The Official Sequential/Oberheim Forum
OTHER DISCUSSIONS => General Synthesis => Off Topic => Topic started by: chysn on February 08, 2016, 12:19:46 PM
-
The title of this topic is stolen from a lovely term coined by Sacred Synthesis, who doesn't think this is the place for a philosophical discussion. But I think it sounds fun.
What is music, anyway?
(The big dark relativistic pit is pitch black. We're likely to be eaten by a grue....)
I'll start. My favorite definition is from John Cage invoking Edgard Varèse. "Music is organized sound."
-
Great topic!
And then he made 4:33 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3)!
;)
-
:-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X
-
And then he made 4:33 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3)!
:-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X
That's the spirit!
-
Just like inside jets of quasars: relativistic chock waves. Now translate that into music! ;)
Besides, Sacred Synthesis, I do remember that discussion on the old forum so I certainly understand your reaction. No need to prove Godwin's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law) this time around. Just remember that its a fundamental property of Internet discussions.
-
Haha, great thread so far - jumping right into the abyss.
Speaking in general terms, I would add the notion of music as a means to manipulate time. – "You see, my son, here time becomes space." (Wagner, Parsifal)
-
Somebody gotta invent non-linear time music! For lyrics consider studying Douglas Adam's grammar extensions for time travel.
-
Somebody gotta invent non-linear time music! For lyrics consider studying Douglas Adam's grammar extensions for time travel.
You can mess up linearity with the synchronic structure, at least if you consider temporal linearity as something that can be measured in a rationalistic and objective way, like minutes, hours, etc. Depending on the amount of information that's been given in a certain amount of time, you can manipulate the way that amount of time is going to be perceived, e.g. fast, slow, etc.
A mix of genres could also undermine the notion of linearity, i.e. if you make use of several different approches simultaneously. That would be the content driven variation.
-
Agreed, the non-linearity have to target the perception. Now, Lars von Trier would love such a challenge.
Besides, I think we all can agree on that one persons definition of music is another persons definition of noise. Not much to debate really. But surely a cool topic title!
-
Agreed, the non-linearity have to target the perception. Now, Lars von Trier would love such a challenge.
Well, I guess that would apply to anyone, who's interested in challenging narrative forms, which is basically one of the main themes of modernity.
-
Engineer discuses with a humanist. This is going to get interesting!
:o . o O ( rtfm modernity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernity) fast )
-
"Time is out of joint." - First came Shakespeare, then Einstein. ;D
This is not OT btw. 'Joint' is 'Fuge' in German = fugue.
-
"Time is out of joint." - First came Shakespeare, then Einstein. ;D
And then Philip K. Dick:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Out_of_Joint ;)
-
We've gone dystopian quite quickly…
-
Yeah, I was about to go Philip K. Dick there, as well.
See, isn't this more fun than vehemently agreeing with each other about how kick-ass awesome the OB-6 is?
-
See, isn't this more fun than vehemently agreeing with each other about how kick-ass awesome the OB-6 is?
Hey, I just ordered a Prophet-6 after the NAMM! ;D
-
This is not OT btw. 'Joint' is 'Fuge' in German = fugue.
Now that would be an interesting topic: musical form, thematic development, reverence for purposeful rules, and beauty by design. Every piece I've posted in the last two years has these; every one includes design, form, a general scheme - including the improvisations. None of it is experimental. On the occasions I've "experimented," I haven't liked the results.
I've composed about twelve fugues, but I'd like to return to the form and compose many more. Unfortunately, the pedal playing in the pieces is so involved that I'm not able to perform any of them on my current set up. That little Hammond XPK 200L pedalboard is the biggest musical obstacle I face. But fugues sound exceptional on synthesizer, especially with an Oberheim-ish PWM patch. Such music requires full length pedalboards and keyboards, which is one reason I simply can't work with anything less.
Paul, I believe you have a piece on your YouTube channel or somewhere else that's a sort of fugue or passacaglia - isn't that right?
-
Now that would be an interesting topic: musical form, thematic development, reverence for purposeful rules, and beauty by design. Every piece I've posted in the last two years has these; every one includes design, form, a general scheme - including the improvisations. None of it is experimental. On the occasions I've "experimented," I haven't liked the results.
Still your pieces don't come across as restrictive; they always unfold quite organically if that makes sense. So even by design (that puts things "in joint") you get something that doesn't seem to be designed (out of joint).
-
Paul, I believe you have a piece on your YouTube channel or somewhere else that's a sort of fugue or passacaglia - isn't that right?
