Is beauty Fractal?

[Phitek]

First off, I know that a similar question was asked some time ago in a different post.

I am sure that it might be that many of you are bored of this topic, so here's a different question.

Is beauty Fractal?

Can fractals can be used as a way of measuring things?
If the answer is "yes", then can beauty be measured, or quantified?
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, can a general rule to measure whatever people agree is "beauty", be produced?
Symmetry is a good place to start I believe, the golden ratio, harmonics and fractal dimension could be involved.

I'm of the opinion that the human mind when unhindered by perception can generate it's own reality, "dreams" for instance.
Is the mind in that case informed by outside influence when considering what is beautiful, or is it an inherited trait.
It has been suggested that the mind can produce fractal brainwaves when involved in artistic endeavours.
Is beauty the mind recognising it's self (brainwaves) in what it perceives as beautiful or not!

Beauty plays an important role in choices that we make everyday;
for instance voting for the Fractal Forums Art contest.
I think this is a worthwhile question.

I'd be interested to read your thoughts on this.

[youhn]

Well, sounds a bit like playing with word. And since we all like playing, I'll go along a bit. My personal opinion is that fractals can be beatiful, but not all of them though. But I wouldn't turn it around and say that beauty is (a) fractal. Beauty is a concept with a pretty vague content. It's all about social-personal-cultural style and taste. An old steel brigde can be beauty to a structural engineer, same as a piece of good written source code can be beauty to a programmer. So if you want to measure it, first you have to classify it. That means putting every piece of beauty in a clearly bounded scope, without giving every little thing it's own space. That of couse brings the need for compromises. Think of all the overlapping in both place and time of all the known art-styles. Or just think about every method to classify only our music. In how many subgenres do we need to split Metal?

Could you explain what you mean by "fractal brainwaves"? Do you mean the shape of the waves? Or the timing, like in our heart-rhythm?

[Sockratease]

I'll play too.

While I believe it impossible to quantify beauty, there is no question that most of us perceive some things of beauty to be more or less beautiful than other things of beauty.

It presents an interesting dilemma.  

...Beauty is a concept with a pretty vague content. It's all about social-personal-cultural style and taste. ...

Another factor is the mood of the observer.

Often I am not in the mood for a certain piece of music, and it's beauty does not impress me, then at other times I can find it mesmerizing.  And on one occasion a piece of poetry can be read and found mundane, but re-reading it years later it can move you to tears.

Being "in the mood" can change everything.  Even my votes in the contest were effected!  I tried to vote only when the mood for perusing Art was right.  There were days and times it would have been unfair to even try and rate images or videos.

So is beauty fractal?

I can't answer that until we agree upon a definition of beauty!  And that's no easier than defining Truth or even Art  (as evidenced by the longevity of the "Definition of Art" thread - That's years old and still going!   )

[Phitek]

Okay,

Fractals, Self organization of the brain, and behaviour, all have a common roots.
in the book "Dynamic Patterns" by J.A.Scott Kelso, he describes the way of different parts of the body and mind cooperate.
This creates a synergy, like hand to eye coordination.
As children we have to learn how to interact with the world with what we have;our senses give us information, which becomes a rule base for our behaviour.

For instance why do young babies shove anything and everything into their mouths.

Yes I'm describing the shape of the brainwaves, but also the synergy of self organization.

Learning to drive is really difficult, lots of new information is throw at us, and we have to coordinate our responses quickly.
But we don't think about driving much once we have learned, to do so would probably cause us to crash!
We cope because of the dynamic framework we create in order to cope with events we face.

Fractal by the way is the correct usage of the word in this context.
I'm trying to ascertain if the properties of fractal geometry can be applied to human concepts of beauty.
Also if the concept can be applied in a wider way.

I could of asked "is beauty truth?"

Ask a musician or sportsman about "being in the zone", when everything they do just goes right for them.
I agree with Sockratease; mood is most certainly a factor, but do we self-organize at a subconscious level?
Crowds can change mood in seconds, ask any public speaker.

Is there a base we can work from?

[youhn]

We could look at the established universal/global/human/... things in beauty. Think of the golden ratio, smoothness, puppies, boobs, gold, sunrise, ... What's the common thing in all of those?

[visual.bermarte]

can beauty be measured, or quantified?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings Here we can see an example of measure. 

[Sockratease]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings Here we can see an example of measure. 

That's funny!

I think many of those works are ugly.  I recognize the historical significance and the talent involved - but I still say many of them are ugly.

