What is more beautiful: Man-made or Nature-Made?

[dratsab]

Not withstanding that man is a product of nature, cough.

I believe that the products of man are more beautiful than that made by the chance happenings of nature, but I am a sucker for waterfalls.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Are you serious? A car is more beautiful than a tiger or an oak tree? How can our puny human creations even begin to compare? The mutations might be 'random chance', but the natural selection that results in nature's beauty is not. I suppose it would explain a lot though, regarding the state of the planet, if enough people are thinking along the same lines as you.

[Blaggard]

Natural made hands down:







I rest my case.

Notice the church in the fore ground, a lovely looking building no doubt, for comparison, how much it must weep before the back ground.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

jaguar.jpg (114.26 KiB) Viewed 14137 times

Perhaps the reason we like to destroy this sort of thing is because we know we can't compare.

[uwot]

Hello bastard
I think Blaggard makes a reasonable case with regard to visuals, although it should be noted that there are very few wildernesses left, the second picture he posted is at least 50% man made for instance. Having said that, there are plenty of manufactured objects that can inspire awe in the way that mountains, sunsets or even waterfalls can. Being 'natural' is no guarantee of beauty either; I'm sure their mothers love them, but blobfish are not pretty. Aurally, I think humankind walks it, there are no natural sounds to compare with whatever your favourite music happens to be. The best smells and tastes are human made, usually by combining natural things in ways that hadn't occurred to nature. As for tactile beauty, it's a bit of both, really; the best sense of touch is from another person doing what comes naturally. On balance, I think humans shade it, but as you point out, humans are only natural.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Hello bastard
I think Blaggard makes a reasonable case with regard to visuals, although it should be noted that there are very few wildernesses left, the second picture he posted is at least 50% man made for instance. Having said that, there are plenty of manufactured objects that can inspire awe in the way that mountains, sunsets or even waterfalls can. Being 'natural' is no guarantee of beauty either; I'm sure their mothers love them, but blobfish are not pretty. Aurally, I think humankind walks it, there are no natural sounds to compare with whatever your favourite music happens to be. The best smells and tastes are human made, usually by combining natural things in ways that hadn't occurred to nature. As for tactile beauty, it's a bit of both, really; the best sense of touch is from another person doing what comes naturally. On balance, I think humans shade it, but as you point out, humans are only natural.

Part of it might have been manipulated by man, but it's still the manipulation of nature.

[uwot]

Part of it might have been manipulated by man, but it's still the manipulation of nature.

Well, yes. There isn't anything else to manipulate.

[Blaggard]

Hello bastard
I think Blaggard makes a reasonable case with regard to visuals, although it should be noted that there are very few wildernesses left, the second picture he posted is at least 50% man made for instance. Having said that, there are plenty of manufactured objects that can inspire awe in the way that mountains, sunsets or even waterfalls can. Being 'natural' is no guarantee of beauty either; I'm sure their mothers love them, but blobfish are not pretty. Aurally, I think humankind walks it, there are no natural sounds to compare with whatever your favourite music happens to be. The best smells and tastes are human made, usually by combining natural things in ways that hadn't occurred to nature. As for tactile beauty, it's a bit of both, really; the best sense of touch is from another person doing what comes naturally. On balance, I think humans shade it, but as you point out, humans are only natural.

Ok in sound the human walks it. But for sense, man made sense are all derived from natural senses. I think nature walks all the other senses but sound. Nature I think is much more spectacular than the banal input of men. Everything else is just trying to compare itself to nature, and nature will win that competition every time, every flavour, every sight, every touch. The feel of a velvet over some human construction. Come on nature is by far and a way the most beautiful thing man kind will ever "see" feel, taste or hear. Human construction in comparison to it is a poor second every time. Let's face it human beings look upon nature and are jealous of its beauty. The things they make are only sad copies of it.

[thedoc]

Human creation is mostly a copy of nature, possibly a symphony is very beautiful, but the sounds of the forest on a warm summer night should not be dismissed. And it should be considered that the sound of a human voice is as natural as any other animal sound. Humans can possibly reproduce and copy nature on a certain scale, but humans cannot create anything as large as a Galaxy or as small as a molecule with as much elegance as is found in nature.