You mean this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP-yn9iifWs&index=1&list=PLWyFTiF8L22xJ7BdkMqLwmisoI0r8bSO8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP-yn9iifWs&index=1&list=PLWyFTiF8L22xJ7BdkMqLwmisoI0r8bSO8)
I followed a more technological approach. I used exactly the same sequence four times with different sounds. Then I altered the tempo of each sequence by a multiple of the original clock division (half speed, double speed, etc.). I added further variations by dropping certain notes, inserting some ties, or by changing the running order of one of the sequences. Then I recorded each sequence to a separate track. But before each recording, I slightly altered the tempo. 120 BPM was the default. The other three tracks were recorded at 118, 119, and 121 BPM. They all start at the same time, but slowly run out of joint.
-
You guys are so restrained! We need to give our good moderator something to do.
I think music is like pornography. I can't define it but I know it when I (hear) it.
I'm no fan of relativism. At the same time I'm sure my views of music are completely colored by what I have experienced so far. I think the beauty of life is that there are many things we know but we can't define. Music may be one of those. Truth, beauty, justice, compassion, kindness, nature, and what some would call God.
Sorry my post now has both "pornography" and "God" in the same sentence.
-
For somebody who's no fan of relativism, you make a pretty good case for relativism.
But it's not all truth, justice, and kindness. If music can evoke nouns, we can't leave out despair, wretchedness, cruelty, and artificiality. It's all there, if any of it's there at all. Sit down for Mahler's Kindertotenlieder for a few minutes.
-
What is music, anyway?
Everything on this planet has something to do with music. Music functions in the realm of sculptured air. [Frank Zappa]
-
And silence is only a whole rest.
-
And silence is only a whole rest.
Is not silence still music? ... though not sculpted by anyone, it still has a shape.
-
And silence is only a whole rest.
Is not silence still music? ... though not sculpted by anyone, it still has a shape.
The perception of silence is very much depending on sounds or music in this case. It also depends on what you consider to be silence. I mean I can drive out into the countryside and there's still no silence because of the birds, bugs, wind, rain, or whatever might occur as a source for sounds in what we call nature.
In music, silence can also be a synchronic phenomenon, just by a group of instruments not playing while a singer is still singing for example.
I would also argue that silence can't really be music, although it can be part of it. You can embed silence qua composing. But silence by itself is almost comparable to the absence of any measurable quantity. It's certainly not nothing, as it still is something, but it becoming a phenomenon is only granted by a context that is not silence. Also, music is basically nothing but a manipulation of time, which becomes a bit tricky to organize with silence.
-
I was going to address silence being music, but it turns out that I don't want to say anything about it right now.
Instead, I'll offer up this:
https://soundcloud.com/edgefoundationinc/brian-eno-composers-as-gardeners
It's definitely worth 15 minutes of your time. I want to say things about it, but I'm not going to right now.
-
You planted a seed here. ;)
I can relate quite well to that although I'm not really composing generative music all the time. But the thought about surrendering has been important to me within a musical context. To cut a long story short: It took some collective approaches for me, or bands as one would say, to find the role within a music making environment - and beyond - I could be comfortable with. And that was not the leader position or the actual writer position although I did that too, but rather the listener who lets others step ahead first and then tries to work within the established set of boundaries. So in that sense, I feel more comfortable as a user, facilitator, and organizer of the material and the environment that surrounds me than a creator in the traditional sense. But I also don't believe that much in inspiration like the muse that suddenly throws a kiss at you. It usually doesn't pay off to just sit there and wait for ideas. Inspiration comes from constant work, not from waiting for the right moment.
For me, it has always been a challenge to qualitatively recreate a situation that is similar to a collective one, just for myself. Because if you found out that you like to be a facilitator and organizer in the first place, how are you going to do that with just yourself? The generative approach is quite helpful there. Just as in editing, it requires you to step back from yourself to a certain degree, to treat the work that has already been done as if it was done by someone else, who's voice is to be respected. What is common here, is the notion of stepping off center. You surrender to something that is there, has been recorded, or exists as a sort of concept, instead of imposing your authority on it. That's basically why I always considered listening to be more important than playing. You can of course train yourself so that both takes place simultaneously, which would result in instant composing and not just improvising.
In a collective environment that's of course easier to imagine, as there is actually something happening you can be carried by in the actual moment - a drug-like experience you can even have in a classic choir.
-
For me, it has always been a challenge to qualitatively recreate a situation that is similar to a collective one, just for myself. Because if you found out that you like to be a facilitator and organizer in the first place, how are you going to do that with just yourself?
It's probably not really possible, because there's no mind to say Hmmm... When I was in a band, someone would say something like, Hey what if we changed the last chorus to a minor key, like this? and somebody else would say Hmmm.... and we tried it, and sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't.
With generative music, you have to pull your own weeds. You have to expect most of the seeds to fail, or to sprout something grotesque. I just spent four hours working on a generative patch that simply didn't work. I recorded maybe six takes before realizing that it just wasn't going to bear fruit, and pulled all the cords out.
