Eric Fesmire-Student Choice #3-Changing Concept of Beauty

This semester, I am  in a psychology class about cognitive development. The class has got me thinking about how our brains develop throughout life. Because of the continued change in our cognitive capacities and structures, I wonder if this changes how we understand beauty. What if we have a capacity for understanding beauty that changes as we get older and experience beautiful images, music, architecture etc. Like a muscle that needs to be used, maybe we need to work out our understanding of beauty or we might miss out. This hypothesis could explain why we sometimes are desensitized to the beauty around us. Some stop and stare at sunsets while others ignore them and continue on their way. Some have to slow down to enjoy the beauty of nature and the sky, others do not. We do not have a market value for beauty, so it is almost counter cultural to slow down in order to enjoy it.

The problem with this hypothesis is that it cannot be objectively studied. Rather a phenomenological approach works better in understand beauty capacity. Because of that, it really isn't up to science to tell us about beauty, though we might find beauty IN science. We experience beauty, within our capacity, when we take time to look for it.