"Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.[1][2] It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind.[3] Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe that there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is.[4] As Max Velmans and Susan Schneider wrote in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness: "Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives."[5]"

You can split semantic hairs all you want, but the definition of consciousness is as wishy-washy as they come. We have two words, I assume, because they are useful for different things.

Is beauty in the object or in the eye of the observer? Or is it something else? — Benjamin Dovano

The judgment that such and such qualities are beautiful is in the eye of the observer.

The qualities in question are not.

Beauty is only beautiful if its intrinsic truth opens a new range of possibilities in the way that we conceptualize the our narratives about the art object. In that way a we can find a mountain range, a Picasso or a work by Mark Twain all beautiful. This truth lies in the relationship that forms around their matter, our narratives, the artist and the community of observers, it is not simply in the "eye of the beholder".

So you require some sort of community agreement for something to be beautiful?

Also, why woudln't that be an argumentum ad populum (the population in question at least being the domain that you feel is pertinent to these sorts of judgments)?

Certainly if there is only one observer, that is the community, but no, not ad populum as I stated it is the relationship between matter, the narratives/history, the artist, and the community of observers.

In other words, say that 100 people witness some work. Let's say that just a handful of them, let's say 5 of them, say that the work is beautiful, and the other 95 have reactions of indifference to revulsion.

Is that work beautiful for the 5 people in question? Or are they wrong?

Perhaps they don't see whatever truth is in the work, it does nothing for them, it does not open up any possibilities in their lives. Atonal music is not easy to appreciate, it requires thought and knowledge of music, for people with the proper understanding may see what the artist has tried to accomplish, they understand the history behind the music, it's truth hits them, it juts itself out of its matter and grabs them.

What about my questions though? Is that work beautiful for the 5 people in question, or are they wrong? (And are the other folks wrong for being indifferent or revulsed by it?)

No, the other 95 people simply don't understand the history/narratives behind the work, perhaps they don't have the proper education to appreciate the work, they don't see what is important about the work, it does not hit them.

So would you say that every work is beautiful, it just requires understanding the history/narratives behind it, seeing what is important about it, etc.?

Every work is beautiful (Schopenhauer?), I don't think so, I think that works are beautiful only in so far as they can illuminate their object, there is a truth that makes itself evident in the work, it's that truth that grabs.

So then by virtue of what are you saying that the 95 people in my example simply haven't seen the work's beauty yet? Are you saying that the other 5 people can't be wrong if they find the work beautiful?

I think that's what Paul Klee thought...I am still trying to work it out.

Ah, okay. I think it's wrong to say that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is wrong, though.

As I said in my first post in this thread:

The judgment that such and such qualities are beautiful is in the eye of the observer.

The qualities in question are not.

As you put it, it resides in the spectrum of colors, among others.

Is beauty in the object or in the eye of the observer? Or is it something else? — Benjamin Dovano

Is this an exclusive OR is it an inclusive OR. I ask because I think beauty lies in both the observer and the observed. Why?

We all have different tastes - isn't this why we have so much variety in everything we do - from food to art.

For something to be taken as beautiful it must possess the features that turn on the observer.

Thus beauty is the harmonious confluence of personal taste and qualities of the object of beauty.

When the cat is on the mat, is the 'on' in the mat or in the cat, or is it somewhere between them? I can find the cat, on the mat, and the mat, under the cat, but where oh where is the 'on'? Bah, I don't think it exists - nothing is ever really on anything.

" This opens for the possibility that objects or events can possess beauty as a property without necessarily being experienced as beautiful."

No.
Just because two people can agree that an object is beautiful does not mean that beauty is an inherent property of the object, It simply means that two people have an agreed standard.
With the observer, not only is beauty absent, but it is absurd.
By such misconceptions do moralists agree to hang people by their necks on false claims of objectivity.

Eye of the beholder

I think beauty is mostly subjective. One might proffer a Dali over a Picasso.

I think, beauty is in everything. And at the same time, it is in nothing. Beauty does not have a particular nature but is merged with nature . Just like God