, practical or whimsical.
00:40:45.280 We have an inborn aversion to heights and to falling,
00:40:48.280 yet people go skydiving, not in spite of this feeling, but because of it.
00:40:52.280 It is that very feeling of inborn aversion that humans can reinterpret into a larger picture which to them is attractive.
00:41:04.280 To a skydiver, the vista from which we were born to recoil is beautiful.
00:41:10.280 And the part of that beauty is in the very sensations that evolved to deter us from trying it.
00:41:15.280 The conclusion is inescapable. That attraction is not inborn,
00:41:19.280 just as the contents of a newly discovered law of physics or mathematical theorem are not inborn.
00:41:23.280 Pause there, my reflection on this, this is a perfect refutation or at least criticism,
00:41:29.280 very strong criticism of the evolutionary psychologists.
00:41:35.280 Evolutionary psychologists suggest or state strongly that our behaviour,
00:41:43.280 or at least some of our behaviours are determined or at least partially determined by our genes.
00:41:51.280 Now, it's no doubt the case that there are inborn ideas that we have
00:41:57.280 and no doubt the case that genetics can provide some mental content.
00:42:04.280 This is all true, but none of that is to say that it needs to determine particular behaviour
00:42:11.280 and by determined, I mean, unavoidably, unchangeably,
00:42:15.280 you will be inevitably forced into that particular behaviour
00:42:20.280 because you've got a gene for that particular behaviour, let's say.
00:42:23.280 But I think there is any gene for a particular kind of behaviour.
00:42:26.280 There might be a gene for a particular sensation.
00:42:28.280 Some people might experience pain more than others.
00:42:33.280 Certainly some people can taste different things.
00:42:35.280 We certainly know that females have genes for detecting greater shades of red than what males do in humans.
00:42:44.280 Men typically have better night vision than what women do.
00:42:51.280 But none of this is to say that we are compelled into certain kinds of behaviour
00:42:57.280 that just because women have a better ability to appreciate the colour red,
00:43:06.280 but therefore they're going to be drawn into the arts,
00:43:12.280 that it is determined that you are forever closed off from being a visual artist because you're a man.
00:43:20.280 Now, this idea here, that if anything is going to be determined,
00:43:25.280 one would think, then it is the fear of heights that many people have,
00:43:34.280 So, you know, it might be the case that there is this gene fall,
00:43:39.280 or this genetic component too, what many people experience as fear of heights.
00:43:47.280 You shouldn't want to get too close to the cliff because you might fall off,
00:43:52.280 so they may give this sensation which causes an idea in the mind of moving away from high places.
00:43:58.280 Now, the evolutionary psychologist may wish to say,
00:44:04.280 There we go, it's proof that there is a gene, or at least some genetic component too,
00:44:09.280 fear of heights, and quite rightly a fear of heights.
00:44:14.280 Then explain how it is that people who skydive do not have such a fear of heights.
00:44:19.280 Or if they do, whatever this fear is, this word fear,
00:44:23.280 has been replaced or changed to such an extent that it now becomes
00:44:36.280 because I know of people who are so terrified of heights
00:44:40.280 that they literally collapse far away from the cliff edge,
00:44:43.280 that if they're on a bridge, they can't get across the bridge, they're so afraid of it.
00:44:47.280 They appear to be an actual physical pain, certainly in mental anguish.
00:44:53.280 But on the other hand, we have these other people
00:44:56.280 who are willing to go up far higher than that, and jump from perfectly functioning aircraft.
00:45:02.280 But it seems that if there's genes for this sensation,
00:45:09.280 then this sensation can be reinterpreted by the mind.
00:45:12.280 It depends on what you know about what's going on.
00:45:16.280 Some people who have been afraid of heights become skydivers.
00:45:26.280 People who have never learned to swim may very well fear the ocean,
00:45:34.280 So is the fear of the water, or fear of the ocean, something that's inborn or is it as
00:45:39.280 you can be trained into this fear or out of this fear as a child?
00:45:52.280 You can change your ideas, as I keep on saying.
00:45:58.280 And so you can change any particular idea you have.
00:46:00.280 I think one of David's other examples is, of course,
00:46:03.280 that if we have a gene for anything in common with all of the life forms,
00:46:17.280 breathe air. We will do the things that is required in order for us to survive.