Still, I like generative music because it makes no demands. Melodic music tortures me. A melody pops into my head, goes around for a while, and leaves. When I was young, I worried that it wouldn't come back, but it always comes back, sometimes months later. And it goes around, and I play with it in my head for maybe years, literally, before even trying to play it on the piano. It doesn't go away until I notate it, or otherwise create a complete piece out of it. And after I do, it leaves me alone forever. That, to me, is the horror of melody; it demands to be brought into the world, like there's already an impression of it somewhere that it must fill.
-
For me, it has always been a challenge to qualitatively recreate a situation that is similar to a collective one, just for myself. Because if you found out that you like to be a facilitator and organizer in the first place, how are you going to do that with just yourself?
It's probably not really possible, because there's no mind to say Hmmm... When I was in a band, someone would say something like, Hey what if we changed the last chorus to a minor key, like this? and somebody else would say Hmmm.... and we tried it, and sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't.
You can sort of emulate that other voice by setting up a set of rules, which of course is related to another technique Eno established together with Peter Schmidt: the Oblique Strategies. You can't necessarily reproduce the level of spontaneity that is connected to another autonomous entity, but you can certainly limit the amount of choices you'd make if you would just "do whatever you want". In that sense you'd give up an arbitrary notion of free will and modify it according to an actual restistance.
With generative music, you have to pull your own weeds. You have to expect most of the seeds to fail, or to sprout something grotesque. I just spent four hours working on a generative patch that simply didn't work. I recorded maybe six takes before realizing that it just wasn't going to bear fruit, and pulled all the cords out.
Here's actually a problem I have with Eno's use of the term "nature," or rather with the fact that he doesn't really specify what his understanding of that term really is. In the everyday use of language, we usually refer to nature if we talk about "being out there," where the trees and creeks are and the birds sing (depending on your actual geographical position that notion will of course differ). In most cases, the term is used to either mark a difference between highly populated areas and rural areas, or to emphasize the contrast between cultivated/civilized places and untouched places. Such an attempt ignores that there is no such thing as an untouched place on earth, since everything has been measured already and daily practices of exploiting the planet are of course affecting the whole, especially in the long term. The Anthropocene does of course not push back the laws of nature (to which we have only access via abstraction), but it illustrates that nature as such is pretty much invisible to human beings, as their goal is defined by overcoming its limits - hence the invention of technology. So as such, nature is really being perceived as something like the ultimate border behind which something radically different is lurking that can't really be fully grasped - hence the Kantian notion of the sublime. Now one might of course argue that humans are a product of nature themselves, but thinking this thought to an end would equal pulling the rug away under common cultural and anthropologic concepts.
Back to Eno's gardening metaphor: There is of course a difference between the absolutistic garden of Versailles and the occasional kitchen garden. While the first is serving purely representative means, the latter is being set up for an actual use value. Nevertheless, the impact of humans on (untouched) nature is pretty much the same in both cases, albeit being demonstrated more restrictively in the ornamental garden. My point is, as soon as humans intervene or start to cultivate on whatever scale, nature stops being nature in the sense of something that is untouched. It starts to mutate into something that is being composed, even if you decide to let that bush of roses grow for the next three years. Because by deciding the latter, the bush of roses is already determined to grow under your authority. So even if you decide to maintain an unorderly garden, it ends up being a composed untidiness. Kind of in the same way that anti-art is still always art, never authentic, but always artificial.
Still, I like generative music because it makes no demands. Melodic music tortures me. A melody pops into my head, goes around for a while, and leaves. When I was young, I worried that it wouldn't come back, but it always comes back, sometimes months later. And it goes around, and I play with it in my head for maybe years, literally, before even trying to play it on the piano. It doesn't go away until I notate it, or otherwise create a complete piece out of it. And after I do, it leaves me alone forever. That, to me, is the horror of melody; it demands to be brought into the world, like there's already an impression of it somewhere that it must fill.
Interesting note on the haunting quality of melodies and its relation to a horror vacui.
I'd like to question though whether generative music makes no demands. Maybe not in the haunting sense that is tied to the melody you've described above. But in order for generative music to start to proceed, several steps have to be taken in advance, most commonly: designing an algorithm that keeps the whole kinetic thing running. And while the outcome of it might not equal traditional and overly intentional compositions, its blueprint has to be composed as well, which sort of reveals it as being the composition's own destiny instead of anything that's actually free-floating. The fact that we don't have enough time to listen to all the permutations that could eventually happen, doesn't make it any less predetermined. It's just a problem of mortality, which in turn makes even generative music a part of the most traditional artistic practices.
-
Music: uncovered cosmic patterns (in audible format) that have been hiding in plain sight for 5 billion years.
-
The release of the soul through sound.
-
Music is math
;D
-
I had to take a while to respond to this, because there was a lot to turn around in my head.
