"If a Tree Falls in the Forest..."

And I didn't mean to be overly critical, Fred--my apologies. Rather than go into my diatribe

about animal cognition, though, let me try to return the conversation (if anybody's still

participating) to photography. There's a strong presumption in photography that what you're

capturing with your camera is "reality." It's an important part of the aesthetics and even, in

some genres, the ethics of the art.

 

Well, I started to ask a question but realized I've gotten onto a very well-trodden path.

one could wonder whether that swan exists if there's noone there to photograph it...

This article in the Washington Post Magazine about Joshua Bell seems apropos of this discussion: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

As an individual , you are only conscious of what you bring conciousness to. I mean,

someone else may have witnessed the swan, but was not concsiously appreciative of the

beauty. Beauty is absorbed one mind at a time. Sometimes beauty never finds an appreciative

audience. Feel free in the thought that the swan didn't do whatever it did for you. It operates

in a larger context of instinct and routine, governed by natural forces that you as a human

can only hope to understand.

The swan still exists whether you were there or not. The question really is did beauty exist

if you weren't there to see it.

 

If another person had happened upon this scene but that person was starving and all he

saw was a meal (the swan), ... was the scene still beautiful?

 

He wouldn't have noticed the sunset...his hunger would have seen to that. Was it still

beautiful? I can't argue that the scene (swan & sunset) doesn't exist if no one is there to

witness it...my mind does not function that way. But I can say that I am able to see how it

may not have been beautiful to someone else. Instead of being beautiful it simply may just

be.

The "meal" could still be considered beautiful - I've commented on the past that a particularly nice meal was "beautiful", and for that matter, on beautiful musical pieces, finishes (how smooth the newly repaired wing (fender) of a car is), aromas etc.

 

To me the phenomenon knowns as "beauty" can be defined as "exceptionally pleasing" to any one, or combination of the senses - sight, sound, smell, touch or taste.

 

The swan, looking at its own reflection, may have seen an imperfect image of a ruffled, slightly too podgy or skinny bird, with yellowish feathers and a marginally skewed beak - might be the ugliest swan it has ever seen! Now if there were a particularly pleasing fish, swimming just under the surface... Did you find the fish beautiful? What fish? - You saw no fish - exactly!

 

No, beauty doesn't exist without observation, in the same way that colour doesn't exist without visual observation.

 

Just my tuppence worth.

cheers,

Guy

Does beauty exist without obeservation? Yes. We discover beauty, it doesn't find us. There is more beauty overlooked than ever found or realized, it surrounds us at all times. The light spectrum we see is miniscule to what exists. It is not for humans to limit reality to our senses. The question you asked is not a scientific question. It is a spiritual question, and it has a etheral answer.

An old country boy from Tennessee could sure get lost in this maze of a room! So hypothetically, if you all came to an agreement on the answer to this ever so deep subject...what then?

Merriam-Webster calls beauty that which "gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit." If there are no senses present, no mind or spirit, then there is no "beauty." But the moment you show up and perceive the swan and sun as beautiful, then they are! Thank you, pico and Jack, I am laughing out loud!!! :)