Bees and humans both have brains that are based on the same basic building blocks, nuerons or nerve cells. These cells are linked together in networks that have predictable behaviors. First and foremost is threshold behavior. Stimuli must overcome a given amount of intensity before evoking a response. Plants have evolved flowers that evoke a response from neural networks.
An interesting behavior in neural networks is their lack of sensitivity to the idea of too much stimulus. You can’t have too much beauty.
You are wrong when you say we humans don’t pollinate flowers. For the last 10000 years or so we have been selecting plants, some for nothing more than their beautiful flowers.

I’ve always assumed that there’s a Freudian-style/covert reason why men give women flowers as a romantic gesture – because flowers are reproductive organs…

Sounds somewhat gross when you put it like that (!), but it’s really the otehr way round – human reproductive organs are pretty damn ugly (there was no evolutionary drive to make them beautiful, unlike naked human bodies, because, I would argue, by the time you get around to the reproductive bits you are pretty damn committed!!!!)….so we use flowers’ reproductive organs instead, as a far more aesthetic subsitute.

However, as to what constitutes beautiful – ie, why we say some things are or are not beautiful, there is a whole cognitive displine of aesthetics, and a lot of it appears to be culturally dependent (eg, fat naked women were considered beautiful in olden days – see Rubens etc! – because most women were thin from malnutriion, whereas slim women are considered beautiful now because most women in the western world suffer from obesity-related diseases).

However, there are some mathematical underpinnings, such as the golden mean etc, that do seem to unify a lot of culturally dependent things, such as the space between eyes, proportions of nose to mouth, etc etc etc.

Whatever it is, it’s not a simple or simplistic answer to the question of what makes somethign beautiful, as humans are not simple little souls!

Julie: 😆 quite funny 😀

you really think that human reproductive organs are ugly? I mean by nature, not due to social rules… Just look to apes, who got big red ass when ready to mate (sorry for my English, if the words used are not correct ones). Just the society made it ugly, just remember to Adam and Eve, who hided their reproductive organs after being "enligthed" by the truth…

(and look to some aboriginals, who are basically naked, because their ancestors were not enligthed)

Hmm, I think my feminine modesty should kick in at this point!

Suffice it to say that whereas artists are more than happy to depict beautiful women and handsome men, they don’t tend to focus in on the ‘bits’…. 🙂

(Right, definitely time for me to bow out of this one!)

sorry, I don’t get it 🙁

Hmm – thats a good question. Flowers using bees, hummingbirds, bats, etc. for pollination are designed by evolution to attract these pollinators, and these are the flowers we see as beautiful. Plants that pollinate by the wind (e.g. most trees) do not have beautiful flowers. The smell, the nectar, the bulls-eye arrangement are all designed for pollinators. Bees being small tend to have eyes that are more receptive to small wavelengths (ultraviolet) and flowers have even more elaborate ultraviolet designs on them that cannot be seen by humans without special equipment. But why are they attractive to humans? Humans have no need of the nectar, but they find the sight and smell of flowers attractive. Human smell is designed by evolution. Any smell associated with bacterial danger causes a negative reaction in humans (don’t eat meat that smells, don’t eat poop, etc.). Flowers are designed to give the "opposite" smell to pollinators, and it works on humans too because our sense of smell is designed by similar forces, so I guess I can see why they smell good. Also, carnivores are not interested in smelling good, they don’t want their prey to smell them coming. Cats clean themselves, dogs roll in dirt and deer poop to disguise their smell, human hunters generally avoid perfume. Prehistorically, human males were more likely to hunt than females. Is that why women are more attracted to the smell of flowers than men? But why do they look good? Well, they are designed to look much different than their background, to attract pollinators, and its no mystery why they look different to every other animal with eyes too. But why do humans find them attractive to the eye while other animals (except pollinators) do not? Maybe because humans are the only animals that can make the connection between flowers and abundance of food. Flowers mean springtime, the coming of warm weather, fertile soil, lots of seeds and game, etc. and maybe that’s a connection that other animals don’t have the attention span to make. A similar question is why do two pure sounds with a particular frequency ratio sound pleasing to humans while two sounds with other frequency ratios do not?