Here's actually a problem I have with Eno's use of the term "nature," or rather with the fact that he doesn't really specify what his understanding of that term really is.
It's probably okay for him to lack rigor on that point, or to define it narrowly. Nature could be as simple as "what happens to your yard when you don't do anything." It doesn't have to mean that anything is totally untouched by humans. I could let my garden become overgrown with grass, but it's the type of grass that probably doesn't really exist outside of suburbs. There's still "nature" going on despite human involvement.
I'd like to question though whether generative music makes no demands. Maybe not in the haunting sense that is tied to the melody you've described above. But in order for generative music to start to proceed, several steps have to be taken in advance
By "makes no demands" I did not mean "takes no effort." Of course it takes effort in all aspects, from the conception to the creation. When I said generative music makes no demands, I meant that I can choose whether or not I make it; but melody is what happens when I don't do anything.
The fact that we don't have enough time to listen to all the permutations that could eventually happen, doesn't make it any less predetermined. It's just a problem of mortality, which in turn makes even generative music a part of the most traditional artistic practices.
Wading into whether generative music is "predetermined" or not is hopefully not relevant. Maybe absolutely everything was predetermined from the beginning of the universe, or maybe chance operations or interactions do make the music less predetermined. Either way, I don't think that the idea of conscious will emerging from a synthesizer patch is implausible.
-
The title of this topic is stolen from a lovely term coined by Sacred Synthesis, who doesn't think this is the place for a philosophical discussion. But I think it sounds fun.
What is music, anyway?
(The big dark relativistic pit is pitch black. We're likely to be eaten by a grue....)
I'll start. My favorite definition is from John Cage invoking Edgard Varèse. "Music is organized sound."
Well I'll jump in here with 2 methodological tools I have found useful in my past philosophizing:
1.) E-prime (or V-prime): E-prime consists of forming statemtents and arguments in English (or any Vernacular) that avoid the use of the existential predicate, which consists of the verb "to be" and it's conjugations (am, are, were, was, will be etc). Using E-prime tends to cause us to express our ideas in ways that avoid dogmatic generalizations which we cannot prove beyond doubt; often we tend to include in our statements more externally or other-verifiable descriptions of our experience. These tendencies then seem to yield more productive conversations, since we avoid the various infinite regresses that open up when people start off with saying how things "are".
2.) Nominalizations: Verbs frozen into nouns, which we then talk about as if they're physical objects. We can counter this with the phrase, "There's no such thing...", which you can test by imagining whether you can put that noun in a wheelbarrow. If someone says "Music is...", you would counter "There's no such *thing* as music", meaning that music doesn't exist as a thing out in the world, it exists as a *process* that people do, composed of various subprocesses like playing, recording, listening, feeling, interpreting. So you can keep in mind more spefically what someone means when they use a particular nominalizatin (frozen verb, ie Truth, Beauty, Justice, Music, Love), instead of your previous private interpratation.
Both of these tools tend to demystify our language by making it less relativistic; they require or lean towards some potentially shared sensory experience that anyone can verify and validate if they so choose. As a result, we can often cut right to the heart of where our ideas and understandings with someone else diverge, and can mutually investigate them from common ground.
So in response to Cage, I would start by clearing the decks, stating that "There is no such thing as music", until we agree that music consists of processes rather than a fixed thing, and then asking about the various processes required and the people involved. Who organizes it? Where does it get organized? What counts as sufficiently organized, and who gets to decide this? If I listen to birds and crickets chirping at sunset, and intentionally organize my listening attention alternating first to my left, then to my right, have I created music? Or did the birds and crickets create it? (given 4'33", I would guess his answer as the former, ie me) If no one else would ever hear it as it all occured in my head, does it count as music, or does it need to exist in the outside world so that another person (or animal or whatever) could theoretically hear it? If the birds and crickets didn't intend to create those sounds *as music*, but rather just as speaking to each other, does that disqualify it as music, or does my choice to organize it in my mind and consider it music take priority over the intentions of those who created the sound?
Et cetera, et cetera. :D
The flip side to this, IS that when you want to create worlds - when you want to associate things that may not have any necessary or causal connection outside of your mind and those you seek to impact - you can USE nominalizations and the existential predicates, ie "Love is a battlefield", "The truth is out there", "Disobedience is aggression", etc.
-
Engineer discuses with a humanist. This is going to get interesting!
:o . o O ( rtfm modernity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernity) fast )
I would hope all engineers value humans. Or at least, the human ones. I can understand that spider engineers can disregard us without moral hazard. :)
-
You guys are so restrained! We need to give our good moderator something to do.
I think music is like pornography. I can't define it but I know it when I (hear) it.
I'm no fan of relativism. At the same time I'm sure my views of music are completely colored by what I have experienced so far. I think the beauty of life is that there are many things we know but we can't define. Music may be one of those. Truth, beauty, justice, compassion, kindness, nature, and what some would call God.
