Enthralled

"The Lord has made everything beautiful in its time". Solomon.

Have you ever wondered why we spend so much time and industry seeking to employ the pinnacle of our modern technology to create something which, we hope, will emulate or at the very least correspond at some level to what we are?

Why do we so want something like that?

Why aren't we pouring those massive resources into devising and then constructing something that is entirely different from ourselves - something devised that is so absolutely 'other' to us? Why is 'the future' something which is perceived as something which presumably enhances and elevates the human?

What is it, in other words, about us that we consider worth saving?

Is it because, from what we can actually state, that we appear to be the only material part of the visual universe that have the capacity to stop and ask questions like "Who am I? What am I?".

Thinkers like the late Roger Scruton argued that it was precisely because of these issues that we bothered to pursue the likes of art and science to establish our place and significance amidst the realm in which we exist.

The most telling shock any of us undergo in our days here is not the joys or the trials of our common life, but the moment when an awareness of what is so much more profound and enduring than us pierces our presumed notions of what we are and begins to make us aware of a wisdom and splendour behind the majesty of what is. Such a moment of transition, of overwhelming revelation, re-defines the common into the miraculous and the barely comprehended into a realm of inexhaustible wonder.

It resonates with us like a child enjoying the genuine magic of a Christmas morning, or a writer suddenly capturing an idea that he instantly knows in the depths of his marrow will amaze and entrap his audience by its originality and surprise.

Inspiration in the "composing" of a work of astonishing charm that staggers us, in comprehension continually frolics upon our consciousness in a manner that seeks to cheerfully whisper of a wisdom and elegance akin to a Dickensian apparition of joy - to intoxicate our reductionism with an expanse of revelation.

Herein then we find an uncommon jewel uncovered in both the weaving of an artistic masterpiece or the unpacking of a ground-breaking mathematical formula - we are drawn to sourcing an underlying splendour which, via our engagement, pours into our realm to allow a previously untapped spring to flow and form in concert with our gifts to elevate our days - to express a fraction of the unseen and to enthral and spur us to further discovery.

Such wonder is upon us continually, and yet, is barely comprehended in respect to the 'message' it is seeking to convey. Take the case of non-utilitarian beauty. Non-Adaptive order, as it defined in science, is everywhere, from the numerous variety in the forms of leaves to the concentric nature of flowers. Such forms have absolutely no survival function and yet, they pervade the natural world. Such patterns are quite extraordinarily exquisite, but they carry no actual biological function, leaving us with a remarkable paradox as we observe and appreciate such expressions of something so fundamental to life, yet totally beyond the utilitarian.

Non- adaptive elaboration speaks directly to our aesthetic and creative character, finding resonance with our seemingly innate ability to engage with such beauty and be inspired by this- to 'see', in other words, something teetering upon the transcendent; a pointer to mind reflected in both creativity and what has been created.

Such texturing, variation, distinction and elaboration for no required functional purpose clearly speak to an intention - to weave a particular manner of splendour into the natural order which would allow our cognitive abilities to comprehend and appreciate a richness which requires appreciation and prompts us to look and wonder at the true intent in this realm and relationship to this.

Beauty, be it within a painting, a sonnet, or a mathematical axiom, requires and gains our attention and engages us at a truly profound level which opens our ability to revel in the exquisite. Remove such elements from the nature of reality or from our consciousness, and the universe would be a very cold, austere place with nothing beyond rudimentary survival to offer.

We do not live in such squalor. We inhabit a realm bursting with opulence and splendour.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves why.

Perhaps the reason we don't is because when properly considered, the existence of such beauty leads us to some quite troubling conclusions...