The continually evolving capabilities of AI raises many questions on the exact nature of the ‘human difference.’ In particular, the expansion of AI’s creative abilities prompts us to ask if AI can reproduce beauty, especially in the domain of art or language. Engaging this question first requires an explanation of what beauty is, how it is understood, and whether it is something replicable or imitable. This article explores different cultural conceptions of beauty, then asks whether beauty is a property of objects, a property of the mind, or an event that reconciles both; before concluding that true beauty sometimes takes effort to recognize, is inimitable, and can be a powerful force in shaping human behavior.
1. What is Beauty?
Beauty is not something to look for- beauty finds you. It overwhelms you, surprises you, and snaps you out of the dull routine of life. The religious and contemplative often invoke beauty as a symbol of the Divine, or as a worldly reflection of the Absolute.
But what, exactly, is beauty?
For the Ancient Greeks, Beauty was Divine Love manifested in perfect shapes and forms, giving structure to the kosmos. Beauty was discovered when the unity, wholeness, perfection, and regularity of the celestial world was transferred to the earthly realm through the effusion of Divine Love. Beauty, uniquely, subsisted in both an eternal form, and in sensorial experiences. The incompleteness and context-dependence of the latter made it an ideal object for reflection on the perfect, eternal forms.1 The Greek approach clearly distinguished between an imperfect world characterized by decay and change, and its continual restoration through elements of perfection and beauty that descended from the celestial realm.2
In comparison, the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi develops from a metaphysics that is not pantheistic, but one that holds a void at the center of existence. This approach focuses on change and transience, bringing imperfections, and the simplicity of the moment into focus. It transforms broken, ugly, or damaged objects through painstaking care and attention. In kintsugi, restoration is paired with the celebration of imperfection: an object is not only restored to its original form, but its history and process of repair are celebrated as contributing to its beauty.
While both philosophies provide an explanation for the existence of beauty, one identifies beauty as a process of restoration in a transient world, while the other first affixes beauty in archetypal, fixed forms, which then order and restore the world, stabilizing it. In a monotheistic framework, the tension between perfection and imperfection is reconciled by distinguishing between intrinsic and extrinsic beauty. God chooses the specific form and shape for each object, granting it an intrinsic beauty. However, God’s wisdom in selecting a particular shape or form may not be intelligible or accessible to our reasoning; objects may appear imperfect or without symmetry—or they may be absolutely unique—like fingerprints. In Islamic theology, the Ash’ari framework might abandon the pursuit of any teleology of beauty and instead content itself with the intrinsic beauty of all things- beauty is simply a function of God’s power. In contrast, the Maturidi approach might emphasize the wisdom of both types of beauty: while extrinsic beauty can be discerned through reason and mathematical patterns, the natural world and its transience do not always conform to meaningful patterns and may appear to be imperfect. Yet, these imperfections belie a greater beauty that, while remaining inaccessible to us, expresses the wisdom of God. Further, if imperfection itself is brought into focus (as under the aesthetic of wabi-sabi) we might find in it the wisdom of a reminder that this world is not perfect and is not intended to be; only the afterlife, the Divine, or abstract forms, have elements of perfection.
Here, Greek cosmology seems to provide access to something that the Japanese approach does not: a world beyond the immediate. By invoking beauty or love as an intermediary between the celestial and earthly realms, humans can aspire toward something absent from this world: perfection. In contrast, by centering upon the void, the wabi-sabi approach remains locked inside a closed world. From the Islamic perspective, the immanent approach is to see the world as dunya—a world of mundane distractions and imperfection, while the transcendent approach is to see the world as ‘āalam—a world that is intelligible and contains symbolic meaning.
2. (How) Can We Know Beauty?
The difficulty with beauty is not its ephemeral, fleeting nature, nor its apparent lack of utility. The difficulty with beauty arises from our attempts at understanding it. The paradox of beauty, writes one author, is its notorious elusiveness: it seems to be universal, but resists proof. This lack of proof raises a new question: can beauty ever be perfectly replicated or imitated?
Given the ontology of beauty described previously,we can explore at least two competing ways to access beauty: one that is observed or detected—the kind of beauty you might go looking for; and another that is experienced—the kind that finds you.
