On Sunday, February 10, 2013 9:43:06 AM UTC-5, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: > > > > On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 8:06 PM, Craig Weinberg > <whats...@gmail.com<javascript:> > > wrote: > >> >> On 08 Feb 2013, at 21:38, meekerdb wrote: >>>>> >>>>> It seems to be an interesting fact that all information can be >>>>> encoded in binary numbers, but that is the antithesis of you view that >>>>> the >>>>> form of representation, painting, dance, music matters in an essential >>>>> way. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The content of the information is usually not encoded, in any form. >>>>> The mathematical study of that content can be done with some tools in >>>>> logic, or computare science (with the UM building the meaning), but >>>>> again, >>>>> we have to distinguish the content (usually infinite) and the syntactical >>>>> tools to point on it. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Since we can only infer the content through the tools, how can we >>>> assume that it exists independently of them? >>>> >>>> >>> Because virtually every creative person... I'll just let Steve Jobbs >>> make the point (Wired, 1995): >>> >>> *Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how >>> they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do >>> it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. >>> That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and >>> synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that >>> they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their >>> experiences than other people. >>> >>> Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our >>> industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough >>> dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad >>> perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human >>> experience, the better design we will have.* >>> >>> Now, I assume Jobbs doesn't mean that creative people connect material >>> things physically with strings, and that we're talking concepts that have >>> assumed the same form, for millions of mathematicians, musicians, >>> engineers, painters etc.over the ages, regardless of the particular >>> configurations of their sensory apparatuses as biological beings. >>> Arithmetic and the major scale don't depend on the senses- this is >>> backwards. >>> >> >> Arithmetic and the major scale do depend on the senses. >> > > Do you use the major scale to build things? >
You would if you were building melodies. > > > >> You cannot create the major scale without an aural sensation, >> > > Aural sensation could be some infinite sum input, the magnitude of which > we feel, more or less accurately, depending on our histories. > That is possibly a valid analysis about aural sensation, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient to produce it. You could have quantitative inputs and magnitudes and histories without feelings or sensations. > > >> and you cannot conceive of arithmetic concepts without sensory examples >> and meta-sensory correlations of those examples. >> > > Those sensory examples and correlations are implied by arithmetic and thus > the major scale. I use this in very, by your standards, "sensory realist" > concrete terms as well, not just in discussions such as these: when > teaching music theory I relate/map harmonies and interval studies, to human > stereotype imagery, as a starting point for ear-training/music > appreciation. Something to grab onto at the start, that becomes superfluous > as the arithmetic ratios become more visible in introspection. > I don't doubt the harmonic and arithmetic aspects of music, I only say that without the sensory experience of hearing sound they are conceptual noodlings that would be of no general interest. > > We all feel hungry, for example, because we all have stomachs, not because >> there is some Platonic hunger that exists independently of stomach >> ownership. >> >> > > Hunger is also a linguistic marker for insufficiency of a value. > > You never encountered a music that was lacking in some respect or the > other? Never an equation unbalanced? > > If you work with sound, then orchestration problems, appropriacy of > gesture and phrase are already visible on the score before it gets played. > Even before that, in the composers mind coding it. You don't need a > physical orchestra, or even a simulated one to state things like "with this > program: brass too f, more mf", or "track 17 plus 3.8 db", or "needs > marimba". > > Both in hunger, and "physical" orchestration to digital mixing and > composition, you have some value of a program that's insufficient. In > addition to this, I do not, as your above statement implies, hold that > physical and platonic realms are as separable as you imply. Body is merely > an emanating structure, not platonically false in some alien realm, from > machine's consciousness, so very real, but as one possible consequence of > mind rather than primitive, as with your thinking. > You are using hunger in a figurative sense though - projecting the pathetic fallacy onto inanimate structures. It is our sense of the music which reaches out for equilibrium and fulfillment. It is to suit our senses. A dog or plant may not have our sense of music at all. Literal hunger though, is an animal experience; a self-revealing sensory demand to consume food. It's vocabulary is in super-signifying images of deliciousness which gradually become more all-consuming for our attention. That is not the same thing as sniffing out a better groove or more cowbell (not to diminish composing, just making the distinction). > > >> Sensory data is interpreted by consciousness >>> >> >> Not necessarily. I doubt that there is any such thing as "data", and that >> sensory experience and consciousness are actually different ranges of the >> same thing, which is a physical reality, and the only physical reality. >> >> > Interpretation can be explicit through cognitive analysis, but otherwise >> it is direct and implicit. Perception is nested relativity, not data >> processing. There is sub-personal perception going on, and computation is >> necessary to organize that, but organization is not the cause of >> consciousness. >> >> > > If sensory experience, perception, consciousness, cognitive analysis are > all reducible to physical reality, then going sub-personal on me seems > surprisingly like you need more than that physical reality. > I think that you are using the conventional view of what physical means. My view deconstructs that completely and builds a new one from scratch. To me, physical means only that there is a detectable presence involved, either publicly as a body which exists, or privately as a feeling which insists. As long as we are talking about a presentation and not an abstraction within a presentation (which is still physical on the bottom level), then it is physical. Non-physical refers only to nested representations. I dream of a mansion and the dream is a phenomenon