gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards"

are we aiming for the point in the middle or to experience the bits at the extremes in disconnected nuggets? and, in any case, I'm not sure if there isn't a place/space/thing where all of these coincide at their maximum... but then i could be deluded :)

Um.. this is a pretty confusing division.. probably a more "postmodern" (or economic) approach to the classical unity.

Personally I'd say that the truth and beauty division is pretty doesn't really hold. I mean beauty is really just another aspect of truth - as in a general "rightness" of things, or as justice, reality.

But then again one often talks about "the ugly truth".. but I think here we can get to the bottom of it: truth is beautiful, but it uncovers (shows) the actual state of affairs (the actual form of something) - which is usually pretty gruesome.

I think what's crucial here is what objects can be placed within this space - goods would fit, art would not. You could make a 3D graph of this with cost as the z axis.. and then map possible product form/function/truth/beauty levels for different price ranges..

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
- John Keats

Reminds me of a Star Trek episode entitled "Is There In Truth No Beauty?", a title which probably came from some piece of classic literature which I can't name.