#idk words exist and i don’t have them but tldr i get birds cause i am birds

[catblgog]

Topic: Wings

(this is the only topic I have this week dawg I managed my time sooo poorly. Also I'm losing steam on interest for my topics.)

I am going back to a tumblr post (link here) that I found a year ago that had the idea that I mentioned in last week’s research too. The one with the British wartime operators looking for bomb planes and sometimes getting signals of large and strangely moving things and they didn’t know what they were. So they called them angels. Later it turned out to be echoes caused by birds– they didn’t know because they thought birds wouldn’t be detected by their radars. I liked the idea that an angel could be an echo. 

Observe

Skip to TLDR at the end for my summary on what my friends / family said to me. 

Question that was asked:

"Do you think there was a higher being that intentionally created all things we perceive as beautiful, and does that belief (either way) make you appreciate beautiful things more or appreciate them less? "

Explaining the question for clarity for the sake of notes, since some people didn't totally understand my intention and perhaps I could have worded my question better:

What I was trying to ask was A. if people believed in a higher power or not (either answer was totally normal and cool) and B. if they believed that beautiful things were created intentionally or not changed their interpretation of how beautiful that thing might be.

Taylor

I don’t think so - if there was, peoples ideas of beauty would align completely, which they don’t. And if they were intentionally created, I think I would appreciate them less, because it would never feel serendipitous, which is a very good kind of beauty.

Amanda

i also don’t think there was any one being that created what we think of as beautiful, i agree with taylor that multiple beauty standards wouldn’t be a thing if this was the case but i also think that it kind of takes away from the artistry of individuals exploring what they think of as beautiful through art and also how accidents or random things can be beautiful. i definitely think i appreciate beauty more knowing that it can be spontaneous and random or something that was planned by someone who is just like me, that i too can create art, not just copy what some higher power has already made

Janelle

I think that a higher force does exist that is responsible for the creation of the universe and all the beautiful things within it, but our concept of 'intention' probably doesn't apply to it. This doesn't change how much I appreciate beautiful things. In either case, intention or not, beauty is valuable intrinsically as a reason for living. Beauty is the recognition of good in something, so if you believe that life is a good thing, you can find beauty in anything.

Jacob

im definitely not sure if there was some greater force that created everything, much less things we perceive as beautiful. i think in part our ability to perceive beauty was evolved and refined through generations and generations. even if there were such a being that created all things including that which we perceive as beautiful, i think there’s some cruelty in the things outside of that qualification. regardless, my appreciation of beauty is grounded in my own perception and wouldnt be influenced by the “will” of a higher power

Emory

First question - I don’t really think about it and I don’t really care ??? Like it’d be cool if there was and I’d like to believe that there is some higher being but like there’s probably not ?? And I think I appreciate them no matter what - when I experience beautiful things I don’t think about why or how they came about sooo idk I don’t really care 😁👍

Philip

I think that a higher force does exist that is responsible for the creation of the universe and all the beautiful things within it, but our concept of 'intention' probably doesn't apply to it. This doesn't change how much I appreciate beautiful things. In either case, intention or not, beauty is valuable intrinsically as a reason for living. Beauty is the recognition of good in something, so if you believe that life is a good thing, you can find beauty in anything.

Jack

ChatGBT is correct about the "begging the question" fallacy - we would have to accept that a higher being exists in order to provide an answer. For the sake of argument, let's assume a higher being exists.

*Little off topic - if a higher being exists, I’d like to define it (Dad touched on this a little when talking about simulation theory). Is this higher being just some powerful force that created the physics of our universe? Or is this higher being more akin to what we'd expect from a religious text (does stuff that affects us directly and personally)?

If this higher being is just some force that created the universe without intent, then it didn’t create beautiful things with some random primates on a random planet in mind. Especially because those primates didn’t exist until BILLIONS of years had passed.

*Back on topic - So I guess to answer your question, if some being intentionally designed everything, then no, I would appreciate beautiful things less - It would greatly cheapen the value. If it was all designed, I’d think “Well of course it’s beautiful, it was specifically made for me to think so.” LAME

Amy

Marc

Cheryl

The wording of my question was apparently mis-representative of what I wanted to ask and Che had the question dissected by chat gpt. 

And then some more texts with garbage from chatgpt. I did not waste my effort screenshotting them.

Dani

(no response yet)

Hannah

(No response yet)

Alex 

(No response yet)

Myself

I do not think there is anything that was created intentionally because there is no thing doing the creating. I think through the random chances of the scattered protons in the universe we are here and able to feel moments of serendipitous beauty. I think because they are random, this means they are more beautiful because of how lucky we are that we can process and interpret them as so. 

TLDR; (A summary from what people said)

A lot of people thought that the first half of the question was irrelevant, and that their perception of beauty was unchanged by if it was created with intention or not. There was also opinions that thought the lack of intention (whether from a creator or not) would make things more beautiful. No one said that they thought beautiful things were created intentionally by a creator, and multiple people said that they believed there was a being that created things but they could not understand what beauty meant to us therefore did not do anything with intention. 

Make

List / poem:

Things that are angels to me

An echo

The dreams I forget before I wake up

The smell of rain on the breeze before you can feel the storm

A single feather I saw floating from the sky the other day

A promise 

The roaring sound of the ocean when you walk by the beach on a dark night

When you’re overtaken by a sense of deja vu

A warm blanket from a dryer wrapped around your shoulders

A hug

When you lay in bed after a long day and realize that your blankets are softer than you remember

When you laugh so hard you can’t breathe

Hope after a long moment of despair

A smile

When you step outside and the sun is kindly warm on your skin

The dragonfly that landed on my shoulder and looked into my eyes and in the moment that our gazes connected all of the world stopped

The first day that the hint of spring is in the air

An angel is an echo

Reflection

I liked asking people a question, that was a lot more fun than doing research. But this whole capstone thing feels like blindly groping about in a huge unlit room on a cloudy, moonless night with not so much as a single match to light to see with. And it's so dark and there's so many obstacles in the way and you keep slamming your shin into things you can't see. In short, I find this capstone process confusing and frustrating.

[sharkieboi]

i always say that i’m good with both parrots and children cause their venn diagram of behaviors is a circle, but the deeper reason i’m so good with birds is that my flavor of non-neurotypical is that I fundamentally Am a bird