Sorry my post now has both "pornography" and "God" in the same sentence.
Well there's no such things as "relativism", "pornography" or "God", so you have nothing to worry about. :D
(see my previous post about "nominalizations" for clarification)
-
And silence is only a whole rest.
Is not silence still music? ... though not sculpted by anyone, it still has a shape.
Yes, silence is exactly "still music". :D
-
I had to take a while to respond to this, because there was a lot to turn around in my head.
Here's actually a problem I have with Eno's use of the term "nature," or rather with the fact that he doesn't really specify what his understanding of that term really is.
It's probably okay for him to lack rigor on that point, or to define it narrowly. Nature could be as simple as "what happens to your yard when you don't do anything." It doesn't have to mean that anything is totally untouched by humans. I could let my garden become overgrown with grass, but it's the type of grass that probably doesn't really exist outside of suburbs. There's still "nature" going on despite human involvement.
I would consider it *essential* for Eno to lack rigor on that point... as an artist (world-makers, see my previous post). As a philosopher or scientist (world-describers/analyzers), I would absolutely require more rigor of him. Fortunately I've never confused him with philosophers or scientists, so I'm happy to appreciate his lack of rigor, and to engage the worlds he offers to us.
-
I can't put a neutron star in a wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow's protons and electrons would be fused before the neutron star can get anywhere near the wheelbarrow. Also the wheelbarrow is too small.
-
And silence is only a whole rest.
Is not silence still music? ... though not sculpted by anyone, it still has a shape.
The perception of silence is very much depending on sounds or music in this case. It also depends on what you consider to be silence. I mean I can drive out into the countryside and there's still no silence because of the birds, bugs, wind, rain, or whatever might occur as a source for sounds in what we call nature.
Even in a soundproof chamber, we still tend to hear our blood pumping in the veins in our head, the sound of our breathing... It's almost impossible to experience the absence of sound which most people think of as silence, short of directing your attention so completely elsewhere that your mind simply blocks out the sounds in your environment. In which case it's not really silence, but just a form of hypnotic deafness.
-
I can't put a neutron star in a wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow's protons and electrons would be fused before the neutron star can get anywhere near the wheelbarrow. Also the wheelbarrow is too small.
Hilarious. ::)
-
Well I'll jump in here with 2 methodological tools I have found useful in my past philosophizing:
1.) E-prime (or V-prime): E-prime consists of forming statemtents and arguments in English (or any Vernacular) that avoid the use of the existential predicate, which consists of the verb "to be" and it's conjugations (am, are, were, was, will be etc). Using E-prime tends to cause us to express our ideas in ways that avoid dogmatic generalizations which we cannot prove beyond doubt; often we tend to include in our statements more externally or other-verifiable descriptions of our experience. These tendencies then seem to yield more productive conversations, since we avoid the various infinite regresses that open up when people start off with saying how things "are".
2.) Nominalizations: Verbs frozen into nouns, which we then talk about as if they're physical objects. We can counter this with the phrase, "There's no such thing...", which you can test by imagining whether you can put that noun in a wheelbarrow. If someone says "Music is...", you would counter "There's no such *thing* as music", meaning that music doesn't exist as a thing out in the world, it exists as a *process* that people do, composed of various subprocesses like playing, recording, listening, feeling, interpreting. So you can keep in mind more spefically what someone means when they use a particular nominalizatin (frozen verb, ie Truth, Beauty, Justice, Music, Love), instead of your previous private interpratation.
Both of these tools tend to demystify our language by making it less relativistic; they require or lean towards some potentially shared sensory experience that anyone can verify and validate if they so choose. As a result, we can often cut right to the heart of where our ideas and understandings with someone else diverge, and can mutually investigate them from common ground.
As one of my favorite poets once wrote with regard to Korzybski's general semantics, the E-Prime concept is partially based upon: "the word is not the thing it represents, just as the map is not the landscape it displays." That pins down one of the problems of this concept. Namely: to confuse an appearance (or truth if you'd like to use a more rigid term) of something with its representation/translation, which is always already the result of a displacement. The concept also seems to assume that the meaning of language can basically be cut down to sole information value only, which would be semantics' equivalent to a naive empiricism and positivism, which I find to be far more dogmatic than any use of "to be." If all comes down to a sort of application mode, you basically end up with a simplistic cybernetic setup that doesn't require any thinking anymore.
I assume that you would basically agree, because with regard to nominalizations you wrote that we could talk about nouns "as if they're physical objects." The problem is of course that they're not, which is also why we can't put them into wheelbarrows. That only works with the help of metonymies and metaphors, which actually push us further away from any sort of immediacy in meaning (etymologically, a metapher denotes the transportation as well as that, which is being transported). So here you're already far away from any unambiguity. And how and why would I counter with "There's no such thing as ...", before we have reached an agreement on what a "thing" actually is? - And by "thing" I don't mean something that's being imagined as something that's lying around in the "outside world," but something that can only be accessed through language as the means of how we are speaking and thinking.
