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Comment by jeremyx | Hacker News Reader

What is more interesting to me, is the fact that flowers are beautiful and bees and people seem to universally recognize this. There is a sophisticated information exchange going with respect to how flowers evolved to attract pollinators. Co-evolution with information exchange across species. See David Deutsch's 'The Beginning of Infinity' for a fascinating discussion on objective beauty...

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Coincidence - we like flowers, and admire bees. So we appreciate that bees are attracted to beauty.

Replace bees with flies, and flowers with manure (or plants that seek to attract flies http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0602.htm).

Where's the objective beauty?

There is something more than that. There are many beautiful things, but flowers in particular seem to stand out as something that is recognized for their beauty regardless of culture, time or place. In the same way that people the world over, independent of one another, come up with the same conclusions about geometry and mathematics...

But not regardless of species. That both bees and humans find flowers beautiful is coincidence. That humans are similar to other humans in a way that crosses cultures is obvious to most.

Flowers have evolved to look, smell and taste in a way that attracts pollinators, some of whom also happen to see colors and appreciate sweet things much like we do. While we, humans, find many wild flowers attractive because we share some of our preferences with their pollinators, some times [1] it's painfully clear that we're not the target audience. On the other hand, domesticated flowers you can buy as at a flower shop today were bred for centuries specifically to better satisfy human tastes, so it's no wonder we like them so much.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrion_flower

Does anyone ever wonder if evolutionists are like people that want websites like Amazon for $1000 [1]?

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5222581

What do you mean by "evolutionists" and what similarity do you have in mind?

The beauty of flowers to humans is a byproduct of awesome evolving for the eyesight of bees.

Have you ever seen a flower like a bee sees it? Bees can see in UV as well as visible. The results are interesting, as it's nothing we would ever see when looking at a flower. Even dandelions are beautiful with UV.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-473897/A-bees...

You don't think the just smell sugar? Soda cans aren't beautiful but bees seem to love them.

There's a video of Deutsch giving a lecture which focuses on why flowers are beautiful, following much of the same line of reasoning as in `The Beginning of Infinity'.

Worth a watch, if you've got an hour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT7DFCF1Fn8

See also one of my favorites, Feynman's "Ode on a Flower": https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...

It only adds... I don't understand how it subtracts.

What is more interesting to me, is the fact that flowers are beautiful and bees and people seem to universally recognize this.

Almost as if flowering plants are related to food for both bees and apes....

Everyone here would like the documentary "the botany of desire"

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