of private physics, but the mansion within the dream has no physical realism. It isn't made of phenomenological bricks. > > >> that perpetually dreams itself a preferred infinite fiction/computation >>> to encompass that. >>> >> >> It seems like that, but no. We have dreams, and we have non-dreams. >> > > Some trance states are more or less disconnected from apparent physical > reality is as far as I'd go, but I bet weakly we are dreaming in some > linked fashion. Perhaps with some momentary exceptions, which perhaps can > be brought about by plants, various trance states, and molecules. > Okay sure, from an absolute perspective, the entire cosmos is nested dreams. I was trying to say that relatively, there is a difference between levels of dreaming, and that difference is physically real. > > >> The whole of realism is not a side effect of compression algorithms. >> >> > What is the "whole of realism", with you again? I forgot how you term this > because of the multiplicity of your linguistic primitives, sorry no irony. > I'm talking about, at the very least, the entire history of the human endeavor. All of the human lives on this Earth, with all of their impacts on each other spanning generations, the struggles, the triumphs, etc are merely compression artifacts in comp. It's like saying that the horse is just the stinky end of the cart. > >> >> >>> The construction of plausibility of said computation is more a property >>> of consciousness itself, and not something that comes to us by observing a >>> leaf => we are already dreaming at that point. >>> >> >> The assumption of construction comes from applying sub-personal and >> impersonal logic, which are reflections of personal logic, erroneously, >> back onto the source. You are mistaking what you see in the mirror for >> evidence that the unseen is unreal. >> >> > My ontological bets are weaker and sadly not as decidable as you imply. > Also, you have your imagery upside down => if I have a bias than it would > be that I have the intuition that certain unseen numbers and their form are > real. And mirrors are to be found in arithmetic as well as music: "row, > row, row your boat" to mirror fugues. > The unseen that I am talking about is the perceptions of the subject. Yes, you are also seeing numbers superimposed as ghosts in the mirror where there are none. > > >> >>> Also note Jobbs' use of "diverse experiences", which ties in directly >>> with the plant teachers and how experimentation with altered states can, >>> given some circumstances, be of value. >>> >>> And here I have to confirm Bruno's Salvia preference: to say DMT is >>> merely some extension of mushrooms and not astonishing, is to confirm that >>> one's method is not yet fully developed, or there is some physiological >>> incompatibility. This is not the case and dissociative states can be >>> achieved with most any classical psychedelic is one doses appropriately. >>> And the same happens with lysergic acid diethylamide, mescaline, psilocybin >>> containing mushrooms etc. the more you engage the less you need. Thus I >>> vote diversity concerning plant or molecular helpers. >>> >> >> I'm all in favor of responsible entheonautics >> >> > Agreed, adding that that isn't responsible in our day and age :) > Not for me, not, but the kids seem to be able to find themselves a temporary piece of freedom large enough to explore. > > >> Craig >> >> (it's Jobs, btw). >> >> > Thanks man. The false operation goes: "How is Apple Innovator-Megalomaniac > spelled again? That extra 'b' distinguishes the proper noun because nah, it > can't be the plural of 'job' as in 'employment'. That's wrong." :) > I loved me some Macintosh circa 1995, but haven't had the need for any gourmet computer stuff in this century. > > On plants, I liked Richard Doyle's "Darwin's Pharmacy" from Uni of > Washington Press 2011 (amazon blurb follows), although nasty to Plato: > > Are humans unwitting partners in evolution with psychedelic plants? > Darwin's Pharmacy weaves the evolutionary theory of sexual selection and > the study of rhetoric together with the science and literature of > psychedelic drugs. Long suppressed as components of the human tool kit, > psychedelic plants can be usefully modeled as "eloquence adjuncts" that > intensify a crucial component of sexual selection in humans: discourse. In > doing so, they engage our awareness of the noösphere, defined by V.I. > Vernadsky as the thinking stratum of the earth, the realm of consciousness > feeding back onto the biosphere. > > (end blurb) One thing he does is frame plants as a complex political > force, stating the choice isn't really ours to accept or deny in the long > run. I paraphrase "this hyper-sophisticated member of stoner culture > peering at magazines like 'High Times', salivating at the intricate > zoomed-in high-res beauty of the flower of the latest most advanced hemp > variety, and its mythical power to get him/herself high... is also merely > the pollen-fooled fly paying for and expending all the resources and energy > to spread the plant and ensure its genetic optimization and variety. > Coevolution implies cannabis pornography. Also has a nice sample set of > quotes on mystical experience of consciousness. Astronauts to Huxley to > mystics etc. > Cool. I donno, I guess I have kind of soured on Darwinian/Dawkinsian projections of memetic motive. It's fun to think of language or drugs or ideas that way, but ultimately it's another appeal to the pathetic fallacy. We don't know that we are the tools of organic machines - statistically, figuratively, sure, but not literally. Craig > > > "What has the world come to that university presses publish this kind of > nonsense?" > PGC > > > > > > > >> >>> >>>>> Math is as different from language than the physical universe is >>>>> different from a book in cosmology. >>>>> >>>> >>>> The referents of math are different from the referents of other >>>> specialized languages, but that doesn't mean that it is different from >>>> other languages. The referents of mathematics are no more infinite than >>>> those of art, literature, poetry, etc. >>>> >>>> Craig >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Bruno >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~**march**al/<http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>> an email to everything-li...@**googlegroups.com. >>>> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.**com. >>>> >>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/** >>>> group/everything-list?hl=en<http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en> >>>> . >>>> For more options, visit >>>> https://groups.google.com/**groups/opt_out<https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out> >>>> . >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. >> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com<javascript:> >> . >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> >> > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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