Monday, August 16, 2010

Beauty and Paradox from My "Diaphysics"

A thing is beautiful if it is paradoxical. Beauty has or contains the following features:

Complexity within Simplicity

Digital-Analog

Emergent from Conflict

Evolutionary (changes over time)

Generative and Creative

Hierarchical Organization

Play (a nonserious thing done seriously)

Reflexivity or Feedback

Rhythmicity

Rule-Based

Scalar Self-Similarity

Time-Bound

Unity in Multiplicity

These are also features of the universe as a whole. Christian Fuchs lists the following features as aspects of self-organization:

Emergence

Complexity

Cohesion (digial-analog)

Openness

Bottom-up Emergence

Downward Causation

Non-Linearity

Feedback Loops, Circular Causality

Information

Relative Chance

Hierarchy

Globalization and Localization

Unity in Plurality (Generality and Specificity)

And for Emergence, he lists the following aspects:

Synergism (productive interaction between parts)

Novelty

Irreducibility

Unpredictability

Coherence/Correlation

Historicity

If we compare the lists, we can see there is a correlation between self-organizing complex systems and beauty. Each have the same attributes. "Cognition, co-operation and communication are phenomena that can be found in different forms in all self-organizing systems. Information is a relationship that exists as a relationship between specific organizational units of matter (Fuchs). All beautiful objects are information-generating systems. And to the extent that something is a self-organizing system, it is beautiful.

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