Beauty is what emerges out of the interaction of paradoxical elements. The more paradoxical elements, the more beautiful the object.
I am pretty certain the above is true. Some examples:
Woody Brock's concept of relative complexity of theme versus complexity of transformation of theme
beauty balances symmetry and asymmetry (the golden mean ratio being an example)
beauty contains both unity and variety
Beauty is emergent from the conflict between paradoxical opposites.
More, the universe seems to also be emergent from the conflict between paradoxical opposites. Self-organizing systems, too, emerge when there are paradoxical opposites (I just finished reading Paul Krugman's "The Self-Organizing Economy," in which he observes that cities self-organize into complex patterns due to the simultaneous presence of centripetal and centrifugal forces among businesses, for example). Indeed, the strange attractors of chaotic, biotic, and self-organizing systems are paradoxical in nature, simultaneously attracting and repulsing. If all of this is true, then Frederick Turner is correct when he says that our recognition of beauty is the recognition of the deep tendencies of the universe itself. Since these deep tendencies keep arising -- and keep arising in more and more complex forms -- then it makes evolutionary sense for us to appreciate beauty.
Paradox is a pair that seem self-contradictory, but in fact arise out of reflexivity. How can something be both symmetrical and asymmetrical at the same time? Or both complex and simple simultaneously? These are paradoxical relations. The golden mean ratio is an irrational ratio (and ratios are rational), meaning it is a paradox.
An example:
Something cannot be both black and non-black at the same time and in the same sense, as that would be a contradiction. However, something can be a mixture of black and white. One kind of mixture -- a linear mixture -- gives us gray, of course -- but another kind of mixture, a nonlinear mixture where the object simultaneously becomes more black and more white at the same time will give us something with black and white texture, with large splotches and areas of black and white. For for something to become more black and more white at the same time is a paradox. It also gives one more order as well.
The strange attractor is strange precisely because it attracts and repels simultaneously.
11 comments:
"Beauty is what emerges out of the interaction of paradoxical elements."
I agree that beauty is often paradoxical, but aren't there bad paradoxes, i.e. double-binds, as well as good ones? Much postmodern art deals with paradox, but a starving worm with its mouth sewn to its own a**hole isn't beautiful, although the survival problem it represents may necessitate the emergence of some meta-idea or higher integrative level that is.
"The more paradoxical elements, the more beautiful the object."
This is true of the baroque, but what about the beauty of simplicity and austerity? Is a Julia set necessarily more beautiful than a perfect sphere or an isosceles triangle? For me it is, but someone with a different personality, e.g. someone who dislikes loose ends, may feel differently.
I don't necessarily disagree that the interaction of paradoxical elements is often beautiful, but I'm not so sure about the leap from a specific, descriptive statement to a general, normative one.
A double-bind is not a paradox. Neither is a dilemma. The example of the worm is not a demonstration of a paradox. Postmodernism has never been about paradox. It has been about perversion and sacrilege, but never paradox. What you did get right in the first paragraph, though, is that the resolution of paradox does result in a higher integrative level. That is part of beauty.
There is not beauty in pure simplicity, but only in apparent simplicity. A triangle has a deeper mathematical complexity. A sphere contains pi, which is an irrational ratio (a paradox -- being both rational and irrational). The only people who find true simplicity "beautiful" are autistics -- and I am interested in healthy beauty, not unhealthy versions (which are also the exceptions). However, even apparently simple things contain paradoxes. I already mentioned pi in relation to spheres (and circles). BUt there is also the golden mean (also an irrational ratio), found in the simple shapes of doors, windows, houses, coffee tables, T.V.s, etc. The apparent simplicity holds within it a true complexity.
On the other hand, we can take Rothko, whose squares seem to violate my contention about beauty. However, when we learn that Rothko intended his pieces to be a meditative space away from the complexities of modern life, and were therefore intended to be experienced within that context, as a simplicity in balance with life's complexity -- thus, the paradox holds.
I go further: when paradoxes interact, it is always beautiful. And the more such interactions, the more beautiful the object. This is why human-made beauty is more beautiful than the beauty of nature. Give me anything a typical person finds beautiful, and I guarantee there are paradoxes inherent in it. And I mean true paradoxes, not contradictories, dilemmas, or other kinds of dualities.
