The disconnect in our ideas and experience of beauty

A recent painting by the author. The thick moss on trees lit by the winter sun in forestland near my home struck me with an experience of beauty. What can explain this deep and profound human experience? A Portugese philosopher believes that when it comes to beauty we today live with cognitive dissonance. Our cultural drivers say it is one thing, our deep experience says it is something quite different.

Can a chess move be beautiful? Is a formula like e=mc2 beautiful? Can you have a beautiful thought? Is the jagged peak of a snow capped mountain beautiful merely because of its line, its color, its shape and how these things relate to each other? Why do scientists and mathematicians believe that solutions can be beautiful, and beautiful solutions are more likely to be true?

These may not seem like profound questions, but they reveal a very deep disconnect between our human experience and our culturally acceptable definitions of what is real. That makes them very profound. I will argue that this disconnect exists and it exposes an inanity about our culturally conditioned common, everyday ideas about something deeply significant.

Is there any question that experiencing beauty is about as universal a human experience as anything? The earliest non-tool artifacts of human presence are paintings of animals and voluptuous sculptures of females. These date back 60,000 years. Looking at them today, we don’t doubt either their spiritual significance nor their beauty.

The evolutionary explanation for beauty

Google the evolutionary source of beauty and you will find one answer is offered: beauty is all about attracting the best possible mates. No question that the…