[uwot]

It's a long time since I studied aesthetics seriously, but I think thinking has moved on from the idea that art is mimesis. Nature is a fabulous thing, but it can also be very ugly, parasitic wasps, liver flukes and whatnot. We only have nature, the raw materials to work with, but we have made things as astonishing and diverse as the Sistine Chapel and the large Hadron collider. What we haven't yet done is produce a mechanism capable of producing such wonders. If you consider that the human brain is a product of nature, it's a no brainer, but I think nature has produced something that can produce things it, of itself, cannot and we are very lucky to have one.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Human creation is mostly a copy of nature, possibly a symphony is very beautiful, but the sounds of the forest on a warm summer night should not be dismissed. And it should be considered that the sound of a human voice is as natural as any other animal sound. Humans can possibly reproduce and copy nature on a certain scale, but humans cannot create anything as large as a Galaxy or as small as a molecule with as much elegance as is found in nature.

I was in the supermarket the other day and I heard a man whistling. I can honestly say, without exaggeration, that it was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. More beautiful than any birdsong I know of, but that might be because he was a fellow human, and his whistle is tuned to my human brain. It was like having the best drug ever. If he had gone on I would have fallen asleep. We are still part of nature, if only more of us realised it.

[dratsab]

"Are you serious? A car is more beautiful than a tiger or an oak tree? How can our puny human creations even begin to compare? The mutations might be 'random chance', but the natural selection that results in nature's beauty is not. I suppose it would explain a lot though, regarding the state of the planet, if enough people are thinking along the same lines as you."

The state of the planet? You mean the fact that humans have more freedoms now? Longer average lives? Higher standards of living? A car? Well, that depends on the type of car, hohohoh.

"Notice the church in the fore ground, a lovely looking building no doubt, for comparison, how much it must weep before the back ground. "

Ehh, as an atheist I'm no fan of churches, so maybe in this specific comparison I would favor nature. How about the pyramids or the hanging gardens? Though one could argue that gardens are a hybrid, but really the line is hard to draw between nature and man, since man is a sub-category of nature.

"Perhaps the reason we like to destroy this sort of thing is because we know we can't compare."

In what way? We are smarter than any animal and we can build things that no animal can build... hell, most animals can't even build anything, and they don't have a purpose.

"but humans cannot create anything as large as a Galaxy or as small as a molecule with as much elegance as is found in nature."

Not yet.

"If you consider that the human brain is a product of nature"

I think the human brain would have to be disqualified from the discussion since it is what the argument for man's works vs nature's works is based on. Technically, every work of art by man is also a work by nature.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

"Are you serious? A car is more beautiful than a tiger or an oak tree? How can our puny human creations even begin to compare? The mutations might be 'random chance', but the natural selection that results in nature's beauty is not. I suppose it would explain a lot though, regarding the state of the planet, if enough people are thinking along the same lines as you."

The state of the planet? You mean the fact that humans have more freedoms now? Longer average lives? Higher standards of living? A car? Well, that depends on the type of car, hohohoh.

"Notice the church in the fore ground, a lovely looking building no doubt, for comparison, how much it must weep before the back ground. "

Ehh, as an atheist I'm no fan of churches, so maybe in this specific comparison I would favor nature. How about the pyramids or the hanging gardens? Though one could argue that gardens are a hybrid, but really the line is hard to draw between nature and man, since man is a sub-category of nature.

"Perhaps the reason we like to destroy this sort of thing is because we know we can't compare."

In what way? We are smarter than any animal and we can build things that no animal can build... hell, most animals can't even build anything, and they don't have a purpose.

"but humans cannot create anything as large as a Galaxy or as small as a molecule with as much elegance as is found in nature."

Not yet.

"If you consider that the human brain is a product of nature"

I think the human brain would have to be disqualified from the discussion since it is what the argument for man's works vs nature's works is based on. Technically, every work of art by man is also a work by nature.

Other animals have no purpose? What's that supposed to mean?

[Blaggard]

Incidentally what it will look like from our point of view when the milky way and Andromeda collide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnYCpQyRp-4

This shows the collision.

Don't worry though it is unlikely we will be destroyed by the collision.

How beautiful is that though man kind eat your heart out.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Incidentally what it will look like from our point of view when the milky way and Andromeda collide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnYCpQyRp-4

This shows the collision.

Don't worry though it is unlikely we will be destroyed by the collision.

How beautiful is that though man kind eat your heart out.

Very interesting. Thanks.