00:46:23.280 It's the first thing in Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
00:46:32.280 If anything's genetic, it is this will to survive, this will to live.
00:46:36.280 And yet, we're not completely alone amongst all species in doing this,
00:46:47.280 Some people just simply die every day of suicide.
00:46:50.280 It's terrible, it's sad, but their deaths, sadly,
00:46:54.280 are a refutation of this idea that we have this
00:47:02.280 If any behavior was going to be genetically determined,
00:47:05.280 then surely it would be the behavior of trying to survive.
00:47:09.280 Yet so many people every single day kill themselves.
00:47:12.280 Now, the evolutionary psychologists might say at this point,
00:47:16.280 well, you know, they might have a defect in that gene,
00:47:24.280 Well, at this point, then what you're saying is that no matter what the behavior is,
00:47:29.280 And so therefore, it's our explanation that explains everything.
00:47:34.280 It is a general purpose explanation that no matter what the behavior is,
00:47:38.280 it can always be explained by recourse to genes.
00:47:42.280 In other words, there is no way of refuting it.
00:47:46.280 Now, on our side of the ledger, we're not denying that it's possible
00:47:50.280 that some kinds of behavior can be influenced by the genes.
00:47:58.280 some people have certain, I think this has been tested, I'm not sure.
00:48:03.280 I think it's been tested that some people have genes for
00:48:07.280 liking the taste of asparagus because they can actually smell it.
00:48:15.280 Some people can taste this kind of food because they have the genes for
00:48:25.280 And in that case, of course, there's a genetic component to whether or not
00:48:27.280 you like this particular food because you have particularly
00:48:33.280 So you prefer this kind of food and you don't prefer this kind of food.
00:48:37.280 There's genes for certain kinds of mental illness,
00:48:42.280 So we're not denying the fact that there can be genes implicated
00:48:46.280 in the explanation of certain kinds of behavior.
00:48:49.280 But what we are saying is that whatever those behaviors are,
00:48:53.280 they can be themselves reinterpreted by the universal mind,
00:48:58.280 by the explainer, by the person who may not like the fact
00:49:02.280 that they're attracted to this, that or the other thing,
00:49:09.280 If they learn better, then whatever that genetic influence is
00:49:16.280 who may very well have started out with a terrible fear of heights,
00:49:19.280 has now reinterpreted that sensation that's coming to them,
00:49:23.280 via some genetic impulse that has caused certain sensations
00:49:30.280 so that their behavior utterly changes, ultimately.
00:49:33.280 That even if they have this sensation of whatever it is,
00:49:41.280 that it can be reinterpreted to be something they really love
00:49:45.280 So they can turn something that is initially a repulsion
00:49:50.280 Now, the gene theory surely can't explain that.
00:49:55.280 Unless, of course, you're willing to go down the road of saying
00:49:57.280 they would never actually afraid of it in the first place.
00:50:05.280 David's talking about, could art be purely cultural?
00:50:17.280 Perhaps we see a face as beautiful because it really is.
00:50:20.280 Or perhaps it is only because of a combination of adgines and culture.
00:50:23.280 A beetle is attracted to another beetle that you and I may see as hideous.
00:50:29.280 People can learn to see many things as beautiful or ugly.
00:50:33.280 But there again, people can also learn to see false scientific theories as true.
00:50:40.280 Yet there is such a thing as objective scientific truth.
00:50:43.280 So that still does not tell us whether there is such a thing as objective beauty.
00:50:47.280 It just pulls down my reflection just very quickly.
00:50:53.280 about why I flowers beautiful, which is an extension of this chapter basically.
00:51:02.280 Well, you know, basically the question is about the fact that there is no agreement on what beautiful art is.
00:51:09.280 Or even on what beautiful flowers are, you know, in the, I think the fellow says,
00:51:13.280 I'm the spectrum of all flowers and not every one will agree.
00:51:16.280 But David quite rightly responds to that with, well, not everyone agrees on scientific truth either.
00:51:22.280 The mere fact consensus is not the way in which we assess objective truth,
00:51:28.280 So just because we don't have universal consensus, unanimity on any scientific theory,
00:51:33.280 has no effect upon the truth of the scientific theory or otherwise.
