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/sci/ - Science & Math

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14550327 No.14550327 [Reply] [Original]

How does the theory of evolution explain the human obsession with gemstones? Why is a translucent rock so much more appealing than an opaque rock?

>> No.14550345
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14550345

>>14550327
>why is thing you don't see often more appealing than thing you can kick the ground and hit

>> No.14550392

>>14550327
Nature and evolution cherishes vivid colors in general; see bird plumage and flowers.

>> No.14551352

>>14550327
Because humans value intellectualism and abstract concepts, a very primitive caveman would probably take a bite then throw it away. Abstract thinking allowed us to create tools and strategize plans, and gemstones are almost like the physical manifestation of everything abstract. And it's not like gemstones were popular among peasants, it was a rich person or intellectual hobby that peasants maybe tried to copy.

>> No.14551371

>>14550327
i dont know OP but for one thing when you look real deep into a gemstone for a minute you don't think or worry about all of your problems. same with a piece of fantastic music or a grand painting or any medium.

>> No.14551372

>>14550327

Water is shinny. Therefore we evolved to like shinny things.

>> No.14551374

>>14551372
leave it to an engineer to spell shiny as if they were afflicted with a debilitating mental illness

>> No.14551498

>>14550345
I see cheeseburgers (yes, I'm American) far more often than I see piles of elephant shit but still find the cheeseburger more appealing.

>> No.14551512

>>14550327
>Why is a translucent rock so much more appealing than an opaque rock?
Because it has interesting and unusual optical properties. It's visually stimulating. Cool colors and cool geometric patterns that change depending on the viewing angle. What's not to like? You should ask why humans enjoy this kind of visual stimulation in general.

>> No.14551535

>>14550327
it's probably not an evolutionary adaptation it's probably just the intrinsic properties of shiny rock and vision interacting such that it achieves a certain novelty without any point of contact with evolution. it's partly it's because they stand out from the usual imagery and partly because they're intrinsically more visually interesting as a direct consequence of their actual physical properties and how those relate to the faculty of sight itself.

>> No.14551544

>>14551512
you are a retard for begging the question he's asking why we like shiny rocks and your answer is 'because we like them' / because it's visually stimulating etc... why is it visually stimulating... why do we care at all about them... other animals have no problem ignoring visually stimulating things like mirrors, so why are we not like them... etc... your answer is inadequate

>> No.14551545

>>14551544
You are profoundly retarded. Why is this board teeming with clinical subhumans like you, and why aren't they being banned?

>> No.14551547

>>14551545
how am i retarded then go on tell me

>> No.14551548

>>14551547
I'm wasn't begging the question. I explained to him that he's asking the wrong question. The problem with subhumans like you is that their pavlovian reddit nigger reactions kick in around 50 chartacters into a post.

>> No.14551551

>>14551545
you said he should ask the same question he asked in the op lol... 'why do we like shiny rocks' vs 'why do we like shiny things' <--- your retarded niggabrain thinks these are two substantially different questions... why dont u tell us then faggot why do humans enjoy this kind of visual stimulation huh... tell us... oh wait u can't because it's the same fucking question dumbass faggot why don't you google how to debate instead of making shit up on the spot and failing to even move from premise to predicate ur failing to say anything about the topic besides what the topic already says about itself lol calling me retarded you got to be joking go eat pickles nigga

>> No.14551565

They look like fruit

>> No.14551568

to the question why do humans value x property there's a definite underlying ontology such that divorced from any subjective, evolution-driven pattern matching that exists in for example our preference of sweet foods there exists some objective aspect of the property onto which perception maps otherwise the mapping is arbitrary... some animals can't see color but that just means they aren't mapped onto it... in the absence of color perception the potassium nitrate in fireworks or whatever is still potassium nitrate and whatever gives something its color is still an objective physical feature of that thing. in mapping the usual colors in a sufficiently dissimilar way nature overshot its target and mapped the spectacular instances of it, as an extension of an originally ad-hoc sense ability.

>> No.14551577

>>14551551
>you said he should ask the same question he asked in the op
Like I said, you are clearly less than human. Not even reading the rest of your post. How do dumb animals like you even remember to breathe?

>> No.14551578

>>14551568
And here's the other side of the low IQ reddit pseud coin. This board is a dumpster.

>> No.14551581

>>14551577
>>14551578
kill yourselves

>> No.14551582

>>14551581
Oh, you're the same subhuman animal that churned out this >>14551551? Fucking LOL. Figures.

>> No.14551587

>>14551582
im the only person who has said anything of value in this thread

>> No.14551597

>>14551587
You have said nothing of value. You need to take your meds and go back to >>>/r/eddit.

>> No.14551603

>>14551597
why are you so convinced im some envoy of reddit? are you retarded?
thoughts on this post which i made: >>14551568 ?

>> No.14551613

>>14551603
>why are you so convinced im some envoy of reddit?
You sound identical to them in every respect.