I will pop in an idea here – merely a hypothesis, since I have no good evidence.

Perhaps humans have evolved to perceive bright colours as attractive because these are the colours that signal that a fruit is ripe and ready to eat. We are attracted to bright red apples, or blue coloured grapes, or yellow capsicums as they are good to eat.

Our love of brightly coloured flowers may be just a flow on from this.

My wife and I love fruit and we always have a fruit basket at home, from which we select our snacks. It is decorative as well as delicious. Right now it contains yellow bananas, orange oranges, yellow apricots, purple grapes, and red plums. The bright colours are attractive and beautiful.

"Perhaps humans have evolved to perceive bright colors as attractive because these are the colors that signal that a fruit is ripe and ready to eat"

I think you hit the nail on the head " skeptic" it is the same as why fruit tastes so good to not only animals but to us humans also because if it were not palatable the fruit would then not get eaten and the seeds dispersed thus ensuring the demise of that particular species of tree they would simply die out.

As for beauty in the eye of the human that is really complex as it is not only visual it is pheromone based as well, off the top of my head i think we are the only animal that can pick out and distinguish a single face out of literally billions of faces of its own kind, its based on symmetrics for some reason the distance between the eyes and the grouping of all facial features play an important role and are subconsciously analyzed by humans within a split second.

The comment on the comparison between flowers and human reproductive organs is a good one and i agree, a bit like why a woman wears lipstick as studies have shown it is a "sexual" thing really mimicking the red swollen labia majora at that special time of ovulation bit like the length of a womans skirt relates to what part of the cycle she is in.

"you really think that human reproductive organs are ugly?" they are in a way but we are genetically hardwired to seek it out, the female reproductive system is a brilliant bit of gear i think but being happily Engaged i am no longer allowed to "seek it out" anymore 🙂

I kind of agree with that! I think there might be something to it. Because if you go or look at any flowershop] and the flowers they sell there you can almost always point a finger at the most colorful one and they will also simultaneously be the best seller. That might just be a coincidence but I do think it stems from the color.

All true, but I don’t think that answers his question. Like him, I would like to know how a good (melatonin?) feeling or effect in us comes from flowers. What has natural selected that response in us? Certainly, it has not been carried on in us because of some highly remote connection to bees.

flowers are beautiful because they have to be beautiful. It’s natural selection and person’s feeling for beauty

how is that related? What NATURAL selection are people’s feelings?

. . . a brilliant analysis! I might add that I bet women probably gathered flowers for food

Ok brace yourselves.

The largest flower in the world is Raffesia arnoldii. It looks and smells like rotting meat.

How does that work for Julie5’s Freudian theories?

I suppose it just goes to show that variety is the spice of life. And size isn’t everything.

You see, there is a God….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzN-uIVk … re=related

at 2:00 Dan gives a reasonable accounting for "why".

The "rotting meat" smell and bizarre look is to attract flies, which are its pollinators.

Flowers do not have to be beautiful (and are not evolutionary selected for it), they just have to attract their pollinators. If the pollinators are birds or bees, then this involves colorful displays, and an aromatic smell. In case of flies, for example, they have to smell bad to attract their pollinators. Natural selection favors flowers that attract their pollinators, not those that are "beautiful".

I wish you would have set down here what the professor said about our subject instead of giving us the URL. As an atheist who thinks evolution, I just could not go through another lecture on the obvious.

We love chocolate cake because it tastes sweet. < This is backwards. It tastes sweet because we have brains that make us love it. We have sugar signal detectors. We call the signal "sweetness". That’s his point.

That actually makes sense. Never thought of it that way before.

It is not a matter whether flowers are beautiful or not but why we think they are. It is why our taste for flowers is the same as whatthe flowers evolved for bees to attract them. We are not bees; we do not want their pollen.