00:51:36.280 The overall majority of people on the face of planet earth right now do not understand,
00:51:41.280 and typically reject the theory of evolution by natural selection.
00:51:47.280 They believe that God created all the life on the face of the planet.
00:51:51.280 They don't believe that we evolve from simpler life forms.
00:51:54.280 They don't understand that we evolve from similar life forms.
00:51:56.280 But the fact we don't have consensus on that has no bearing on whether or not that theory is true.
00:52:01.280 The same is true of the theory of climate change.
00:52:04.280 It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that many people disagree with it.
00:52:10.280 Science continues to make progress nonetheless.
00:52:13.280 The vast majority of people do not understand the theory of gravity,
00:52:22.280 We still use the theory for practical applications.
00:52:25.280 So too with art, you know, just because we do not understand or can come to some,
00:52:34.280 And hence, do not have a consensus on what the best kind of music is.
00:52:40.280 Does not mean there won't be in the future some criteria,
00:52:45.280 that will enable us to assess or improve our music, let's say.
00:52:51.280 Okay, now moving into the, I guess, the central question of the chapter.
00:53:00.280 quote, now, why is a flower the shape that it is?
00:53:04.280 Because the relevant genes evolved to make it attractive to insects.
00:53:10.280 Because when insects visit a flower, they are dusted with pollen,
00:53:13.280 which they then deposit another flowers at the same species,
00:53:16.280 and so the genes in the DNA in that pollen are spread far and wide.
00:53:20.280 This is the reproductive mechanism that flowering plants evolved,
00:53:26.280 Before they were insects, there were no flowers on earth.
00:53:29.280 But the mechanism could work only because insects, at the same time,
00:53:40.280 Just as there is co-evolution between the genes to coordinate mating behaviors
00:53:45.280 so genes for making flowers and giving them their shapes and colours co-evolved
00:53:49.280 with genes in insects for recognising flowers with the best nectar.
00:53:56.280 just as in the history of art, criteria evolved,
00:53:59.280 and means of meeting those criteria co-evolved with them.
00:54:03.280 That is what gave flowers the knowledge of how to attract insects,
00:54:06.280 and insects the knowledge of how to recognise those flowers,
00:54:11.280 But what is surprising is that those same flowers also attract humans.
00:54:17.280 This is so familiar effect that it is hard to see how amazing it is.
00:54:22.280 But think of all the countless hideous animals in nature
00:54:24.280 and think of all of them who find their mates by sight,
00:54:27.280 have evolved to find that appearance attractive.
00:54:29.280 And therefore it is not surprising that we do not.
00:54:32.280 With predators and prey, there is a similar co-evolution,
00:54:35.280 but in a competitive sense, rather than a cooperative one.
00:54:38.280 Each is genes that evolved to enable it to recognise the other
00:54:41.280 and to make it run towards or away from it respectively.
00:54:44.280 While other genes evolved to make their organism hard to recognise
00:54:48.280 against the relevant background, that is why tigers are struck.
00:54:51.280 Occasionally it happens by chance that the perochial criteria of attractiveness
00:54:54.280 that evolved within a species produce something that looks beautiful to us.
00:54:58.280 The peacock's tail is an example, but that is a rare anomaly.
00:55:04.280 we do not share any of their criteria for finding something attractive.
00:55:11.280 Sometimes a leaf can be beautiful, even a puddle of water can.
00:55:14.280 But again, only by rare chance, with flowers, it is reliable.
00:55:24.280 Given the prevailing assumptions in the scientific community,
00:55:27.280 which are still rather empiricist and reductionist,
00:55:29.280 it may seem plausible that flowers are not objectively beautiful
00:55:32.280 and that their attractiveness is merely a cultural phenomenon.
00:55:38.280 We find flowers beautiful that we have never seen before
00:55:42.280 and which have not been known to our culture before
00:55:45.280 and quite reliably for most humans in most cultures.
00:55:48.280 The same is not true of the roots of the plants or the leaves.
00:55:54.280 One unusual aspect of the flower insect coevolution
00:55:57.280 is that it involved the creation of a complex code or language
00:56:03.280 It had to be complex because the genes were facing a difficult
00:56:13.280 And on the other, difficult to forge by other species of flower.
00:56:17.280 For if other species could cause their pollen to be spread
00:56:20.280 by the same insects without having to manufacture nectar for them,
00:56:23.280 which requires energy, they would have a selective advantage.