-
And silence is only a whole rest.
Is not silence still music? ... though not sculpted by anyone, it still has a shape.
Yes, silence is exactly "still music". :D
Silence is sexy.
-
I would consider it *essential* for Eno to lack rigor on that point... as an artist (world-makers, see my previous post). As a philosopher or scientist (world-describers/analyzers), I would absolutely require more rigor of him. Fortunately I've never confused him with philosophers or scientists, so I'm happy to appreciate his lack of rigor, and to engage the worlds he offers to us.
That reads like a well-meaning spin on the disenfranchisement of the arts by philosophical means.
-
This has been a blast, but does anyone care to somehow graft the subject of music onto these concepts?
-
Well I'll jump in here with 2 methodological tools I have found useful in my past philosophizing:
1.) E-prime (or V-prime): E-prime consists of forming statemtents and arguments in English (or any Vernacular) that avoid the use of the existential predicate, which consists of the verb "to be" and it's conjugations (am, are, were, was, will be etc). Using E-prime tends to cause us to express our ideas in ways that avoid dogmatic generalizations which we cannot prove beyond doubt; often we tend to include in our statements more externally or other-verifiable descriptions of our experience. These tendencies then seem to yield more productive conversations, since we avoid the various infinite regresses that open up when people start off with saying how things "are".
2.) Nominalizations: Verbs frozen into nouns, which we then talk about as if they're physical objects. We can counter this with the phrase, "There's no such thing...", which you can test by imagining whether you can put that noun in a wheelbarrow. If someone says "Music is...", you would counter "There's no such *thing* as music", meaning that music doesn't exist as a thing out in the world, it exists as a *process* that people do, composed of various subprocesses like playing, recording, listening, feeling, interpreting. So you can keep in mind more spefically what someone means when they use a particular nominalizatin (frozen verb, ie Truth, Beauty, Justice, Music, Love), instead of your previous private interpratation.
Both of these tools tend to demystify our language by making it less relativistic; they require or lean towards some potentially shared sensory experience that anyone can verify and validate if they so choose. As a result, we can often cut right to the heart of where our ideas and understandings with someone else diverge, and can mutually investigate them from common ground.
As one of my favorite poets once wrote with regard to Korzybski's general semantics, the E-Prime concept is partially based upon: "the word is not the thing it represents, just as the map is not the landscape it displays." That pins down one of the problems of this concept. Namely: to confuse an appearance (or truth if you'd like to use a more rigid term) of something with its representation/translation, which is always already the result of a displacement. The concept also seems to assume that the meaning of language can basically be cut down to sole information value only, which would be semantics' equivalent to a naive empiricism and positivism, which I find to be far more dogmatic than any use of "to be." If all comes down to a sort of application mode, you basically end up with a simplistic cybernetic setup that doesn't require any thinking anymore.
I assume that you would basically agree, because with regard to nominalizations you wrote that we could talk about nouns "as if they're physical objects." The problem is of course that they're not, which is also why we can't put them into wheelbarrows. That only works with the help of metonymies and metaphors, which actually push us further away from any sort of immediacy in meaning (etymologically, a metapher denotes the transportation as well as that, which is being transported). So here you're already far away from any unambiguity. And how and why would I counter with "There's no such thing as ...", before we have reached an agreement on what a "thing" actually is? - And by "thing" I don't mean something that's being imagined as something that's lying around in the "outside world," but something that can only be accessed through language as the means of how we are speaking and thinking.
I look at E-prime this way. The existential predicate - is, are, to be, was, were etc. - functions to create worlds. This can yield disease, if we create worlds that undermine our happiness, health, etc., however, if used intentionally and with wisdom, can yield greated wealth, health, happiness etc. It is the essential process of magic: combining two things to transform them both. Same with nominalizations; they can empower or disempower. So for me, the trick *is* not to not use them, but to use them with intention and precision. To know full well the associations and frozen nouns I'm creating or employing, and to keep these conceptual understandings ready as tools to analyze statements that contain them when I notice dis-ease - disagreements, arguing, strife etc.
-
I would consider it *essential* for Eno to lack rigor on that point... as an artist (world-makers, see my previous post). As a philosopher or scientist (world-describers/analyzers), I would absolutely require more rigor of him. Fortunately I've never confused him with philosophers or scientists, so I'm happy to appreciate his lack of rigor, and to engage the worlds he offers to us.
That reads like a well-meaning spin on the disenfranchisement of the arts by philosophical means.
How so?
-
This has been a blast, but does anyone care to somehow graft the subject of music onto these concepts?