So, why are we still attracted to flowers? The argument was advanced that they signal spring to us and a return to abundance. Also, that the plants depend upon us eating the fruit in order to spread its seeds. Of course, the fruit comes a long time after the flowers, so there appears to be some difficulty with that explanation.

It seems to me we ought to be able to do better with the question, but I’ve gone as far as I can.

Sorry, but this is non-sense. We can percept several tastes (currently we speak about five). One of them we call sweet (but you can call it whatever you want, that won’t change anything) and some of people find this taste pleasurable and for this reason they like chocolate, which taste sweet. However, some other people like salty food more and thus they eat chips etc.

Can you explain why it is that you think that Dan gave us nonsense ?

Your post did not do that.

I’m not citing Dan, I’m citing you.
My point is, that it doesn’t taste sweet because we like it but vice versa. AKA We love chocolate cake because it tastes sweet.

Utter nonsense.

why?

Because what you say is nonsense if I don’t agree with it. That seems to be how you use the word "nonsense", so I use it.

That’s why it’s nonsense. You can re-read my post about Dan’s explanation, for explanation by non- nonsense.
The answer for why it’s sweet is because of our brain, not because of the food.

“Beautiful” is a relative term. Thus, flowers are beautiful primarily because of nurture:

A mother says to the baby: “Look how beautiful this flower is!”

Smell and taste are similar. All of us prefer food (both taste and smell) that we were brought up with. While all of us experience taste if “sweetness”, our “likes” of this taste are determined primarily by upbringing. “Too sweet” and “not sweet enough” are all relative to cultural understandings. If it was just influx of sugar translated into liking as suggested by Dan, we should all have similar responses but we don’t.

I don’t particularly like chocolate cake. It was not part of my diet as a child. I find it a bit too sweet. Similarly, when I tasted Indian sweets, I found that I am unable to eat them – way too sweet for me.

Sense of smell is also relative. I figure we register “normal” smell of something as what we are used to and “abnormal” as smell that is NOT associated with object emitting it IN OUR EXPERIENCE. While on rare occasions some people find “abnormal” to be good, in most cases we don’t.

Just to give an example, when I traveled in Europe I found that (in some countries) meat dishes contain too much spice (comparatively) and smell produced does not associate with meat dishes for me. Interestingly enough, even though I KNEW it to be FALSE, my brain seemed to associate spice smelling meat with masked smell of spoiled meat making meals unpleasant. I am sure that everyone living in those countries loves their food proving that association of particular smell to our “likes” is highly subjective.

Some items can taste too sweet. The food cannot intrinsically be sweet or too little or too much sweet.
We also have sensors for salt, and so we taste saltiness. Some things taste too salty.
Some people like salty better than sweet.
Fewer people like anything that tastes more than a tiny bit bitter.

the food contains some molecules, which are recognised by receptors in our mouth, right?

Yes. Molecules that "fit" or "match with" receptors in our mouth.

Let’s take the case of something spicy. There are two mechanisms that have evolved: one is the fact that the food being eaten has evolved the production of capsaicin in order to prevent herbivory. The second one is the body evolving the spicy receptor in order to differentiate between "good to eat" and "possibly poisonous". This is the way I’m looking at it.

Now it’s little egg/chicken question. We both agree that there are some molecules in food detected by receptors. What was first, the molecules in food which constituent everything alive or receptors, which had nothing to bind to?

The question is not pertinent to the discussion.

Sorry, I don’t understand.

When did salt evolve, Jack ? I think we can take as a given that we have saltiness detectors which came after salt.

Salt did evolve? Interesting.

Exactly, first was the salt, then the receptors and then some of our ancestors started to perceive it as salty.

Perceive what, as "salty" ? Perceive salt as "salty" ?

no, sugar 🙄

Was it an English-speaking ancestor ? Did he take a grain of it ?

