4 ms·

The weird thing is, I've been in some of those avatar worlds, and people still want to look humanoidish, often outlandishly 'supermodel'. Almost no one actually

by pnathan 14y ago

The weird thing is, I've been in some of those avatar worlds, and people still want to look humanoidish, often outlandishly 'supermodel'. Almost no one actually experiments beyond that. It's weird when I recall cyberpunk short stories from the 80s where people had all these radically weird and different avatars. Why should we be confined by our minds to looking like supermodels, why shouldn't we look like some sort of... alien thing in cyber reality? Not sure. But it'd be an interesting study.

mvleming 14y ago
I never thought about it in that way, and that is interesting. It's like the more we have the opportunity to not look human, we take that opportunity to look more human. But, thinking about it, it makes sense. It's personifying what society has deemed as the perfect image. In response to your comment, I think you just need to give culture time to experiment with new ideas when new opportunities rise up. I've actually never played in an avatar world, but I imagine, for example in Second Life, new styles or physiques. Maybe you could tell me?
- corporalagumbo 14y ago
  >personifying what society has deemed as the perfect image. Ugh, social construction theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_aesthetics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_aesthetics
  - mvleming 14y ago
    You think the duckface is an aesthetic quality we've evolved to have a taste for?
    - corporalagumbo 14y ago
      What? No. I think the aesthetic features which most accurately signal good health, strength and fertility, which humans throughout history have consistently opted for in mate selection, are what we have evolved tastes for. I.e. we have evolved aesthetic preferences which have consistently construed reproductive benefits.
      - mvleming 14y ago
        I agree with you. I've read about how a curvy figure (a high hip-to-waist ratio) is more attractive to males because it means offspring are more likely to survive when they pop out of the woman (small hips and big brains don't go well together). The point I was trying to make though is there are some aesthetic qualities we like that are not evolutionary products, the example I gave was the duckface. Another example is women in China bind their feet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding), or yet another is Kayan women elongate their necks (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ak1yxTngxW4/Tnen0_FXpgI/AAAAAAAAAWg/T-qLjMFrITI/s1600/2083485999_3742694857.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ak1yxTngxW4/Tnen0_FXpgI/AAAAAAAAAW...). I believe what aesthetic qualities we like are the result of our nature and our nurture, and it is in this way I believe society does create a perfect image.
        corporalagumbo 14y ago
        The point I was making is, and the reason I dislike SCT, is that there is a very strong and relatively stable genetically-determined set of aesthetic preferences found in all cultures. There are no cultures where diseased and ulcerated skin on the face is considered sexy. "But of course" you might say - but that's the point, we take the real commonalities for granted. And then, yes, on top of those there is a whole conflicting mess of different desirable appearances which depend upon the period, culture, and person, driven by all the complexities of interacting human beings. But those factors can be boiled down to some fairly simple drives which have all emerged for one reason: to maximise reproductive success. Which is all what you would expect from the result of selection pressures acting across tens of thousands of successful generations of descendants of ancient DNA-replicating machines. Another way to say this is that it is in our nature to be highly responsive to environmental conditions, i.e. nurture. Nature builds the platform and tools needed for nurture to occur - but just because we are plastic in the face of nurture does not mean nurture negates or transcends the principles of nature (at least not so far, I believe.) If individuals had arisen in which this was so, they would have been selected against. You should read The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker makes this point about people who try and argue that the brain is effectively infinitely plastic and comes with no built-in "software" for processing and generating language. (PS The main complication in trying to read human behaviour for evolutionary logic is that selection principles do not act upon individuals solely, because humans are all integrated into often multiple kin and common-identity networks of greater or lesser complexity. Evolutionary logic resolves at the level of these more-complicated networks.) (PPS I believe that the head size-hip ratio theory is erroneous. Read http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/hominids/2012/08/timing-of-childbirth-evolved-to-match-womens-energy-limits/ http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/hominids/2012/08/timing-of-c...)

by pnathan 14y ago

mvleming 14y ago

I never thought about it in that way, and that is interesting. It's like the more we have the opportunity to not look human, we take that opportunity to look more human. But, thinking about it, it makes sense. It's personifying what society has deemed as the perfect image. In response to your comment, I think you just need to give culture time to experiment with new ideas when new opportunities rise up. I've actually never played in an avatar world, but I imagine, for example in Second Life, new styles or physiques. Maybe you could tell me?

corporalagumbo 14y ago
>personifying what society has deemed as the perfect image. Ugh, social construction theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_aesthetics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_aesthetics
- mvleming 14y ago
  You think the duckface is an aesthetic quality we've evolved to have a taste for?
  - corporalagumbo 14y ago
    What? No. I think the aesthetic features which most accurately signal good health, strength and fertility, which humans throughout history have consistently opted for in mate selection, are what we have evolved tastes for. I.e. we have evolved aesthetic preferences which have consistently construed reproductive benefits.
    - mvleming 14y ago
      I agree with you. I've read about how a curvy figure (a high hip-to-waist ratio) is more attractive to males because it means offspring are more likely to survive when they pop out of the woman (small hips and big brains don't go well together). The point I was trying to make though is there are some aesthetic qualities we like that are not evolutionary products, the example I gave was the duckface. Another example is women in China bind their feet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding), or yet another is Kayan women elongate their necks (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ak1yxTngxW4/Tnen0_FXpgI/AAAAAAAAAWg/T-qLjMFrITI/s1600/2083485999_3742694857.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ak1yxTngxW4/Tnen0_FXpgI/AAAAAAAAAW...). I believe what aesthetic qualities we like are the result of our nature and our nurture, and it is in this way I believe society does create a perfect image.
      - corporalagumbo 14y ago
        The point I was making is, and the reason I dislike SCT, is that there is a very strong and relatively stable genetically-determined set of aesthetic preferences found in all cultures. There are no cultures where diseased and ulcerated skin on the face is considered sexy. "But of course" you might say - but that's the point, we take the real commonalities for granted. And then, yes, on top of those there is a whole conflicting mess of different desirable appearances which depend upon the period, culture, and person, driven by all the complexities of interacting human beings. But those factors can be boiled down to some fairly simple drives which have all emerged for one reason: to maximise reproductive success. Which is all what you would expect from the result of selection pressures acting across tens of thousands of successful generations of descendants of ancient DNA-replicating machines. Another way to say this is that it is in our nature to be highly responsive to environmental conditions, i.e. nurture. Nature builds the platform and tools needed for nurture to occur - but just because we are plastic in the face of nurture does not mean nurture negates or transcends the principles of nature (at least not so far, I believe.) If individuals had arisen in which this was so, they would have been selected against. You should read The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker makes this point about people who try and argue that the brain is effectively infinitely plastic and comes with no built-in "software" for processing and generating language. (PS The main complication in trying to read human behaviour for evolutionary logic is that selection principles do not act upon individuals solely, because humans are all integrated into often multiple kin and common-identity networks of greater or lesser complexity. Evolutionary logic resolves at the level of these more-complicated networks.) (PPS I believe that the head size-hip ratio theory is erroneous. Read http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/hominids/2012/08/timing-of-childbirth-evolved-to-match-womens-energy-limits/ http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/hominids/2012/08/timing-of-c...)