# What is beauty?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 19, 2004, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858 "2004-04-19T17:55:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@MoosyMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MoosyMan)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2004, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/1 "2004-04-19T17:55:41Z")
What is beautiful? Is it emotions, songs, situations, faces?
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### Author:  [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2004, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/2 "2004-04-19T18:05:35Z")
> [@MoosyMan](#):
>
> What is beautiful?
A summer day, a golden haired girl and the laughter of children.
Oops. You forgot to mention either Bush, Iraq or Israel.
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### Author:  [@hlujarn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hlujarn)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2004, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/3 "2004-04-19T18:33:07Z")
> [@MoosyMan](#):
>
> What is beautiful?
In the eye of the beholder.
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### Author:  [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2004, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/4 "2004-04-19T18:35:57Z")
That sensory input which activates dopamine receptors in the frontal cortex.
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### Author:  [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/5 "2004-04-19T18:53:27Z")
Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/6 "2004-04-19T19:20:50Z")
Good health, or at least the appearance of good health.
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### Author:  [@Brandus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brandus)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2004, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/7 "2004-04-19T19:43:58Z")
“good” + “rare” = “beautiful”
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### Author:  [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2004, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/8 "2004-04-19T19:56:57Z")
Santayana-- “Beauty is pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing.”
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2004, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/9 "2004-04-19T20:16:25Z")
Modesty forbids.
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### Author:  [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/10 "2004-04-20T00:48:52Z")
Words I’ve always lived by:
> [@Conan](#):
>
> To crush your enemies! To see dem driven before you! To hear da lamentations of da women!
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2004, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/11 "2004-04-20T02:44:17Z")
Having qualities that delight the senses.
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### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2004, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/12 "2004-04-20T04:21:16Z")
**Moderator’s Note:** Merged duplicate threads and changed thread title for clarity.
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### Author:  [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2004, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/13 "2004-04-20T12:19:44Z")
It’s easy to present examples of things that are beautiful. However, what is beauty in and of itself is harder to say.
I think it’s a question of primal importance that’s under appreciated.
IMHO, most everything boils down to a matter of aesthetics. Aesthetics are the reasons for choosing the criteria one uses to choose criteria.
In the end, when reasons are traced back far enough, it becomes a question of, (or the answers become), what is desired.
Why is it desirable? Well because of X. What is it about X that makes it desirable? Well, it’s because of Y. And Y is desirable because… it’s beautiful.
Some terrible and ugly things’re beautiful, or make for a beautiful worldview.
It’s really hard to discuss w/o coffee.
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### Author:  [@Starguard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starguard)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2004, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/14 "2004-04-22T11:23:48Z")
Beauty = Any object or sound that pleases the mind
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Sugar is sweet
But not like you
The Roses fade
The Voilets fall
But you get sweeter
All and All
That was a “poem” that was read in my third grade class by some girl named Prescilla Carr (back in 1973)
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2004, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/15 "2004-04-22T14:26:22Z")
Beauty is largely defined by familiarity.
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### Author:  [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2004, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/16 "2004-04-22T15:23:13Z")
beauty requires both familarity and unfamiliarity. I find beauty is like humor. Encapsulating unconventionality in familiar paradigms.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2004, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/17 "2004-04-22T15:50:32Z")
First point to be understood when trying to define beauty: _There’s no such thing._
That is, there’s no universal quality that fits any definition of that word: it’s utterly subjective and individual.
The more people who find a particular thing beautiful–the more universally beautiful a thing is perceived to be–the less individual that perception is (this is of course pretty damn near tautological). Therefore, IMO, the less beautiful that thing really is. Applying a concept something like “lowest common denominator” here.
Therefore, the word “beauty” only has meaning, IMO, in an individual, subjective, \*private \* context: as a universal term it’s meaningless.
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### Author:  [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/18 "2004-04-22T16:02:31Z")
Wasn’t there a study done some years ago where beauty was found to be heavily grounded in symmetry? That everything from people to plants to birds to art was considered MORE beautiful by test subjects if they appeared symmetrical?
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### Author:  [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2004, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/19 "2004-04-22T16:12:46Z")
> [@lissener](#):
>
> The more people who find a particular thing beautiful–the more universally beautiful a thing is perceived to be–the less individual that perception is (this is of course pretty damn near tautological). Therefore, IMO, the less beautiful that thing really is. Applying a concept something like “lowest common denominator” here.
Not sure if you’re replying to me, but since I’m the only one in between your posts, I’ll assume so.
I made no claims about the universality of beauty, so not sure where you picked up that from.
Anyway, your initial claim that there is no such thing as beauty is patently denied by the rest of your comment where you attempt to correlate an entity’s beauty with the preponderance of public consensus.
However, your claim itself that commonly percieved beauty renders the object of attention less beautiful, assumes that popular beauty is necessarily a memetic-driven device. While this is probably true in most instances, there can exist objects beautiful just by consequence of triggering certain neural responses.
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### Author:  [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2004, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/240858/20 "2004-04-22T16:19:01Z")
Beauty is a young Courteney Cox.
Or fabulous supermodel Stacey Williams.
Or Zev’s wife.
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