For explanations, saltiness is better than sweetness because it has the same word for the sensation as for the sensed item.

The magic goes away when it’s just sensation of a relative concentration of salt.
As well, when we are talking about biological items, then we have "the tango " or "the arms race" or whatever term to describe two competing entities. With NaCl salt, we can assume it was there first, and is not changing along with the life forms, as they hunt salt down, and use it.

Flowers are beautiful for some and maybe not for other, it’s all based on personal perspective. It probably has something to do with color variety.

so you’re arguing just about the word salt or what?

No, it doesn’t matter which language or what word – but If the word mirrors the substance, all the better. It’s simpler to get at what you’re thinking.
I’m exploring your concept.

So this ancestor, it is a human with language capabilities, or not ?

sorry, but I’m really lost now, where are we 😆 🙄

OK, so we agreed, that first was salt or sugar, which were perceived by receptors, right? Since even bacteria usually need these substances, they were going for environment with high level of sugar (probably not that much salt, at least not NaCl).

We’ve agreed that the receptors became existent in our lineage. IF you claim that the receptors, at some point, were also capable of distinguishing at least relative or threshold levels or concentrations, of the substance , I’ll accept that.

yes, probably. Otherwise the ancestor wouldn’t get sugar, right?
So, we have ancestor, who’s perceiving sweetness and probably likes it, because it’s essential, right? So what more do we want?

Please stay with salt/salty so we don’t need to get tangled in mere words. We can say "salt is essential to get", for this organism. We can say the organism needs salt and has detectors for salt or at least one of the ions. Go on.

I don’t see much difference. Why is sugar/sweet bad?

OK, so we have ancestor who needs salt and is able to perceive salt by receptors. That’s when "we" started to perceive it as salty. After we had already the receptors for salt.

The organism is able to detect salt.

So a concept was developed ? Something like this ?

Stuff like that ?

Salt is better because you cannot just introduce a descriptive word ( "sweet" for things that are high in sugar ) for the taste or appearance, and thereby hand us an extra twist to the puzzle.

I give it up. I basically don’t know what are we arguing about or whether are we arguing at all or what’s going on…

The problem is that you have animals detecting substances. What you do not have, is the said animals having concepts.

you want to define exactly everything, so how do you define concept?

An abstraction removing differences, leaving only commonalities – in this way:

The many things that are detected to contain salt, have many differences – differences which are ignored in pointing to salty items ( items already experienced or tested). Items that are not salty are not mentioned ( in the set of salty items) .

So we have animals which have detectors> What’s the next step ?

Steps to get in order to be saying that this crystal

http://www.mii.org/Minerals/photosalt.html

is the same as this liquid
http://geotcha.com/wp-content/uploads/2 … n_wave.jpg

experience and learning from olders?

however, how does that relate to the egg-chicken question?

there is no "chicken egg" question.

The question is : how do you support this ?

I think that what JackBean is saying, is that you do not need a conceptualization of saltiness or sweetness or whatever in order to associate emotions to it. i.e the actiation of the salt(sugar) receptor will be linked to the brain as the satisfaction of a need and as such will create a neural pathway that will link this activation of a receptor to a pleasurable sensation.
The fact that anything that activates the receptor, whether or not they are the right molecule or a neutral inducer (say a sweetener like aspartame) that do not fulfill any need would be a good proof that only the receptor activation is necessary. Concepts and intellectualization are unnecessary burden created by man.

because it tastes sweet even to people, who don’t like sweet. How do you support "like thereof it is sweet"?

We are animals that need sugars. The "liking or not liking" you mention, is normally a matter of what level of sweeetness is pleasant to a particular individual at a particular time.

I am not understanding this discussion. Are you talking about the evolution of sweet receptors, or how sweetness is perceived?

Not sweet receptors, but sugar receptors. Just like salt receptors. As with light receptors in our eyes – we don’t have cute receptors in our eyes. That part is in the mind.

yeah, but that’s all the discussion about, that we like the cake because it is sweet

The above is why I tried to get you to talk about salt.

