Aug 22·edited Aug 22Liked by Étienne Fortier-Dubois
Would such a project allow for finding even Socrates beautiful, as Alcibiades - by then filled with love for him - eventually did? What about, as Marcus Aurelius wrote, seeing the beauty in such things as the broken top of a bread loaf, or 'ears of wheat bowing down to the ground, a lion's wrinkled brow, a boar foaming at the mouth...the gaping jaws of wild beasts,' and old people, which, he argues will only be seen and appreciated by a sensitive person (Meditations 3.2)? Can AI be trained to recognise beauty, if it doesn't feel love?
Perhaps beauty and love are closely connected, I'm not sure. I think *we* can recognize beauty independent of love, at least in the way we usually use these words. And yes, making the alien mind see the beauty in all those things that aren't naïvely beautiful is the goal — but perhaps an unachievable one.
Did you ever see this nice essay "A Natural History of Beauty" https://meltingasphalt.com/a-natural-history-of-beauty? It's about how beauty might evolve as a repeated multiplayer game.
Your idea reminds me of that framework! Especially when you mentioned the symmetry of flowers.
Yes! I think it's one of the best things written about beauty and it has informed my thinking quite a bit
Would such a project allow for finding even Socrates beautiful, as Alcibiades - by then filled with love for him - eventually did? What about, as Marcus Aurelius wrote, seeing the beauty in such things as the broken top of a bread loaf, or 'ears of wheat bowing down to the ground, a lion's wrinkled brow, a boar foaming at the mouth...the gaping jaws of wild beasts,' and old people, which, he argues will only be seen and appreciated by a sensitive person (Meditations 3.2)? Can AI be trained to recognise beauty, if it doesn't feel love?
Perhaps beauty and love are closely connected, I'm not sure. I think *we* can recognize beauty independent of love, at least in the way we usually use these words. And yes, making the alien mind see the beauty in all those things that aren't naïvely beautiful is the goal — but perhaps an unachievable one.