00:56:27.280 So the criteria was that evolving in the insects
00:56:30.280 had to be discriminating enough to pick the right flowers
00:56:34.280 And the flowers design had to be such that no design
00:56:37.280 that other flower species could easily evolve could be mistaken for it.
00:56:41.280 Thus, both the criterion and the means of meeting it had to be hard to vary.
00:56:48.280 It talks about giraffes and why they're next along.
00:56:51.280 And we get into this idea a little more of signaling
00:56:56.280 between these disparate species, between the flowers and the insects.
00:57:01.280 How is it that, well, from one insect to another,
00:57:04.280 there can be different flowers that they are attracted to.
00:57:12.280 My guess is that the easiest way to signal across such a gap
00:57:15.280 with hard to forge patterns designed to be recognised by hard
00:57:18.280 to emulate pattern matching algorithms is to use objective standards of beauty.
00:57:27.280 and insects have to recognise objective beauty.
00:57:30.280 Consequently, the only species that are attracted by flowers
00:57:33.280 and are the insect species that co-evolved to do so
00:57:36.280 and humans pause their myreflection, but why humans?
00:57:42.280 Now with the insects, it's clearly only the genes.
00:57:46.280 The genes are just finding that thing attractive.
00:57:48.280 They're literally being drawn towards those flowers
00:57:51.280 and then they are pollinating the flowers as well,
00:57:56.280 So this objectivity that exists out there in reality,
00:58:00.280 this objective beauty that exists out there in reality
00:58:07.280 in the form of the flower to attract the insects.
00:58:11.280 And us humans, being people, being able to understand the world
00:58:15.280 are able to uncover these objective features about reality,
00:58:24.280 If true, this means that Dawkins daughter was partly right
00:58:31.280 or at least prettiness is no accidental side effect,
00:58:37.280 Not because anything intended the world to be pretty,
00:58:39.280 but because the best replicating genes depend upon embodying
00:58:43.280 objective prettiness to get themselves replicated.
00:58:46.280 The case of honey, for instance, is very different.
00:58:48.280 The reason that honey, which is sugar water, is easy for flowers
00:58:51.280 and bees to make, and why it's tasted attractive to humans
00:58:54.280 and insects alike, is that we do all have a shared genetic heritage
00:59:00.280 which includes biochemical knowledge about many uses of sugar,
00:59:05.280 Okay, so just to emphasize that, me talking here,
00:59:13.280 So it is no huge mystery as to why we should like honey,
00:59:20.280 and all these living organisms create new trends,
00:59:24.280 require nutrients, and we recognize that the taste of honey,
00:59:29.280 the sweetness of honey, that's attractive to us,
00:59:31.280 because we need it to survive, so it's no accident
00:59:37.280 But with flowers and us finding them attractive,
00:59:41.280 well, there's no common set of genes going on here,
00:59:45.280 because if there was, then it should be the case
00:59:48.280 that all the species of apes and monkeys and so on
00:59:55.280 or at least something lower down in the phylogenetic tree
00:59:59.280 should also find flowers attractive, but nothing else does.
1:00:05.280 Rather than cats and dogs, they're not attracted to flowers either.
1:00:17.280 could it be that what humans find attractive in flowers
1:00:23.280 Perhaps it is something more mundane, something like
1:00:26.280 a liking for bright colors, strong contrasts,
1:00:30.280 Humans seem to have an inborn liking for symmetry.
1:00:32.280 It is thought to be a factor in sexual attractiveness,
1:00:34.280 and it may also be useful in helping us to classify things
1:00:37.280 and to organize our environment physically and conceptually.
1:00:40.280 So a side effect of these inborn preferences might be a liking for flowers,
1:00:43.280 which happen to be colorful and symmetrical.
1:00:46.280 However, some flowers are white, at least to us.
1:00:48.280 They may have colors that we cannot see in insects can,
1:00:53.280 All flowers do contrast with their background in some sense.
1:00:56.280 That is a precondition for being used for signaling.
1:00:58.280 But a spider in the bath contrasts with its background even more.
1:01:02.280 And there is no widespread consensus that such a site is beautiful.
1:01:06.280 As for symmetry, again, spiders are quite symmetrical.