Today, the fractal succulent, symmetrical snowflake, and hexagonal honeycomb are iconic symbols of formal beauty. Yet, for Plato, beauty itself was neither a property of objects, nor of the mind; beauty was situated in the celestial realm. Aristotle subsequently situated his aesthetics in the form and function (telos) of objects. However, it wasn’t until the Muslim scientists and philosophers that methodical expositions of beauty were properly developed. For example, al-Farabi mapped out the powerful beauty of music (or harmony) through its mathematical (and other) properties. Similarly, Ibn al Haytham, best known for his work on optics, offers the following theory for how we can know beauty:
“Sight perceives beauty only from the forms of visible objects which are perceptible to it; and these forms are composed of the particular properties… (viz.): light, color, distance, position, solidity, shape, size separation, continuity, number, motion, rest, roughness, smoothness, transparency, opacity, shadow, darkness, similarity, dissimilarity..”3
For Al-Haytham, the perception of beauty is innate and immediate; it is an instinctive knowledge, independent of our will (although not of reason!) and can be distilled into twenty-two properties. Here, the criteria for judgement of beauty could still be situated outside of the object, but its perception is found in specific properties of objects. The properties of objects enter our consciousness through sensory elements; from some alchemy within, they are instantly recognized as beautiful.
However, if beauty can be identified by twenty-two visual properties, then it should be possible to replicate beauty using simple programs and algorithms that can easily manipulate each of those elements. For example, texture and solidity, two properties seemingly attached only to “real objects” can easily be adapted onto virtual platforms. Similarly, the most basic cameras today are not without options to manipulate opacity and shadow in a captured (or constructed) image.We are well into a decade of interactive generative art that began with experiences such as the hypnotic Infinity of Flowers, and has since expanded into all manner of immersive VR experiences.
If, as the ancient Greeks held, there is an underlying form and structure to beauty, a ‘true algorithm’ encoding the universe that contributes to its harmony, then AI-generated art, in seeking to replicate that form and structure through the use of such algorithms, must be regarded as beautiful. Yet, can something controlled by an algorithm be truly beautiful?
Imagine an endless series of possible divisions—options coded at birth, dictating the patterns of growth that follow. Conversely, imagine an object already in its ‘final form’—but slowly eroded by water and wind. While both can be analyzed for their formal beauty, and both can also be experienced as ‘events,’ the second points to a beauty that retains an element of unpredictability (at least, from the vantage of the viewer). Consider the rainbow, emerging from light and water; the sunset, transforming the sky; the sky, contrasting snow and granite; the iridescent feathers of a common duck; sunlight filtering through trees… while each moment may contain objects that can be analyzed using al-Haytham’s twenty-two properties, the full effect of beauty surpasses the object.
Further, if beauty were to be found only in the algorithmic structure and underlying patterns of nature, in the perfect proportions of the human body, or in perfect shapes, then what are we to make of our experience of being humbled by a majestic mountain? Our helplessness at the sheer unpredictability of a glorious sunset; or in the face of a meadow singing with wildflowers? The human experience of beauty as an event generates a powerful response, identified by Immanuel Kant as evoking within us a sense of the ‘sublime’ or the ‘beautiful’. Yet, if beauty surpasses the object to become entirely a property of human experience, does it not devolve into mere subjectivity and perception? Depending on your mood, a sunset might appear ugly or captivating; the dark shadows of the forest sinister or safe; bamboo, boring or elegant; and animals, interminably loud. If beauty is totally captured by the eye of the beholder, then we need not consider anything as eternally beautiful.
While we might quip that there is no accounting for taste, Plato presents a strong case for re-evaluating our (literal) taste-buds. In his work on epistemology, he uses the example of a sick person to explain why the “philosophers of instability,” who hold transience as the core of reality, or believe that “man is the measure of all things,” are misguided.4 For a sick man, good food will taste bitter. This is ‘true’ and cannot be doubted.5 Yet, the man’s twisted tastes can be improved through the intervention of a doctor, provided that he permits a doctor to administer a treatment. We might also consider that since sicknesses can take on many forms, a spectrum of responses may be found among the sick; in contrast, wholeness or health is of just one kind, yielding a kind of subjective universalism. To extend Plato’s point on the ‘better’ truth of good taste, we can also point out that people from varied cultures generally have similar responses to beautiful phenomena, suggesting that beauty cannot be entirely subjective.
Conversely, if beauty is regarded as entirely objective, reduced into twenty-two properties and then replicated, then you should feel equally humbled whether you are scaling the walls of a ‘3-D’ boulder from the comfort of your living room, or standing before a granite mountain in reality. If one remains a laughable imitation of the other, then we must ask: is it the patterns underlying a perfectly proportioned form, or is it the unpredictable, dynamic energy of life unfolding before you that creates the compelling force of beauty? If the algorithms that attempt to replicate the forms and patterns of nature are insufficient, then what dynamic factor accounts for beauty? Is it found in the gaze of the observing subject, or is it embedded in the world we encounter (perhaps an indiscernible twenty-third property)?