>thoughts on this post
Low-IQ pseudery. Not-even-wrong-tier.

>> No.14551622

>>14551613
you have to explain how it's pseud otherwise we can't know if you're saying that because you didn't understand it or because it really is pseud. is it not precise enough? not empirically based? have i convoluted the problem with language? i think i've been sufficiently straightforward and i think anyone who knows what epistemology is can understand this type of language just fine, and that saying anything general about perception without recourse to epistemology is impossible.

>> No.14551627

>>14551622
>you have to explain how it's pseud
No, I don't. It's immediately apparent on its own.

>> No.14551628

>>14551627
appeal to incredulity fallacy

>> No.14551633

>>14551628
>sharts out a reference to a reddit fallacy
Like clockwork.

>> No.14551637

>>14551633
bruh i dont use no reddit on floyd cuh wutchu mean cuh on my sista brianna i dont use no damn reddit cuh

>> No.14551639

>>14551637
And now the reddit pseud is having a full-blown mental breakdown. Nice.

>> No.14551640

>>14551633
are you british nigga is that why ure insufferable only british and/or british-infected diasporas say 'shart' cuh

>> No.14551644

>>14551640
reddit pls go

>> No.14551646

>>14551644
im from the hood nigga kensington ave swear on my momma ill up the blick on you foenem u gotdamn fish n chips jive turkey ass mf off the lean fr fr

>> No.14551652

>>14550327
Evo Psych like all other forms of psychology is hardly a science. Memetic evolution might also be just as influential as biological evolution too.

>> No.14551662

>>14551652
>my political agenda is destroyed by the science of evo psych

>> No.14551674

>>14551498
>yes, I'm American
This is why

>> No.14551684

>>14551498
Food is different. Chili admittedly doesn't look that appetizing but it tastes good. Besides, you're comparing food to nonfood, so its a bad comparison.

>> No.14551700

>>14551544
>other animals
There are those birds that collect shiny things to try to impress a mate

>> No.14551716

>>14551700
>There are those birds that collect shiny things to try to impress a mate
>>14550392
>Nature and evolution cherishes vivid colors in general; see bird plumage and flowers.
In some birds is it that the males are more colorful to attract a mate?

Color is one form of distinction, if every flower around is green, and then all the sudden there is a red flower, that might be enticing enough for the pollinators to be intrigued by it, some of it is about standing out, in good ways.

An attractive man and woman stand out from ugly men and women, attractive ness is desired and attempted to be naturally selected by attractiveness, how to draw and grab and hold attention.

How can one attractive woman stand out from other attractive women so that maybe the best man will choose her over others, or that she may dazzle and inspire the best men to coo over her.

Well she can look to the flowers and birds at how they dazzle the eyes; and she can dye her dress many attractive colors and wear colorful stones all over her body, to show she is one with the beauties and glories of delightful nature.

A man who is attracted to a woman, may try to give a woman clothes and jewels to say, I know you are beautiful, but take these and adorn yourself in natures exquisite rarities so that you may sparkle like our father the Sun, glisten with the colors of flowers, and sparkle like the essence of attraction and allure.

When you cover your body in these gemstones I give you, and look at your hand and smile, as you look at flowers and and smile, catch your reflection and feel happy, to have your simple beige body enhanced by rainbownic mystique and charm, remember the suitor who provided you with these levitating feelings

>> No.14551720

>>14551716
Extreme Reddit Pseudery: Episode 2

>> No.14551729

>>14550327
Because our ancestors that was curious and inquisitive about exotic things in their environment had more offspring than those that didn't care about anomalous things in their environment.

>> No.14551731

Nature is a lot of green and brown and beige and grey.

These colors dazzle the senses with how they stand out. They reward the machinery that developed to so fine tune and fine comb the visual data of the world, so hd clearly.

Like how music rewards the ear system, pain and pleasure;

The systems were developed to detect and avoid the pain of being killed by animals; the systems did such a good job, when there is no threat, pleasure is apparent at the sight of their powers of exhibiting and expressing raw qualities;

We are taken aback by the intricacies and sublimities of nature, we do not live in a boring simply constructed rudimentary world. To take in aesthetic information, to compare and contrast so much aesthetic information, but also yes evolutionary chemicals that may be saying "symmetry and beauty and rarity has been important and useful in the evolutionary past, so you are being provided with a feeling of experiencing something special when you look at this, as you are provided with such a feeling when you look at a well constructed home, or smell cooking steak"

>> No.14552651

>>14551731
Ayyyy get your girl some shiny rocksss

>> No.14552678
File: 126 KB, 1200x900, dung beetle.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
14552678

>>14551684
That's anti-dung-beetleist!

>> No.14554116

>>14551662
Evo psych is not a science and unlike you I don't have a political agenda, because, I'm not stupid enough to confuse soft-sciences like psychology or sociology with real sciences like chemistry, or aerodynamics etc.