By all means, don't let us stop you. :)
-
I look at E-prime this way. The existential predicate - is, are, to be, was, were etc. - functions to create worlds. This can yield disease, if we create worlds that undermine our happiness, health, etc., however, if used intentionally and with wisdom, can yield greated wealth, health, happiness etc. It is the essential process of magic: combining two things to transform them both.
I guess I don't understand how one would only want half a world, or what you - if this was meant metaphorically - understand a disease to be in this context. The world always comes with both sides, otherwise our experiences would be levelled to the degree of a coma (if everything is happiness, then what is happiness?). It would be like in the song "Heaven" by the Talking Heads.
And again: if one tried to keep out all forms of "to be" nothing could ever become or evolve within language; there would not even be a history. Mutations of all sorts would be impossible. Language itself just doesn't work this way, especially not spoken language.
Same with nominalizations; they can empower or disempower. So for me, the trick *is* not to not use them, but to use them with intention and precision. To know full well the associations and frozen nouns I'm creating or employing, and to keep these conceptual understandings ready as tools to analyze statements that contain them when I notice dis-ease - disagreements, arguing, strife etc.
Again: What's wrong with disagreements, arguing, strife? - To me that seems like an attempt to sterilize language and interaction.
-
I would consider it *essential* for Eno to lack rigor on that point... as an artist (world-makers, see my previous post). As a philosopher or scientist (world-describers/analyzers), I would absolutely require more rigor of him. Fortunately I've never confused him with philosophers or scientists, so I'm happy to appreciate his lack of rigor, and to engage the worlds he offers to us.
That reads like a well-meaning spin on the disenfranchisement of the arts by philosophical means.
How so?
Philosophers of aesthetics have always been the natural enemy to the artist, as they basically theorize about how things are to be done properly - sometimes they act like artists that way too. That's why they can never be friends, they're competitors.
There's also a major difference between philosophers and scientists, as the latter don't have to think at all, which I don't mean in a polemic way. It's just that it's not a scientist's job to be concerned about thinking and language for that matter, but rather the processing, evaluation, and application of information and data. That's an operative practice. And by that I'm not saying that scientists can be mindless, it's just that their main subject is not about thinking.
-
I look at E-prime this way. The existential predicate - is, are, to be, was, were etc. - functions to create worlds. This can yield disease, if we create worlds that undermine our happiness, health, etc., however, if used intentionally and with wisdom, can yield greated wealth, health, happiness etc. It is the essential process of magic: combining two things to transform them both.
I guess I don't understand how one would only want half a world, or what you - if this was meant metaphorically - understand a disease to be in this context. The world always comes with both sides, otherwise our experiences would be levelled to the degree of a coma (if everything is happiness, then what is happiness?). It would be like in the song "Heaven" by the Talking Heads.
And again: if one tried to keep out all forms of "to be" nothing could ever become or evolve within language; there would not even be a history. Mutations of all sorts would be impossible. Language itself just doesn't work this way, especially not spoken language.
Who said I only wanted half a world? I want a world in which when I choose to resolve a conflict or solve a problem, I have effective tools for doing so.
Regarding the rest after "And again": How do you know these things? What can I do to validate the truth of these statements in my own experience?
Same with nominalizations; they can empower or disempower. So for me, the trick *is* not to not use them, but to use them with intention and precision. To know full well the associations and frozen nouns I'm creating or employing, and to keep these conceptual understandings ready as tools to analyze statements that contain them when I notice dis-ease - disagreements, arguing, strife etc.
Again: What's wrong with disagreements, arguing, strife? - To me that seems like an attempt to sterilize language and interaction.
Ask the people of Nagasaki about that. :P I understand that life involves strife, and that stress can cause growth. Stress can also crush your skull into your brain when it comes from an 18-wheeler that has intruded into your personal space. So I distinguish stress that helps me grow from stress that helps me die, and resist romanticizing all stress as if it inherently had some deeper purpose or value. Sometimes it might, sometimes it might not. I guess I should have explained that I don't seek to avoid arguments, I seek to avoid arguments that arise from confusions of language. Once we all use the same language in a discussion and can agree that we do, we can still have disagreements of values. It is what it is. ;)~
-
I would consider it *essential* for Eno to lack rigor on that point... as an artist (world-makers, see my previous post). As a philosopher or scientist (world-describers/analyzers), I would absolutely require more rigor of him. Fortunately I've never confused him with philosophers or scientists, so I'm happy to appreciate his lack of rigor, and to engage the worlds he offers to us.
That reads like a well-meaning spin on the disenfranchisement of the arts by philosophical means.
How so?
Philosophers of aesthetics have always been the natural enemy to the artist, as they basically theorize about how things are to be done properly - sometimes they act like artists that way too. That's why they can never be friends, they're competitors.
