Beauty/Attraction and the functions

[Quinlan]

When we decide something is beautiful what function are we using? I assume it is the F functions. Do these functions have differing approaches to beauty?

For example would beauty to Fi be a value assigned by the individual (beauty is in the eye of the beholder) and Fe would see beauty as something assigned by the group (societal standards of beauty)?

Discuss.

 

[VagrantFarce]

When we decide something is beautiful what function are we using?

Any and all of them! Or none of them! The point being that no, finding something beautiful is not specific to a function(s). Describing something as "beautiful" just means that it's poking endorphin buttons in your brain - maybe in function terms, it would be somehow "confirming" or "illustrating" how your functions operate together.

 

[JocktheMotie]

The erectile function. And it's always right!

 

[VagrantFarce]

For example, I might read (or compose) a phrase or sentence that helps clarify something in my head, and it will feel like a thousand pinball machine lights are going off all at once - in that moment, I might feel tempted to describe that phrase or sentence as "beautiful". It's like finding that one missing jigsaw piece that was preventing you from solving the puzzle in your head.

 

[edcoaching]

Go to an art museum with someone whose type is opposite yours (I was at the Met in NY with my ESTP husband last week...) and see if your criteria for beauty isn't almost opposite. I won't go into detail but let's just make clear that he found little value in Vermeer and Rembrandt but was enthralled by King Henry II's ivory-inlaid hunting pistol (which okay was kinda neat and does belong in a museum but...)

 

[KDude]

Beauty is me.

No seriously.. I seem to be attracted to things I see in myself -- possibly fully realized and/or better than what I am, but something that feels comfortable, like home. Not that I shun mystery either.. I need that too. The mysterious side, the foreign element, the thing that's slightly different about it, is something I usually want to adapt to and take for my own -- adding to my own sense of beauty. But a little familiarity is what gets me attracted in the first place. And the more experiences I have and things I adapt to, the further my sense of beauty is refined.

How this all applies to functions though, I don't know.

 

[VagrantFarce]

Beauty is me.

No seriously.. I seem to be attracted to things I see in myself -- possibly fully realized and/or better than what I am, but something that feels comfortable, like home. Not that I shun mystery either.. I need that too. The mysterious side, the foreign element, the thing that's slightly different about it, is something I usually want to adapt to and take for my own -- adding to my own sense of beauty. But a little familiarity is what gets me attracted in the first place. And the more experiences I have and things I adapt to, the further my sense of beauty is refined.

How this all applies to functions though, I don't know.

Fi/Ni "in love with many versions of myself" with a bit of Se "mystery" attached?

 

[KDude]

Sounds about right, I guess

What is that pic... very interesting.

 

[VagrantFarce]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

 

[Halla74]

Beauty is me.

This is kind of interesting to me. For the past 15 years people have been telling my wife and I that we look like brother and sister. Despite being MBTI polar opposites, we have many similarities, such as fitness habits, lifestyle choices, taste in foods, music, etc. There just might be something to what you said. We choose people who remind us of the parts of ourselves we like in some way, in some cases physical, and in others differently maybe. Hmmm.

I do know that when I met my wife's Dad, I was kind of shocked in that he is a gregarious extravert like me (maybe ESFX) and when he was younger he had long hair and was fit, like I am now. So somehow, I have thought that my wifey may have selected me as part of a subliminal Electra complex.

 

[KDude]

In many cases, I see that.. Two couples I know who are great with each other sort of resemble each other too. My parents OTOH, who've been together 40 years, don't. But then, where they aren't compatible, they brush it aside and made it work in other ways. So I see that as valid too. Not sure if I see it as ideal as the first type of relationship though (and that's sad saying that, since it's my parents), since it's a lot of hard work. Every one goes through hard work and all, but some people are much more unconsciously accommodating for each other.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

I'm wondering if it's not more Si.

