Godheval

The value of something, be it in the sensory, ideological, or ethical, is explicable in terms of existential waves. Philosophical aesthetic arguments attempt to look beyond the subjectivity of individual tastes, for an underlying objective truism about qualities such as beauty. A philosopher may ask: “Why is object X considered beautiful?” or even “What is beauty?”. The second question, although it is more abstract, has an easier answer. Beauty is comprised of those characteristics of a phenomena which when observed through the senses, produces great pleasure. But what is it that makes a thing beautiful or not beautiful to a specific individual?

Consider that there are waveforms for the feeling called pleasure, with variations corresponding perhaps to pleasure as it manifests in different individuals, or different levels of pleasure within one individual. What makes a thing possess beauty, then, is when the interactions between the wave pattern of the individual’s perception and the waveform of the phenomena produce the waveform for pleasure. The factors that contribute to an individual’s perception waveform, which itself may be composed of separate but complementary patterns for sight, sound, and all the other senses, are conceivably infinite. After all, considering the composition of being, perception waveforms are incredibly complex and ecclectically influenced by the environment. It should be noted, though, that waveforms, while corresponding to individuals, are not exclusive to those individuals.

Ideological and ethical values are no different. When a phenomenon or its characteristics are transmitted memetically, that is, not through the filter of the senses, but through the filter of cognizance, they are pleasing or repulsive where the interactions of minds and phenomena produce wave patterns that correspond to those feelings. Given the selfish and seemingly manipulative properties of genes and memes, and their singular goal of propagation, the waveforms of an individual may not be particular to that individual, but merely be using the individual as a medium for transmission. The ideas we adopt, especially concepts of value, are subjective and circumstantial, and therefore value itself is precarious and arbitrary.

If there is an absolute truth about characteristics such as beauty or virtue – as Platonic theory suggests – then it really is masked by our lesser static-obscured perception. The ideosphere, which includes all the entire continuum of human ideas about value, is an immensely complex meta-interaction between waveforms. Where an idea seems universal enough to be considered “objective”, it simply means that the given waveform – the memetic representation – has emerged as dominant in the ideosphere due to its persistance against selective pressures.