Besides, there's not a single Vaughan Bode piece in the lot!  How can anybody discuss Great Art without mentioning Da Bode??

[youhn]

Could it actually be an inversed scale? 

[Phitek]

Monetary Value is not an answer, wealthy people who buy art are not buying into aesthetic value, but investing (hiding) their assets.
Of course you know that right!
Democracy has no taste! 
Most people have not the first clue about what is valuable (to a collector) anyway.
I don't, because if I did, I wouldn't bother with asking people questions. (in fact I didn't for the longest time)
I'd out there making as much as I can.

It's not the question that I asked.
Or the answer I wanted.
I just wondered If anyone took this stuff (fractal forums) seriously.

So you're comedians hey! Well done you.

I'll get back to making some money now.

[Sockratease]

Monetary Value is not an answer, wealthy people who buy art are not buying into aesthetic value, but investing (hiding) their assets.
Of course you know that right!
Democracy has no taste! 
Most people have not the first clue about what is valuable (to a collector) anyway.
I don't, because if I did, I wouldn't bother with asking people questions. (in fact I didn't for the longest time)
I'd out there making as much as I can.

It's not the question that I asked.
Or the answer I wanted.
I just wondered If anyone took this stuff (fractal forums) seriously.

So you're comedians hey! Well done you.

I'll get back to making some money now.

I don't think anybody was trying to dismiss the entire discussion.  Just trying to have a little fun with a concept that has stumped the greatest minds in history!

The link to prices was funny, and a few of us found it funny enough to point out how funny it was.

Yet, it *is* a means of quantifying ...  something!  What people are willing to pay such outrageous sums for is an indicator of ...  something else!

I think we all take this topic seriously, but I make it a point to joke about everything - especially things I take seriously   

It's not as if there is any right or wrong answer to this sort of inquiry.  All we can do is banter back and forth, seeking the little bits of wisdom that may pop up in the process   

[Phitek]

Perhaps I'm at fault here,

I was thinking that philosophy was a search for meaning and definition,
So a measure of intangibles like the word "beauty" is well suited to the pursuit.
Nothing wrong with a bit of banter.
I live in (near) Liverpool, England, and philosophy and humour go "hand in hand" especially in pubs.
(I'm a member of the Philosophy in Pubs group, very popular in Liverpool and around the U.K.)
There's nothing wrong with not taking things too seriously, so that's all good, I laughed at the list as well.

People who are not involved in the pursuit of art often mistake monetary value for worth(or merit).
It could seem to an outside observer that money was the only bench mark.

I know that for you (like myself) your motivation for making fractal art is not money, that the the process of creation helps you.
So a self-referencing, self-organizing scale of things like emotional, technical, and aesthetic value could be a useful way of looking at art.
Not all art is beautiful, some is challenging, confrontational, I was not trying to classify art.
Of course all art is concerned with personal subjective opinion. This is not in dispute.

I was hoping for a wider perspective, to help people understand better what we do, in it's own terms.
In the (possibly vain) attempt to communicate with those who would readily dismiss what we do as "pushing buttons".

So to start off let's address the nub of the question;

What is beauty?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The experience of "beauty" often involves an interpretation of some entity as being in balance and harmony with nature, which may lead to feelings of attraction and emotional well-being. Because this can be a subjective experience, it is often said that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

There is evidence that perceptions of beauty are evolutionarily determined, that things, aspects of people and landscapes considered beautiful are typically found in situations likely to give enhanced survival of the perceiving human's genes.

Seeing that fractal geometry was an attempt to define/measure natural things, why not "beauty".

[Sockratease]

Perhaps I'm at fault here

I see nobody at fault here!  We's juss' havin' a conversayshun  

I live in (near) Liverpool, England, and philosophy and humour go "hand in hand" especially in pubs.
(I'm a member of the Philosophy in Pubs group, very popular in Liverpool and around the U.K.)
There's nothing wrong with not taking things too seriously, so that's all good, I laughed at the list as well.

I had great fun taking philosophy classes in college.  So much so that I accidentally got the degree!  (I was taking it as electives while bouncing from major to major when one day I was looking for another, and noticed I took, and got an "A" in, them all!)  (So I just said "Gimme the degree!").  I was one of the very few who insisted on having fun in philosophy class - And every paper I ever wrote was pure satire for my own amusement, despite their going over well with the profs!

People who are not involved in the pursuit of art often mistake monetary value for worth(or merit).
It could seem to an outside observer that money was the only bench mark.

