Transhumanism, aesthetics & fractals—the science of beauty is not what we are led to think it is
The rich and beautiful have it all, don’t they? Celebrity suicides draw attention to pervasive mental health issues that are equally indiscriminate—plaguing the young and attractive—those regarded by society as the most successful. Is it possible that the practice of cosmetic dermatology breeds the vicious cycle of insecurity in body dysmorphophobia rather than addressing it? In this podcast I share some of my reflections that led to my decision to leave the practice of cosmetic dermatology back in 2019. Normative perfection does not exist. Does it? The relationship between the material and the mental world was referred to by Gustav Fechner as the realm of psychophysics, also known as “die geistige Welt” in German. A literal translation to “spiritual universe”. As the pioneer of modern psychology, he proposed a set of metrics which could be used to statistically define the experience of beauty—also what makes one “fall in love”. Contemporary models examining the psychology of beauty refer to it as an undefined aesthetic response. We debate that beauty must be universal since we prefer familiar objects, yet philosophers hypothesise that beauty must possess an inherent element of surprise. Psychologists also acknowledge that the experience of beauty requires an element of cognition—it’s also paradoxically ascribed to pleasure, experienced as a visceral sensation. These diverse attributes are consistent with biological phenomena—complex, interactive processes that work towards a collective purpose. In the age of AI, will we finally achieve perfection? Or is there an insidious force already working behind the scenes. Join me in this episode as I unravel the dangers of following the crowd, especially in the business of beauty.