How about cute babies, then ?

The original question would relate to "why" babies are cute.
Your answer would then be "we like them because they are cute" – but that does not say why they are cute – or why we like cute things. There is no inherent cuteness or beauty in a colour, in a shape, or arrangement.

what would the salt change about that? We still like or dislike it, because it’s salty, not the other way round 🙄

Because when you switch words, from "sugar" to "sweetness", you seem to have a mental glitch happening

really? What’s so nonsense about "we like salty food because it is salty or we dislike salty food because it is salty"?

Sorry, I edited to make the comment less abrasive.

It’s fully nonsense. Why not just eat salt ?

We like cute babies because they are cute. That’s your total input. Where are the cuteness receptors in the eyes ?

you’re making me sick of this. I will never eat any sugar or salt anymore. Happy now?

why not?

Strange that it’s a rarely done, considering how much we like it, isn’t it ?

Jack, where are the cuteness receptors ?

don’t try to change subject. The first topic was sweet. I have even change it to salt because of you, so stay with it, OK? Then we can move on.

and what do you think chips are? Just substitute for pure salt. Maybe people don’t do that anymore, since they have enough salt from other sources, but animals eat salt often.

"Chips" does not equal "salt". Marine fish do not swim in chip water.

One reason for using "cuteness", as well, is that you seem hung up on receptors on the tongue equaling perception of "sweet" or "salty".

It is more difficult to deal with ( when in that mode of muddling things), when the example is something "cute".

We don’t have cute receptors in our eyes, do we ?

and what do you think we perceive with salt receptor? Color of the sky?

is perception done by receptors in tongue ?

Jack, is it now possibly going to be your contention that colour does not affect taste perception ?

no, that was just sarcasm 🙄

So you think perception of tastes occurs in the tongue ?

In my opinion its all about color… Flowers catch our eye just as anything beautiful does. So I would agree with Winterimp.

Crucible: just tell me one thing. If you think that the food is sweet because we like it, why
1) are there people, who dislike sweet food?
2) do we perceive different food, which we like as sweet, salty etc.? Why don’t we perceive it all as sweet?

Then can we move on.

Which of the 2 or 3 , is the 1 thing you want answered ?

Do not quibble away. Just answer it.

You’ve avoided answering how having a receptor for salt equals having a perception of saltiness.

We can not only detect salt when it reaches some level in the food, but we can also roughly perceive it’s relative level, in foods.

Variations in the personal preferences, regarding the enjoyed levels or amounts or concentrations, is another matter.

here’s another talk that can inform the debate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtzjIvgr … digest_sat

I see, so it is that the food is sweet or salty, whatever, because we like it, but yet we are able to perceive level of sugar or salt in the food? Isn’t that contradictory?

No.

No? How so?

I don’t see it as contradictory. If you do, please point out how so, in order that I may reply to your concerns.

So, the more we like it, the more sweet it is?

If what I wrote is self-contradictory, please show how so, rather than switching the subject again without even acknowledging that your query was responded to.

seriously, I don’t know what else to write. I’m leaving. Congratulation, another debate won by beating opponent with plenty of posts rather than showing something valuable.

Absolute rot you’re talking, Jack.
You never did answer the questions. You only switched subjects and made new demands. BY contrast, I answered your questions even when you switched subjects. Once this is pointed out, you offer that kind of garbage response.
What was contradictory ? You will not respond.
In any case, I see no reason to make this an accusation thread. If you cannot respond with logic, I can accept that.
The weakling option of closing the thread is always open to you.

Bye !

I’d agree; they are beautiful TO US. They have no intrinsic beauty, it’s all about us thinking they are beautiful – so why is that ?

There does seem some difficulty with the attempt at explanation – maybe it would be better not to first make up any story about what in particular it is that bees are attracted to, by flowers.