1:01:09.280 Some flowers, such as orchids, are very unsymmetrical.
1:01:12.280 Yet we do not find them any less attractive for that.
1:01:15.280 So I do not think that symmetry, color, and contrast are all
1:01:18.280 that we are seeing in flowers when we imagine that we are seeing beauty.
1:01:22.280 A sort of mirror image of that objection is that there are
1:01:25.280 other things in nature that we also find beautiful.
1:01:28.280 Things that are not the results of either human creativity
1:01:51.280 One cannot explain why the watch is as it is
1:01:56.280 because it would be useless for timekeeping
1:02:00.280 But as I mentioned, the sun would still be useful
1:02:05.280 was altered. Similarly, paleo might have found a stone
1:02:13.280 But he would not have sat down to write a monograph
1:02:17.280 would have made it incapable of serving that function
1:02:22.280 The same is true of the night sky, waterfalls,
1:02:27.280 But flowers do have the appearance of design for beauty.
1:02:43.280 We're in a similar position to an archaeologist
1:02:45.280 who finds inscriptions in an unknown language
1:02:50.280 and not just meaningless marks on the walls.
1:02:54.280 but they look as though they were inscribed there for a purpose.
1:02:58.280 They have the appearance of having been evolved
1:03:10.280 I can see only one explanation for the phenomenon
1:03:14.280 and for the various other fragments of evidence I have mentioned.
1:03:17.280 It is that the attribute we call beauty is of two kinds.
1:03:23.280 local to a species, to a culture or to an individual.
1:03:32.280 creating either kind of beauty requires knowledge,
1:03:38.280 It reaches all the way from the flower genome
1:03:40.280 with its problem of competitive pollination
1:03:42.280 to human minds which appreciate the resulting flowers as art.
1:03:46.280 Not great art, human art has to far better,
1:03:50.280 but with the hard to fake appearance of design for beauty.
1:03:54.280 So their David has talked about the parochial kind of attractiveness,
1:03:58.280 local to a species, to a culture or to an individual even.
1:04:02.280 And this idea of local to an individual, let's say,
1:04:21.280 We already know that there is this subjectivity
1:04:32.280 And this signaling across species is curious
1:04:41.280 And people find all kinds of flowers attractive.
1:04:48.280 Now, why do humans appreciate that objective beauty
1:04:50.280 if there has been no equivalent of that co-evolution in our past?
1:04:55.280 the answer is simply that we are universal explainers
1:04:59.280 But still, why did we want to create aesthetic knowledge in particular?
1:05:03.280 It is because we did face the same problem as the flowers and the insects.
1:05:07.280 Signaling across the gap between two humans
1:05:09.280 is analogous to signaling across the gap between two entire species.
1:05:13.280 A human being, in terms of knowledge content and creative individuality,
1:05:20.280 have virtually the same programming in their genes
1:05:23.280 and use virtually the same criteria for acting and being attracted.
1:05:29.280 The amount of information in a human mind is more than that
1:05:34.280 and overwhelmingly more than the genetic information unique to one person.
1:05:37.280 So human artists are trying to signal across the same scale of gap
1:05:41.280 between humans as the flowers and insects are between species.
1:05:45.280 They can use some species-specific criteria,
1:05:48.280 but they can also reach towards objective beauty.
1:05:50.280 Exactly the same is true of all other knowledge.
1:05:53.280 We can communicate with other people by sending pre-determined messages,
1:06:00.280 But in the latter case, to have any chance of communicating,
1:06:03.280 we are better strive to rise above parochialism and seek universal truths.
1:06:07.280 This may be the approximate reason that humans ever began to do so.
1:06:10.280 Okay, so pause their myreflection and skipping apart
1:06:13.280 and David goes more into these two kinds of beauty.
1:06:24.280 And on the other hand, we have this objective beauty as well.
1:06:27.280 And no doubt in art, when it comes to visual art,
1:06:29.280 no doubt this is what happens and no doubt in music,
1:06:33.280 that we have this coming together of the subjective
1:06:38.280 And David talks about the pursuit of art for art's own sake,
1:06:47.280 So the applied kind is that art serves a practical purpose.
1:07:00.280 But then there is also just pursuing art for art's sake,
1:07:04.280 which is something that's done in mathematics as well.