If you want to semantically annex the term "paradox," be my guest. But conventional usage suggests it's not so black and white.
or maybe "cut and dried" would be a better term, in the context.
I'm not concerned with conventional misuses of a word. I'm interested in the proper uses of a word. In fact, paradox comes from para- meaning "contrary" and doxa meaning "opinion" -- so the term's etymology suggests you should pay much attention to popular misuses of the word. In its originary sense, a paradox is a true statement that appears to say opposite things. Philosophy properly done attempts to go beyond what is commonly understood to a better, clearer, truer understanding. Look to Heraclitus for examples of true paradox. Or Plato's Phaedrus.
Heraclitus:
"You can and cannot step into the same river twice" -- which gets at the truth of what a river "is"
It is proposed that we have had passed down to us only one half of a Heracliten paradox in his statement that "War is the father of all things," and that the other half should be "And peace is its mother." But even what he have is a paradox, because we do not think of war as creative.
Simultaneous attraction and repulsion lies as the foundation of everything in existence -- we see it in atoms, in molecular bonds, in human interactions (love and hate, xenophobia and xenophilia, competition and cooperation, etc.). It is the very nature of strange attractors.
These are true paradoxes. They are not contradictories. They are not dilemmas. Being stuck between a rock and a hard place is not a paradox, but a dilemma. Something being red and not red simultaneously is a contradiction. Something being complex and simple simultaneously is a paradox. Different words mean different things, and if we mix them up. our thoughts become muddled. True philosophy clarifies thoughts, meaning one of its main jobs is to make sure everything is properly (vs. commonly) defined.
Paradox is precisely what is missing in postmodernism.
I love your intelligence and your conviction, Troy. Your style of argument with extreme prejudice rubs me the wrong way sometimes, but there's room for many stars under the firmament, eh?
I think you're basically right, but postmodern "paradox" may generally be an identification of the survival problem with a misguided rejection of the (meta) solution.
I merely search for clarity of thought -- which is precisely what is lacking in too many areas in literary studies, for example: postmodernism, psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, etc. These areas are dominated by bad thinking, and it's too easy to fall into their habits, even as we try to move beyond them (or try to integrate them in with better models).
I still see no evidence that paradox is actually involved in postmodernism. Contradictories, yes (as those undermine logic -- logos), but not paradoxes. This is one of the places where postmodernism gets Nietzsche wrong, for example. They do not understand the difference between contradictories and paradoxes. They think Nietzsche affirmed the former, when he in fact affirmed the latter. He was very much in the Hegelian tradition, though Nietzsche affirmed the perpetual conflict and rejected Hegel's dissolution of thesis-antithesis into synthesis, arguing instead that such a dissolution would result in the collapse of the system rather than emergence into a new one. Nietzsche believed that an agonal relationship between paradoxical opposites was what kept things going, and resulted in creativity. I am certain both are right, believing a synthesis occurs, but the original tensions remain. The postmodernists reject all of this in their very rejection of logos. Thus, postmodernism does not affirm paradox, which is the source of its anti-beauty stance. Contradictories do nothing more than cause the brain to try to figure out what pattern is there and, finding none, creates the simplest solution. Paradoxes generate more complex patterns and are thus creative. Paradoxes and contradictories could not possibly be more opposite each other. When postmodernists claim to affirm paradox when they in fact affirm contradictories, they do nothing more than undermine all arguments for beauty itself -- which is after all the very soul of postmodernism itself. Don't fall into their trap.
Lordy, I was drunk when I wrote that last comment. "Under the firmament"? How tacky.
Maybe you're right. I've been trying to think of clear examples of the kind of paradox I'm talking about, and I can't find any good ones. Maybe if I was willing to spend the weekend with Foucault...
*shudder*
Just bought a book on the paradoxes underlying biological organization and human behavior. Should be interesting.
What's it called? And what's the name of that other one you were showing me? I think it had to do with networks, cultural transmission, evolution and some other stuff.
New book: Paradoxical Life by Andreas Wagner
The other book: Evolution in Four Dimensions by Eva Jablonka aand Marion J. Lamb
Another new book: Virus of the Mind The New Science of the Meme by Richard Brodie
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