Assuming when we talk about a flower’s beauty we are talking about visual cues – although there are no doubt others that might attract. So we must be talking about colour and form ?

you started with the video and saying, that the food is sweet because we like it, not me. The contradictory is, that we can perceive level of sweetness although it is sweet because we like it.

Not quite true. I showed the video and said that Dan offered a reasonable answer for "why", and then someone asked for my short report on what Dan was saying. Then you claimed it was rubbish and that you were responding to my words only. I don’t mind defending it, but n o need to stretch things to what they were not.

But my statement that you replied to, did not contain the word "sweetness" at all. I talked about "saltiness" only in reference to your avoidance of discussing how it is that having a receptor equals perception, to you.

You’re inventing things. I said

OK, so: The contradictory is, that we can perceive level of saltiness although it is salty because we like it.

We can perceive something as salty. We perceive something as sweet, because we have BRAINS that make us like it, and words that denote that it is of that thing we like. Why. is that contradictory?

Try thinking of bitterness. It’s not that we like bitterness, it’s that we do not like it. Same deal though. Our brains make us averse to it to some degree, and we call it bitter.

It’s also a fact that these words are related to goodness and badness. Something is sweet if it’s nice for us and bitter if it’s not.

thanks for bringing it up. So I didn’t start with the sweetness, did I? You’re obviously trying to manipulate the discussion with plenty of other examples just to get your approval, don’t you? why don’t you stay with the original one?

well, I like bitter. Why doesn’t my brain tell me, that it is sweet, if I like it?

No and nobody said you did.

Naturally and of course ! And you are not ?

I don’t understand what you are saying here. I do give other examples, yes.

Because you tangled yourself with that one. More examples give opportunity to show the same phenomenon when dealing with the "substance" and the "descriptor" words. That is, to look at the situation with examples where the descriptor of the sensation is a word derived from the word for the "substance" ( salt/saltiness) , and examples where the words differ ( sugar/sweetness), examples where no substance, ion, or molecule, is actually received by receptor( cuteness), and so on.

Why should it ?

because the chocolate is sweet, because we like it. I like tonic, so why doesn’t brain make it to taste sweet?

because it’s not sweet – it’s bitter. It only has to taste good. For you, bitter is sweet to taste 😆 though not tasting sugary

I am a bit lost in that discussion. And I would say that crucible is the one generally losing me.

The fact that something taste the way it is is a truly unique experiment for each individual, just as any perception. I cannot share anyone perception. All I can say is that I find that a perception that is common when tasting a number of substances or viewing different objects is named a certain way and we share that. If I remember correctly there was some things done showing that naming things can actually interfere with perception (i.e. people with different grouping of colors :when does blue end and green starts, this kind of thing, had a different perception of the world and would be more aware of some distinctions and less of other). But when it comes to associating emotions (pleasant, not pleasant) there is probably both an innate component (The receptors for bitterness are usually associated with rejection, because alkaloids are usually stimulating those receptors), but this perception can be educated an modifies consciously over time. And I am pretty sure that this interplay between innate and acquired is true for all perception.
With that I am not sure what was my point, but that is Okay, I just read the thread again, and I am not sure there was a point to it anymore….

At least you are recognizing that having receptors is not having a perception. I’m working on Jack to try to get that admitted.

maybe if you wrote it as canalon said, than OK. But I’m still saying, that chocolate doesn’t taste sweet, because we like it, but vice versa.

How about if I give you an example, instead ?

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/322/5901/606.abstract

OK. I am not one who believes that It’s necessary to change your opinion. I can only offer the evidence and the reasoning, but if that fails, your case can be abandoned with not too much hardship.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xj0fo_ … rel-page-6

Bee pollinated flowers are normally blue or yellow, but not red. What is the reason behind this?

A subjective response without factual basis, but I feel they very vividly represent the nature of love. Firstly, flowers are beautiful. They are vividly colored, beautifully scented, and come in innumerable varieties. However, they are delicate, easily tainted or ruined, and, even when carefully cared for, last only for a time before they are gone.