There's also a major difference between philosophers and scientists, as the latter don't have to think at all, which I don't mean in a polemic way. It's just that it's not a scientist's job to be concerned about thinking and language for that matter, but rather the processing, evaluation, and application of information and data. That's an operative practice. And by that I'm not saying that scientists can be mindless, it's just that their main subject is not about thinking.
So you are an enemy of artists? Anyone who makes statements about philosophers IS a philosopher. (Like that world I created for you? ;) ) Or do you think one can meta-philosophize without philosophizing? And more, what could have more relevance to philosophizing about aesthetics than doing art? That makes all artists philosophers of aesthetics. Do you consider all artists their own enemies? Well... probably. At least the best ones ARE. 8)
-
Who said I only wanted half a world? I want a world in which when I choose to resolve a conflict or solve a problem, I have effective tools for doing so.
Well, your choice of words, or rather your binary code (disease vs wealth, health, happiness) evoked a different image.
Regarding the rest after "And again": How do you know these things? What can I do to validate the truth of these statements in my own experience?
Simple counter-question: How do you express existential temporality, or rather the temporality that is so essential for our being in and towards the world, without using any form of "to be"?
As for the rest: Each historical attempt to standardize language and meaning in whatever way has always been the outcome of a top-down decision. It creates for example an administrative language, a jurisdictional language, a langage that is somehow tied to institutions, not so much to its everyday use and development. Languages "grow" beyond normative rules, which one can observe with regard to dialects, the vernacular. It also doesn't remain static. Monolingualism is not a reality, not even within one language (like English, German, French, Chinese, etc.), only to the most ignorant ones.
Ask the people of Nagasaki about that. :P I understand that life involves strife, and that stress can cause growth. Stress can also crush your skull into your brain when it comes from an 18-wheeler that has intruded into your personal space. So I distinguish stress that helps me grow from stress that helps me die, and resist romanticizing all stress as if it inherently had some deeper purpose or value. Sometimes it might, sometimes it might not. I guess I should have explained that I don't seek to avoid arguments, I seek to avoid arguments that arise from confusions of language. Once we all use the same language in a discussion and can agree that we do, we can still have disagreements of values. It is what it is. ;)~
The Nagasaki reference was a cynical remark and I don't see how that is related to disagreements, arguing, and strife when we talk about the use of language. And who said that I was romanticizing stress? I just can't see what's so bad about arguing, or where the negative connotation comes from. It's what you do in discussions and debates when you hopefully don't start a sentence with "I feel like…".
I also don't see how you want to separate language from values. Values don't exist anywhere outside language. They're not independent entities floating about. They have to be defined and thought in and through language. There's a whole philosophical field for that. It's called the "history of ideas".
And I also don't know what you mean by us "all us[ing] the same language in a discussion". Do you want to turn that into a precondition for people who would like to enter a discussion? And who's going to decide what's the right and the wrong language? How should every single person of that group be equipped with the comprehensive linguistic, etymological, historical, and philosophical knowledge of more than 2000 years to be even slightly eligible for making such decisions, if at all?
-
So you are an enemy of artists? Anyone who makes statements about philosophers IS a philosopher. (Like that world I created for you? ;) ) Or do you think one can meta-philosophize without philosophizing?
No, I'm no enemy of artists. It's a joke between artists and philosophers - kind of like between the drummer and the rest of the band. But the disenfranchisement of the arts by philosophy is also a well-researched topic. Its ongoing history pretty much started with Plato (at least with regard to what has been recorded).
And not everybody who's making statements about philosophers is a philosopher, as making statements as such is not related to philosophical methodology, of which there's more than one of course.
As an atheist I don't believe in anything meta, but I can recognize its significance and function.
And more, what could have more relevance to philosophizing about aesthetics than doing art? That makes all artists philosophers of aesthetics. Do you consider all artists their own enemies? Well... probably. At least the best ones ARE. 8)
I can't answer these questions, as I don't think that it's necessary to play off art against philosophy. Both can disclose matters in different ways, contradict each other, or inspire each other. There are also a few examples of transgressions, where philosophy turns into poetry and vice versa - which can only happen if you accept no truth or sphere outside of language btw. And of course artists - if you don't mean the ubiquitous term 'artist' that is used for anyone who's slightly creative these days - are concerned about aesthetic questions as long as they reflect upon what they're doing. However, that doesn't automatically turn them into philosophers, even if they may end up asking questions that are of interest in philosophy.
And yes, to some degree I would consider artists to be their own enemies. That doesn't have to be a bad negativity. Each struggle between form and content can be a struggle between an actual realization and an aesthetic concept. Each arist's wish to make a 180 degree turn is another example for that: one turns against one's old artistic self and aesthetic guidelines. It's even obvious in less radical cases; for example if an artist doesn't want to repeat her or himself, or if one tries to develop one's 'own language'.