Re: What is beauty?

[Tuan V Nguyen <t.nguyen@garvan.unsw.edu.au>]

Hello folks,

        Have some time to chat with you about this topic.

At 06:00 PM 7/1/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello,
>  I have decided to keep quiet on this thread. However, the positivism
>made me open my mouth.

        Ba'c AiViet ma` comment then I have to look and think about it.

>  First, the process told by Anh Tuan says that ** the average of beauty
>is the beauty of average **. I am not sure that I would have chosen the
>average one. Up to now my taste used to be different. I am always able to 
>show which beauty is the one chosen by the average, but that is not 
>always the same as my type. Maybe, Freud could have taken me as a patient.

        Plato used to say that what is beautiful is also ugly in some
respects. He was happy with the intermediate character.
 
       There is a contradictory argument which goes something like this: A
thing can be both beautiful and not beautiful, and that nevertheless
particular things seem to combine such contradictory characteristics. Thus,
particular things are not real. Only the average is real and that is why it
represents the beauty. An ancient philosopher said "we step and do not step
into the same rivers' we are and are not." But combining the "step" and "not
step", we arrive at the result.


  Second, I have not always been excited in young women (perhaps I did 
>not have a chance to meet a good one). My ideal woman was always a middle 
>age. To me the really good woman should have a mature beauty in her 
>middle age. So at this point, your theory failed. Don't tell me that is 
>because I am not capable for reproduction :-)))  

        On the contrary, your perception of beauty is right on the average,
anh Viet. :)

        A man who loves beautiful women is not a philosopher. A philosopher
loves beauty in itself. The man who loves beautiful women is dreaming,
whereas the man who values absolute beauty is awake. 


        Cheers,


                Tuan