I don't think the people who create the art are trying to create beauty or even looking to make things beautiful. Perception is reality and that is their reality. I think the audience who views these pieces of expression are somehow looking through these works for beauty. Personally, I find beauty in all these things traumatic and horrible.
I certainly believe that there's more than what we perceive naturally. I also find beauty in horrible things sometimes. But usually only if something good comes out of it. Like someone dying to save someone else. The fact that they died is horrible, but the fact that they sacrificed themselves selflessly is beautiful.
She might not LOVE another child as much as her own. A mother (or father) protects out of love, not 'genetic legacy' crap. And there are plenty of cases of people trying to save a life selflessly and they aren't even related.
Well I certainly sort of agree and disagree. I find even the most horrible thing such as murder beautiful. Not because I want that to happen to everyone, yes the thought of butchering someone is so disgusting and sickening and I can't believe people do it. I don't want anyone to ever do it either. But even that is beautiful far more beautiful then the picture we create. In this world we like to cut out the darker side. Ever picture we take it must be of a smiling happy family, or something we create must be happy. Like we try to forget the darker side or push it away. And when you see something dark happen it's horrible disgusting, but beautiful to know that it happens. I think in this world we want to create an illusion that the whole world is care free and happy. Smiling. Light. You cannot have light without dark. You cannot have dark without light. But it takes more darkness to drown out the light. It takes less light to drown out the darkness.
I agree that you can't have dark without light, etc., but let us replace light and dark with what we really mean when we use them. Good and evil. I don't believe you can have evil without good, but I do believe you can have good without evil. There is such a thing as good for the sake of good. There is no such thing as evil for the sake of evil. Evil things happen because people are trying to achieve what they perceive to be good. They've just gone about it the wrong way. One person murders another to take some money for themselves. That is evil, but having money is perceived to be "good." It was a wrong way to achieve a good thing. Let's take a more extreme example. Someone kills someone simply because they enjoy killing. Now, the keyword here is 'enjoy'. Wouldn't enjoy be a "good" thing or feeling?
Beauty is within the eye of the beholder. Some people find blood-drenched corpses beautiful...(eww!) I'm assuming you are talking about artists inserting themselves into their work and expecting to achieve some sort of timeless beauty? Whether it's a 'good' thing or not depends on the work I suppose...
They enjoyed the killing we didn't it. It's their light. Our dark. Someone smiles and is happy. Someone else doesn't like being happy. It's the happy persons light. It's the non happy person's dark. Perception is reality. And whatever someone perceives to be their morals on good and evil light or dark...is their reality.
I think you may have missed my point. Is it or is it not possible for something to happen in which all parties involved are happy?
I'm hungry. I walk across the street and buy an apple from a fruit seller. He is happy that I have supported his business, I am happy because I get to eat my apple.
But the customer standing in line behind you is sad because that was the apple he was going to choose.
It is a proper argument. What if that was the last red apple and the person only eats red apples? Or even so what if there was a long line at the store? And at the end was this person waiting for his food. When it was his turn there was nothing left? It may make you and the store clerky happy. But what about the homeless man who wants a tasty apple? There are never never ever those odd and rare situations when everyone is happy.
Couldn't resist. Here's the thing, though. Are we trying to find a situation where the people directly involved are all made happy, or are we trying to find a situation where every resulting consequence makes everyone in the world happy? Because in Lavarian's situation, the people involved all came away satisfied and content. However, if you're looking more for the second situation, then of course you're never going to find one. You can always dig up one person who isn't happy if you look hard enough for them.
But the world isn't full of two people. It's filled with millions of people. Therefore you have to look at the second situation rather then the first.
No. It really isn't. I made no mention of another customer. We have added them into the equation suddenly. Now you're saying it is the last apple? Why does it have to be the last apple? You are simply adding to the equation. Of course that could be a seperate situation at another time, but not this time. I also made no mention of a homeless man. Yes, there are likely homeless people that are starving but why is my specific eating of the apple causing their starvation?
You only get to say that when your belly is full. But they watch you. Have you ever been extremely thirsty or hungry. And all you could see were people eating and drinking, buying food, buying drink. You may not be causing their starvation, but you're causing their pain. I wasn't adding more to the equation more like what if situations that were in the your original situation.
The world may not be full of two people. But it is full of people who interact one-on-one with others all the time, and both of those people often come away from those exchanges happy. If they're happy, then maybe they go home to their families and pass on their happy mood. And then maybe their kids go to play at their friends houses and pass on their happy moods. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc... If you want to look at the happiness of the entire world after one small interaction, you're going to end up dealing with a huge what-if situation.
Fine, you're not adding to the situation. You're creating a new one. There was no starving homeless people watching. Yes, there could have been, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there are. Just because something could happen doesn't mean that it must in every situation. That's just silly. If I'm teaching math and I write on the board 2+2=4. That is always true. There is nothing anyone can do with that to make it not true unless they ADD IN something else. Like if some kid says "I know when that's not true" and comes up and writes a negative in front of the first 2. (-2+2=4) Now that is wrong. But does that mean that 2 + 2 suddenly doesn't = 4? Because there technically are -2's out there somewhere? Of course not.
There's a difference between thinking about who will be affected by something that you do and trying to envision how everyone in the world will react to the ripple effect of your original action... I'll all for being aware of how your actions impact other people. I just think trying to determine how that one action will impact everyone is a little too broad to realistically be discussed.
Plus, the my original posed question was "Is it possible to have good without evil?" (Or- have a good feeling without someone else feeling sad as a direct result of your good feeling) And that answer is, most assuredly, Yes.