To support that theory, just go to the Art Museum, head for the Modern Art section, sit down, look busy, and listen!  People discuss that very thing a lot.  I hear "How could he get money for that garbage?" or some variant thereof quite frequently.

I know that for you (like myself) your motivation for making fractal art is not money, that the the process of creation helps you.
So a self-referencing, self-organizing scale of things like emotional, technical, and aesthetic value could be a useful way of looking at art.
Not all art is beautiful, some is challenging, confrontational, I was not trying to classify art.
Of course all art is concerned with personal subjective opinion. This is not in dispute.

Ready for a shocker?

I actually DID have a commercial motivation for getting into Fractal Art, and was making money from using it as a part of my work from Day One!

All that stuff blending images of Lissa  (my Fiancee) with fractals, and even mapping her into orbit traps, was part of a job I got helping out on her "Modeling" website in 2006!  We actually met that way and things went surprisingly well.  We became very close and are together to this day!

I needed Royalty Free imagery for backgrounds and other graphics and fractal generators were the easiest way to generate such content for free.

I guess it grew on me  

I was hoping for a wider perspective, to help people understand better what we do, in it's own terms.
In the (possibly vain) attempt to communicate with those who would readily dismiss what we do as "pushing buttons".

But ...  we are "pushing buttons" !  Pushing buttons with no clue what I'm doing is how I got started in Fractal Art  

So to start off let's address the nub of the question;

What is beauty?

Seeing that fractal geometry was an attempt to define/measure natural things, why not "beauty".

Beauty is ...

THIS:



...

OK, I know what you meant.  I just can't resist an excuse to dig out those old images I got started with  

The question of "Is Beauty Fractal" may never be answered because Beauty is exceedingly difficult to define.  When Benoit Mandelbrot set out to use Fractal Geometry to describe Nature - he at least had a clearly defined subject, like clouds, trees, and coastlines.  While those things are exceedingly difficult to describe in detail - at least they are clearly defined and few people will argue over what constitutes a cloud or a tree or a coastline.

It will be an interesting effort to define Beauty in such a way as to be able to take it to the next step and inquire if it is Fractal.

Here's how I'd approach it if I *had* to :

Beauty is an emotional value judgement, of sorts.  An value judgements as well as emotions are the result of a thought process.  So the question now becomes a variant of "Are Thoughts Fractal?"

I am infamous around here for refusing to admit Fractals into Reality and still maintain that they are purely a Mathematical Construct with absolutely no corollary in Reality.

Sure, you get things made via iterative processes, but not all iterative processes are fractal!

So I would have to be the one to give the first (Purely Subjective!) answer and say - No.  Thoughts, beauty, and absolutely everything else in the universe is not fractal.

An unpopular stance around here, but it's mine and I am sticking to it  

[Phitek]

  Yes that's funny fella!

I've got to admit, in a strict "maths" (that's how we say it in England)  sense you are correct.
Okay, what if we leave the strict definition of Fractal to one side for the moment.

I believe that to understand "Beauty" is to go some way to understanding Humanity and it's choices.(Subjective)
These choices were/are not always correct, and popular opinion (democracy), until lately, has not played a part.
Given that we still sometimes (most of the time) as a whole make bad choices (or let others make bad choices for us).
People often use the "informed" opinion of others to make these choices (especially in art).

Could feedback (biometric data from the viewer) such as it is at the moment, give an indication as to the emotional state of the viewer.
Could this is turn be used create a pattern or map of emotional reaction as a common reference.
Could such a map be a useful measure of "Beauty".

I come from a programming background (software engineering), although it's been many years since I did anything seriously (programming-wise).
It's been about 30 years that I've been producing fractal images.
All that time I've been hoping that fractals may be useful to us (other than pretty pictures) one day.

Emotional mapping is not a new thing, but using fractal images to provoke an emotional response,
measuring that response, and then feeding it back into the image might get us somewhere (or not).
I must admit it's early days for biometrics, but this might be a fun (hopefully useful) thing to do.

It might not, strictly speaking, be Fractal, but it would be a start!

I've seen and read about some examples of this, is there anyone here (on FF) actually trying to do this.
It would be an interesting project, and might lead somewhere.

As to the question "Are thoughts Fractal?", I would say that say the jury is still out on that one.
It would be worth finding out though! (ref : Kelso's "Dynamic Patterns" has some interesting ideas on this)

[Chillheimer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings Here we can see an example of measure. 

and we at least can say that the second place in the list, the pollock picture definitely is a fractal:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/unJhM0RVwoo&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/unJhM0RVwoo&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>
at around 40 minutes