When I stop to actually think about what I find beautiful, it's a judgment that I've made about something in the past; something that I've already discovered that awakens good feelings in me, usually an object, or a person which I might perceive as an object (as in someone I don't know and see a pic of or something like that). I don't think I think of thoughts as beautiful. If I did, I'd say maybe that was Ni. Babies don't think in terms of pretty or ugly, for example; everything is discovered and value placed over time and experience. For whatever reason, over our lifetime, certain things strike us as beautiful, and I think that might get retained in our memories via Si, to be recalled instantaneously in a moment when memory of that object is evoked, either by that object or by something that triggers thought of that object.

Interestingly, I don't find many things beautiful, per se, although I do have a deep love for life and living things. I'm sort of neutral that way. I don't much get into art or artforms like poetry. I like to write poetry, but I don't really identify too much with finding things beautiful or ugly. However, my S friends seem to be more attached to beauty and beautiful things. It's almost a driving force for them. Not necessarily in a materialistic way, but looking good and projecting what they perceive is a lovely image is more important to them.

 

[Synapse]

Personality wins over beauty, from personal experience you can be as good looking as you want and be unnoticed without a personality. It is the personality that actually accentuates beauty. The amount of charisma, spirit, humour, body language, experience you have matters. How the chemistry, the bonding, the easy nature, the ability to be down to earth, secure in themselves, warmth, assertive, healthy, social and confident in their actions and abilities.

Then its more than Fi or Si. Emotional and physical association play a tremendous role certainly, but so does the psychological effect, the carry on of a persons behaviour, integrity, truth, honesty. The perceptual reality based on the subjective truth, ones ability to communicate interpersonally, the body speaks volumes. And while the face is important so too is everything else in contrast to the smells, sounds, tastes, balance of how people are.

Its the reason why some people draw people to them rather than repel them. They are able to generate rhythms through personality that is consistent with the patterns of health. And health is the primary attractor expressed from beauty. Healthy people are seen more beautiful than unhealthy people. Its hygiene, dress sense and yeah appearance of the inner self in the outer self in conjunction with personality.

 

[disregard]

Te would be attraction due to symmetry
Ti would be attraction due to it "making sense" for them to be with that person

 

[AOA]

The outward appearance is the reflection of who you are - on the inside, in which case (given) you're good looking on the outside, you are something of that calibre on the inside.

... Personality is what we invented as a way of following societal code, and fitting in with people. Otherwise, the ideal mind of any person would be to be self-confident on the knowledge that you really are good looking.

Now, the perception of beauty (otherwise) is dependent the different personality types, since beauty (itself) is subjective.

[This post succeeds as my 1000th post.]

 

[miss fortune]

congrats on post # 1,000!

I'd have to say that each function perceives beauty differently... the combination and strengths of each function a person has would end up creating thier unique perspective in a way

I suppose I should be disturbed that I have a similar smile and swagger as my SO's ESFP best friend (one of the best friends...)... who is MALE I don't even want to PONDER the implications of that!

I'll be the one in the art museum enjoying the sounds and staring out the window at the river and forest though... or looking at the colors and play of light as opposed to the content and symbolism of pictures

 

[KDude]

^ I'm the same way with art. Not that I don't care for symbolism and content in art, but is that what I first look take interest in it for? No. And in music, I'm attracted specifically to the sounds first. Even in vocals, it's the sound and timbre of the voices. Not the lyrics. Lyrics are more like icing on the cake for me. And hell, sometimes I find beauty in the most insane lyrics, that are dimetrically opposed to my values, just because how "Hack the heads off little girls. Put on my wall!"

 

[miss fortune]

I do the same with music- it's the sound first that draws me in... I sometimes don't know the lyrics to songs I really like

Saturday Night, by the misfits, is a pretty marvelously psycho song as well

I guess that Se captivates me first with things and then is followed up by the other functions- image and sound before meanings

 

[KDude]

I love Saturday Night. Even though it's not the original singer whom I prefer, it's one that still catches me for all the same reasons. "I'm coming clean for Amy... Julie doesn't scream as well... "

I wonder if there's a downside to all of it.. Some might say we're superficial

 

[miss fortune]

I've gotten some funny looks for yowling along with that song in public before... and probably not just because I can't sing

Superficial to some... appreciative of the little things in life to others