An artist might conclude that it is both: some patterns, some proportions emerge in anything beautiful, attesting to a structure underlying each dynamic moment we experience. Ultimately, the landscape communicates a state of beauty that cannot be reduced to its form or structure, ensuring that any attempt at replicating beauty, no matter how carefully curated to your personal taste, will always remain incomplete.
3. How do we Respond to Beauty?
The puzzling reality of beauty does not absolve the task of human engagement and response. When you repeatedly encounter a beautiful object, does it leave you inspired and wondrous, or bored and contemptuous? And does your response say more about you, or more about the object?
If beauty begins with objective properties but ultimately surpasses the object, then in cases where beauty is imitated, boredom begins after the algorithm of the object has been cracked. True beauty is found in what continuously remains beautiful; an enigma that allows for new understanding, despite being fully understood. Setting aside the issue of imitation, however, beautiful phenomena may still escape appreciation or wonder. Why?
If the task of repetition is to help us elicit the permanent from the transient,6 then repeated exposure to a beautiful object should offer us an opportunity to scrape aside the dressing, and to look carefully at the skeleton beneath. Yet, psychologist Malik Badri points out the tedium of repetition, and its effect on contemplation:
“Although knowledge and understanding of the objects of contemplation can encourage deeper contemplation, it should not be surprising that the opposite is also true: namely, that extreme familiarity with the object can be a hindrance to contemplating it. Indeed, monotonous repetition drains the greatest cosmic phenomena of their grandeur and splendor.”7
Once we have repeatedly encountered a grand phenomenon, and grasped its permanent nature, the object stabilizes within our minds.
Through repeated encounters with an object, we can slowly cultivate a sense of awe or reverence, eventually enabling that object to emerge as beautiful. However, as Badri points out, our minds may become impervious to beauty through monotonous repetition. Once the permanent aspect of an object is grasped, it is no longer possible to continue to grant it focused attention, and its beauty diminishes.
This discussion reiterates the problem of restricting beauty to its formal dimensions, its “twenty-two properties.” While grasping the underlying forms and structure of a beautiful object may be an important component of contemplation, the “beautiful” ultimately remains so because of its elusive nature. Contemplation of beautiful phenomenon, then, must yield new understandings, and contain a vibrancy, a dynamism, that is the hallmark of all that is alive. And those new understandings may not always emerge from the formal properties of visual beauty.
Further, if objects contain both an external, formal beauty, and an intrinsic, imperfect beauty, then each requires a different lens of contemplation. The first approach to contemplation explores beauty as a science; the second approach is when beauty settles upon you in the comforting routine of life, when the imperfect itself becomes beautiful, through contemplation. The discovery of beauty then lies within the eye (mind) of the beholder, while objects themselves maintain their properties of objective beauty; the full encounter of beauty is found in the relationship between them.
The question of judgement and taste, or of human responses to beauty, while seemingly refracted through culture and subject to individual sensitivities, can, to some extent, be tamed. While we may not relegate beauty to visual properties alone, the methodical study of aesthetics across diverse cultures and civilizations provides a context for understanding beauty.
Plato’s reconciliation of change and perception with judgments of truth by pointing to the existence of improved, or more healthful realities suggests that human beings have a responsibility to cultivate a meditative mind. Without contemplation to discern the enduring from the transient, how will we know medicine from poison? What will motivate us to a better reality? Ultimately, then, given the same world, it is our beliefs that transform our experience of it: the world either becomes a reminder of the divine and an aspiration toward perfection (encouraging self-growth), or a distraction away from the divine and an obsession with our imperfections (celebrating self-acceptance). The function of beauty is to inspire the former.
Photo by ZHENYU LUO on Unsplash
Disclaimer: Material published by Traversing Tradition is meant to foster scholarly inquiry and rich discussion. The views, opinions, beliefs, or strategies represented in published articles and subsequent comments do not necessarily represent the views of Traversing Tradition or any employee thereof.
- Plato, Republic (523c-524d). [↩]
- Plato, Symposium (208b). [↩]
- Ibn al-Haytham, Kitāb al-manāẓir. [↩]
- Plato, Theaetetus (180a). [↩]
- Plato, Theaetetus (167e). [↩]
- Harfouch, Ali. https://traversingtradition.com/2022/04/21/reclaiming-the-question. [↩]
- Badri, Malik. Contemplation: An Islamic Psychospiritual Study (2018) p. 87. [↩]
Bilkis Bharucha
Bilkis Bharucha is a teacher and student. She writes to digest, mostly from the perspective of Islam in America. She enjoys philosophy and poetry, and has shared her first poem here.
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