RE: So, beauty is not random.

no-- not, at least, beauty that can be experienced in a physical sense-- either seen or heard or even felt..i suppose there is a certain beauty in taste, and aroma's as well-- but some of this might also be learned--one of my favorite aromas is faint sulfur -- an aroma that is more often called a "smelly". but as a child, i was often prescribed sulfur drugs for strep throat and other infections. So i came to associate the smell of sulfur with "feeling better".. it came to have very positive assoications for me.

but beauty can be abstract-- we have collected many beautiful poems here-- and Max spoke of collecting and using pretty words..
courage can be beautiful -- and love. and dear dr bill, i think you do half the human race a disservice by saying men don't aspire to beauty. (or rather that they don't hold it as high as other attributes) I certain think men can be as beautiful as women-- both physically and abstractly.. but i do recognize that in general, beauty is always considered a attribute in a women, and an aside in a man.

i think the teaching (but not often the religions that grew from them) of Christ and Elijah and Mohammad are beautiful.

in languages, some sound beautiful, french and spanish, particuarly, but the caligraphy of arabic (or farsi, or any of the languages that use the arabic alphabet) is the most beautiful to look at.. language has many ways to be beautiful.

and mathematics is filled with beauty--or perhaps it is that, mathematics is used to express -- to make less abtract, some of the beauty of nature.

but there is random beauty-- a hot yellow daffoldil, a lone spot of color in a late winter slathering of heavy wet snow. there is no mathematics in that.. but there is beauty.


my other obsession