I suppose I have to argue why, I apologize for this being long and IMO inane.
It works like this. I have faith that human beauty isn’t completely arbitrary. While some aspects may be arbitrary, there are some rules to it that would be shared by other species that have a concept of beauty. The only reason why there wouldn’t be a common rule is if beauty is completely arbitrary, in which case we wouldn’t expect other species to have the concept anyway. The common rule would validate beauty in different contexts and would provide the possibility of a common universal beauty.
For the sake of argument: Let’s suppose a meta-property of beauty is the following rule: Something is beautiful if it physically manifests a value that you have. (This is the best I can come up with.)
The baby-eaters think that ruthlessly eating their young is beautiful. Applying the meta-rule, ruthlessly eating babies must represent some value X they have. (For example, X could be the thrill of power, exerting their will in defiance of what is good.). Thus the beauty of ruthlessness (context: baby-eaters) is validated by the fact that it is a physical manifestation of the value X.
It doesn’t matter if you value X. By logical application of the meta-rule, if you value X, you will be able to see some beauty in the physical manifestation of X. If you don’t value X, then it won’t be beautiful to you. This does not present any problem.
There’s mostly nothing meaningful here: I just got out what I put in with this silly example. But just one thing: even though your ideas of beauty are quite different from the baby-eaters, it is possible to find something beautiful in common. Namely, if there’s a common value. The beauty of the manifestation of a common value would have an external, objective beauty. This objective beauty evolved from whatever rules evolved sapience and the concept of beauty in the first place (quantum mechanics, somehow).
I think (3) is true.
I suppose I have to argue why, I apologize for this being long and IMO inane.
It works like this. I have faith that human beauty isn’t completely arbitrary. While some aspects may be arbitrary, there are some rules to it that would be shared by other species that have a concept of beauty. The only reason why there wouldn’t be a common rule is if beauty is completely arbitrary, in which case we wouldn’t expect other species to have the concept anyway. The common rule would validate beauty in different contexts and would provide the possibility of a common universal beauty.
For the sake of argument: Let’s suppose a meta-property of beauty is the following rule: Something is beautiful if it physically manifests a value that you have. (This is the best I can come up with.)
The baby-eaters think that ruthlessly eating their young is beautiful. Applying the meta-rule, ruthlessly eating babies must represent some value X they have. (For example, X could be the thrill of power, exerting their will in defiance of what is good.). Thus the beauty of ruthlessness (context: baby-eaters) is validated by the fact that it is a physical manifestation of the value X.
It doesn’t matter if you value X. By logical application of the meta-rule, if you value X, you will be able to see some beauty in the physical manifestation of X. If you don’t value X, then it won’t be beautiful to you. This does not present any problem.
There’s mostly nothing meaningful here: I just got out what I put in with this silly example. But just one thing: even though your ideas of beauty are quite different from the baby-eaters, it is possible to find something beautiful in common. Namely, if there’s a common value. The beauty of the manifestation of a common value would have an external, objective beauty. This objective beauty evolved from whatever rules evolved sapience and the concept of beauty in the first place (quantum mechanics, somehow).