this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
413 points (98.1% liked)

Microblog Memes

6028 readers
2044 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

  1. Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
  2. Be nice.
  3. No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
  4. Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.

Related communities:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Ricki Tarr @[email protected]

There is this strange idea, that if we understand the facts or science behind how something works, we will lose our sense of wonder. But this has never felt true for me, understanding prisms doesn't take away the beauty of a rainbow, understanding evolution doesn't negate the miracle of our existence. The Universe is a magical place, and the more I learn, the more my wonder deepens.

https://beige.party/@RickiTarr/111058328643944591

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (19 children)

I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree.

Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is … I can appreciate the beauty of a flower.

At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes.

The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.

-Richard Feynman

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Heck, science has shown that some flowers are even more dramatically colored outside our visible spectrum!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I recently watched a YouTube about the nature of reality and how bees, for example, see flowers’ colors invisible to us (not that color actually exists, but that’s an adjacent topic), and the video colorized a white flower to show what might see; absolutely stunning.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (16 replies)