1:07:08.280 There's pure and there's applied mathematics.
1:07:12.280 no other reason than someone just finds mathematics fascinating,
1:07:15.280 interesting, they want to solve problems in mathematics,
1:07:20.280 By the way, even when mathematicians say that's what they're doing,
1:07:33.280 He actually remarked that he was proud of the fact
1:07:36.280 that very little of his own mathematics that he was doing
1:07:57.280 In fiction, there, as I mentioned in chapter 11,
1:08:00.280 a good story has a good explanation of the fictional events
1:08:07.280 In some, it is especially hard to express in words
1:08:10.280 the explanation of the beauty of a particular work of art.
1:08:12.280 Even if one knows it, because the relevant knowledge
1:08:19.280 No one yet knows how to translate musical explanations
1:08:24.280 Yet, when a piece of music has the attribute
1:08:27.280 displaced one note and there would be diminishment,
1:08:33.280 and it has known to the listeners who appreciate it one day
1:08:39.280 So, this is one of those points that can just blow by you
1:08:47.280 It's this idea that artists know that they're striving
1:08:54.280 objectively beautiful art, trying to do objectively better music.
1:08:59.280 The musician is aiming for this particular thing
1:09:04.280 or at least better than what they've produced before.
1:09:10.280 but they cannot always explain what's going on.
1:09:13.280 They do not have an explicit explanation of exactly why
1:09:17.280 the thing is more beautiful than the other alternatives
1:09:24.280 but they won't be able to provide a comprehensive explanation
1:09:29.280 that person can then learn how to do exactly what they've done.
1:09:40.280 And so I'll just read the utilitarian theories of art
1:09:45.280 there are utilitarian theories of the purpose of art.
1:09:54.280 but one has no choice about what constitutes an artistic improvement,
1:09:58.280 any more than one has a choice as to what is true
1:10:03.280 one's scientific theories or philosophical positions
1:10:21.280 Expression is conveying something that is already there,
1:10:24.280 while objective progress in art is about creating something new.
1:10:28.280 Also, self-expression is about expressing something subjective,
1:10:36.280 consists solely of spontaneous or mechanical acts,
1:10:43.280 lacks the means of making artistic progress.
1:10:48.280 and involves many errors for every success,
1:11:21.280 Fortunately, stain master is the early card
1:11:25.280 which was a five-year stain resistance guarantee.
1:11:33.280 Do you want stain master state of the art in carpet?
1:11:36.280 Yeah, so it's hard to make progress with something like that.
1:11:43.280 If I am right, then the future of art is as mind-boggling
1:11:46.280 as the future of every other kind of knowledge.
1:11:48.280 Out of the future can create unlimited increases in beauty.
1:11:53.280 but we can presumably expect new kinds of unification too.
1:11:57.280 When we understand better what elegance really is,
1:12:00.280 perhaps we shall find a new and better ways to seek truth
1:12:05.280 I guess that we shall also be able to design new senses,
1:12:08.280 a new qualia that can encompass beauty of new kinds,
1:12:14.280 What is it like to be about is a famous question asked
1:12:18.280 Well, precisely, what would it be like for a person
1:12:24.280 Perhaps the full answer is that in the future
1:12:26.280 it will be not so much the task of philosophy
1:12:55.280 philosophical advances on this particular front.
1:13:10.280 In particular, don't run down your own subject.
1:13:35.280 taking a piece of good art that's already there
1:13:41.280 or to convey political meanings, let's say,
1:13:46.280 Sure, all of those things can be art and art done
1:14:12.280 New kinds of film, new ways we're appealing
1:14:14.280 to the senses that go beyond the two-dimensional,
1:14:16.280 the three-dimensional, new and better music.
1:14:19.280 And these kinds of art can have, as David says,
1:14:22.280 reach infinite reach, rather than to chumps toilet,
1:14:28.280 It is art only in the sense that everything is art
1:14:35.280 Most every student of art seems to some extent
1:14:38.280 be making the case of undermining their own area of expertise.
1:14:45.280 then as I say, everyone can be a great artist
1:14:48.280 because there is no distinction between the good
1:14:50.280 and the terrible and no standards by which to assess quality.
1:14:53.280 But beauty, the objective beauty is a quality
1:15:08.280 As always, thank you, and thank you to my Patreon supporters,
